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I did a search and read some good posts about painting horses. The only problem with those guides and tips is that it they are really in depth.. base coat, various layers of paint, several washes, multiple drybrushes. What I'm after is a quick way to paint several horses fast, by fast I'm thinking no more then 15-20 minutes tops per horses. Anyone got ideas? I'm not going for show quility, I'm just looking to get a lot of horses painted to a good table standard in the least amount of time. Not worried about the 3 color rule, I'll have the bridle and the barding and sadles to work with to get the extra colors. The horses in question are rough rider, imperial knights and imperial rough riders.

Prime black, Dust with white primer wash with black to a grey color, sepia to a dun, and red then sepia for a chestnut.

AustonT wrote:Prime black, Dust with white primer wash with black to a grey color, sepia to a dun, and red then sepia for a chestnut.

Quick, simple, easy to modify. Perfect! Thanks!

You can check my small tutorial here:

http://www.tinyarmies.org/en/2012/07/04/tests-how-to-paint-horses-in-different-coat-colours/

to get more ideas about horse coats painting. It's also meant to be a simple method. Works for 15mm at least.

One really quick way to paint horses that I was experimenting with was to paint it a light brown, let that fully dry, then paint it a dark brown and before it fully dries take a tissue and gently wipe away the darker brown, revealing the lighter brown underneath. You'll leave the dark brown in the crevices, giving shading, and the light brown will appear on raised surfaces, but will be tinted with the darker brown.

It's a way I read for speed painting horses by historic gamers, you can probably find a tutorial online. I found using GW paints, since they dry so fast the trick was to only paint half the horse before wiping away the paint and pay attention to where you started painting first and start wiping that spot first. Otherwise you'll get an inconsistent look.

I then also threw a Devlan Mud wash over it just to emphasise the shading. I'd show you pictures but I don't have any unfortunately. It sounds like a lot of steps, but the thing to remember is they're all "big brush" steps, in other words you can apply the light grey with a big 1/2" thick brush so it's quick, or even spray it, the dark brown again you can apply with a big thick brush and then the wash you can apply with a big thick brush. So even though it's 3 steps, it's 3 quick steps (compared to manually highlighting which takes ages!).

I can't find any pics specifically of the horses, though if you look at my Tyranid pics and zoom in on the background, there's a few Rohan horses I painted using that method.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/385816-Tyranid%20scheme.html

I just base-color, then dip, then matte varnish.

Though I used minwax Polyshades, the process and results is pretty much as described here..
http://www.thearmypainter.com/gallery_presentation.php?GalleryId=23&page=1

The main difference is that I brushed on the basecoat and brushed on the matte varnish. The AP method, uses sprays for those steps.