Polish Lancers - Establishing the horse base colours.

Over a couple of sessions today I have managed to get the base colours on the eight horses, a true labour of love. I just did a couple at a time and tried to get some variation without any glaring differences to the overall brown tones. My main colour here is Vallejo Flat Brown, worked fairly dry over the black base coat, the following colours were then mixed into the brown to achieve an assortment of shades.

Cavalry Brown (50/50) and then a touch more for the highlights, care is needed as it is quite a strong red tone. I then gave these 3 horses a thin wash of Sepia ink to knock the red back slightly.

German yellow Ochre, again about 50/50 with the flat brown to begin with and then adding more ochre to work up the highlights being careful not to go too yellow, I see far too many yellow horse on the internet! 2 horses.

Black mixed with flat brown established the base colour of 2 more horses and these were then highlighted with the pure flat brown, blending and drybrushing to give a slighter darker looking horse shade overall.

Finally the trumpeters horse got a fairly dry London grey which was then blended with ivory and again used quite dry on the brush to allow the darker shade to show through. I'll probably add some subtle dappling later.

Standing back I'm very pleased with the overall look, obviously there remains a lot to do but it's always a good feeling when you get the basic shades established. The troopers still require a bit of finishing off including the lances, the 'N's added to the shabraques etc. The final job will be to add the reins from the riders hands to the bit in the horses mouth.