Custom Model Horse: Palomino Pintaloosa

Instructions

This is another one of my custom Breyer models, this time a palomino pintaloosa horse on the Buckshot mold! This horse was actually a model that I found in the sandbox of the horse summer camp at my barn. I was working with the little kids' camp, and they had a bunch of Breyers that were all scratched up from being in the sandbox. This one caught my eye, and I rescued it (while providing one of my old sparkly pink horses to the sandbox as payment). I decided to paint this horse as a palomino pintaloosa, which is kind of symbolic! When I was young enough to do this camp, my favorite horse color was palomino pintaloosa, and one of the first models I painted was a palomino pintaloosa. So this model is almost a symbol of how far I've come from then! This horse's name is Golden Heart, both as a reference to my original palomino pintaloosa painted horse whose name is Golden Cloud, and because last summer when I was working at the barn and acquired this horse was when Kpop Demon Hunters was really popular and I listened Golden a lot :) Onto the pictures! 1-3: This was how I found the horse in the sandbox! It needed a good bath to get the mud and sand off 4-8: Before I started painting it, there were some modifications I needed to make. One of the nostrils was small and looked weird, so I fleshed it out with some Apoxie clay. I did the same thing to fix a chipped ear and add some more texture to the top of the tail. I also made some little roses and leaves that I added to the mane! Finally, I did some work to help the horse stand better bc it's pretty wobbly. I put some Apoxie on the hooves to help even them out, and now it's a lot more stable! 9-13: Paint! As usual, I started with a light base color and then started adding darker shades over top. (In the first two pics, I forgot to take a picture until I was part way through my second layer of paint, so you can see the first layer color on the head/legs and the second layer that I'm adding on top). I ended up with a nice bright palomino color. 14-15: Next, I needed to add the white pintaloosa markings! I started by drawing where I wanted the markings to go in white colored pencil. 16: Then I painted the pinto markings in solid white. I watered down my white paint and did several layers of it in order to get nice crisp white patches without brush strokes. It's hard to see in the pics, but I also added some mapping around the edges w/ colored pencil and watered down white paint. 17: Using a sponge, I added some white and gold speckles for some more texture (I could have done hair-by-hair detail to get a more realistic look here, but this was easier and more fun. This is a reminder to do whatever is fun for you and gives you a result you're happy with!) 18-20: Painting spots! I started with one layer of spots, then painted over them with a thin layer of white. Then, I painted the dark spots again but slightly smaller. This helped me get a nice halo effect around the edges of the spots! 21-23: On to the details! I painted and shaded the mane and tail, and painted the stripey hooves, detailed the flowers and leaves, and did the facial features! 24-26: Pictures of my newly finished model, Golden Heart, next to one of my oldest painted horses, Golden Cloud. You can see what my painting was like when I was much younger, and how much I've improved over time! 27-28: Photoshoot time! She looks gorgeous! (Notice my hand holding her up in 28- she's more stable but not perfect!) 29-37: Detail shots! I'm quite proud of all of the texture and details on this horse. I'm especially happy with the little horseshoes I put on with silver paint! 38-42: Flowers! The pictures with the buttercups were actually taken at my barn, near where I first found this horse in the sandbox! She has now come full circle! I'm quite happy with this horse, and I hope you all enjoyed seeing me make her!