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Painting horses

HORSES CATEGORIES :

 GREYS,  REDS (CHESTNUTS and BAYS ), DARKS, PIEBALDS

 GREYS: from white to dark grey with different shades of tones dappled or flea-bitten

 REDS

CHESTNUTS : are recognizable for having the mane, tail and lower legs  in the shaded color of the coat;

BAYS : are recognizable for having mane, tail and lower legs  in black

 DARKS, mostly recognized as blacks are the darkest tones of bays and chestnuts; the real blacks are rare.

 PIEBALDS Rounded  randomly with spots big (Piebald) or small (Spotted) in black or brown shades.

 

I have a table of colors which comprehend mostly of the categories, related to the Valleyo Acrylic color collection: (you can copy or drag the image to your desktop).

BASIC ELEMENTS  OF THE HORSE COAT : (Graphics taken from Historex catalog)

COAT SHADES The horse coat  has mainly a dark area  (UPPER COAT) and a light area (LOWER COAT) this is the main distribution scheme.

DIRECTION OF THE HAIR GROWTH It is important to consider the direction of the hair growth for painting more accurate the coats. See the scheme 

DAPPLING For grays the dappling areas are lighter and located like the scheme

For dark bays and chestnuts the  dapples are like the following scheme

LEG MARKINGS Are in general irregular and not always present in all the four legs, in general ther extension is related to the head markings , see scheme:

HEAD MARKINGS Are often related to the legs markings,  see scheme:

Horses websites link

for photos and more detailed informations about horses, you can go to the following website

Equusite

Wilkipedia

Horse Breeds

Lexiqueducheval

For informations about horses colors in the napoleonic armies check this out:

Napoleon -series has many articles on horses 

http://www.napoleon-series.org/