1/72 Numidian Light Horse

First off. Welcome!!

Second  Your horses and their riders look really good.  That is a lot of detail in a small scale.

  Horse color can be really crazy and they can change color with age.  As a child, I was confused by my mother calling a very dark "iron" gray stallion by the name "Red".  I was surprised when looking at old photos that Red had in fact been "red", the dark liver chesnut, in his youth but after the age of 15 or so he was when I was a child, he had, as my mother called it, "roaned out".  The underlying dark color in his coat had turned gray, changing him from the dark red brown he'd been as a youngster to a dark blue- grey that was all I ever knew him to be.  His younger brother who is passed twenty now and is still sorrel (a light, but bright chesnut) shows just a hint of grey around his lips and nose, much like an old dog does.

Third, I think I can make a few suggestions to help with your chestnut problem.  I haven't tried the color on a horse or on plastic, but I painted a large ceramic figurine of a pair of red squirrels that turned out really well this past summer. The color is similar so I think the color technique should be about the same. 

 Horse coats come in only two true classes: the blacks and the browns. The blacks run from true black to white which usually has a hint of grey (using a really light grey as a base for them and highlighting in the white is really the best way to go.)  Both ends of that color spectrum are usually a little more rare especially white, hence white being the color of a commander or a king horse.

The browns run from Seal Bay with a black mane and tail at the dark end to the light end with a Champaign Palamino with a mane and tail that are basically white.  Chestnut and Dun are the mid colors.  That means the base coat is a brown.  One of the best color tips I have ever gotten is about brown.  Think of it as a very dark and dirty shade of ORANGE!!!  It may sound strange but I find it works. This means you have red-oranges and yellow oranges.  In this case, Bay and Chestnut (and Sorrel) are red-oranges and Dun and Palomino (Buckskin is in this group too) are yellow-oranges.  So if you take a basic brown, like a leather color and add a red to it (more a dark red than a bright red), you get a rusty brown that makes a good base color.  Your shadow color is the base with more brown in it. The highlight would be the base with a yellow added to it, moving the base more towards orange. A little of the hightlight goes a long way.  The mane and tail will never be darker than the coat unlike a bay that normally has a black mane and tail.  Most chestnuts also have white markings.  It doesn't have to be a lot, but I can't recall seeing one either in person or in pictures that is completely white free and I've seen a lot of horses over my life.  Sometimes it is only a small spot on the forehead that is nearly hidden by the mane or a thin ring just above one hoof but it's somewhere.  I'll double check with my mother when I speak to her to find out if she's seen a solid chestnut.  If she has, I'll be glad to correct myself.

Thanks for your very helpful tips! I'm still working on a lot of cavalry figures and you've inspired me to try another chestnut or two.

"Bay and Chestnut (and Sorrel) are red-oranges and Dun and Palomino (Buckskin is in this group too) are yellow-oranges.  So if you take a basic brown, like a leather color and add a red to it (more a dark red than a bright red), you get a rusty brown that makes a good base color.  Your shadow color is the base with more brown in it. The highlight would be the base with a yellow added to it, moving the base more towards orange."

I have to give this a try soon. Thanks!

http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/dreams/799/hc/horsecolors.htm

I'm glad I could help.  You are a very talented painter and the only fault I saw in your previous attempt at chesnut was it was a little too red and it was the same color all over.  A chestnut or a sorrel is only red in well lit conditions.  Our sorrel stallion appears to be light brown when he is in the barn early in the morning or in late evening.  It is an effect similar to tinted glass in a stained glass window.  The color requires good light to be fully displayed.

I thought a bit more on this after I posted.  The yellow color I used to mix my highlights was called "Golden Brown", so you want to use an earthy yellow like a yellow ochre or mustard yellow, the same way you use an earthy red to make the base.

Mike- That's a handy site.  It's always good to see variations on the same color, helps to see the various aspects of it.  That variation is one of the reasons I think animal are harder to paint than a lot of man-made objects.  It is similar with fleshtones. There is a lot of natural variation and environment can causes changes too.  Illness or injury or death can quicky change a flesh tone.  Moisture can bleach or yellow fur.  For many years, I had a black and white tomcat that lived in our barn.  Every year by the time spring arrived the repeated wetting and drying from his trips outside in the snow caused his white feet to yellow and faded the black on his back (from drips) and lower legs to be a rather pale, straw colored almost, brown,  but he would shed his winter coat and he would be shiny black and bright white again for the summer and fall.  I would love to find a site or book for painters that showed not only the variation between individuals within a color but lighting and environmental changes as well.  The duller winter coats or sun bleaching.  You rarely see images of animals with grass stains on their fur or where they have been in a body of water and been stained by algae.  My mostly white Border Collie was awful about rolling in freshly mowed grass or swimming in the pond and getting a "ring" of green at the water line.  Our old mare is classed as Fleabit Gray and she gets grass stains on her knees and sides when she rolls in the pasture. I was very worried once when I noticed a pinkish area on her shoulder.  I thought she had injured herself or was getting a rash.  She was rubbing against a recently painted shed that was red and the color was transfering!