Custom Model Horse: Dottie

Instructions

This is a Breyer custom of my grandma's horse, Dottie! Dottie is a Morgan/Clydesdale cross, and my grandma has had her for about 20 years! I made this model and gave it to my grandma as a Christmas present. The model started out as a Breyer Harley model on the Friesian mold. Here are pictures of my process to make this model! 1. The original model! 2-7: Since this mold is older, the details and anatomy aren't always as good. So, I did some modifications with Apoxie clay. I shaved off the original nostrils and sculpted new ones, and added some more hair texture. To get the model ready for paint, I also had to sand down the seams and bumps. I even had to sand the Appy blanket, because the black spots were slightly raised from the white! 8-9: Once the model was prepped and sanded, I primed it to give it a base for paint. 10-13: Although the final model will be a bay, I like to start with lighter, more golden/red colors to give the coat some nice undertones. My process for this is to start with the lighter colors and gradually shade it darker, while still letting the light colors show in some spots. I keep doing this until I reach the desired darkness. 14-16: Dapples! Dottie has some very pretty dapples, so I recreated them by hand-painting the dapple shapes in the same color as the light layer of her coat. 17-18: Then, I used the airbrush to blend the dapples in and make them more subtle. Usually, people do dapples by airbrushing dark circles onto the horse or using pastels, but using the airbrush is hard and I don't have pastels, so this is a method I came up with myself. When you look closely at the dapples they're not all perfect and don't look 100% realistic, but it works pretty well! I also used this method on my custom horse Sorcerer. 19-21: Next, I hand-painted the details, like the mane, white markings, and eyes. As always, the horse must go through the "zombie eyes" phase of painting. 0.0 22-24: Photos of the finished model 25-28: Photos with the real Dottie!! Can you see the resemblance? XD Dottie was very fluffy with her winter coat. 29-33: Photoshoot in the snow! That's all for this custom, but keep an eye out for future updates about other projects!

Notes & Credits