19th Hussars’ Syrian Greys

I’ve been looking forward to this as much as I’ve been looking forward to the 42nd’s kilts … not so much. Actually, I really enjoy painting horses, but I could see that the various grey coats of the 19th Hussars’ ponies were going to be a challenge.

I looked at a few online tutorials, including videos, showing a number of approaches to the dappled grey, but none seemed really satisfactory to me, especially at this scale. I looked at a lot of photos of grey horses, discovering along the way that the appearance is determined by the age of the animal – some horses which turn out to be greys are even born black. Basically, the younger the animal the less white it will have in its coat, many becoming all white at ten years or older.

I have assumed that the 19th’s mounts would be younger horses, so no pure white mounts, but perhaps diminishing amounts of black and grey. I also considered the level of detail that would resolve at the table top view, where, for figures at this scale, one would be viewing a real scene from some distance. (This decision is evident in my Naval Brigade figures, where multiple white lines on their collars ‘resolve’ into a single line.)

Below are some of the reference images I collected, and my first attempts, which are not too shabby. As you will see, I have adopted a dry-brush technique to achieve the mottled appearance.

The sequence I have adopted is as follows:
– base colour white, off white, or light grey
– apply solid darker grey areas
– dry brush darker grey into base colour
– dry brush base colour into darker greys
– dark and light detail with fine brush if required.

Top to bottom: greys of various ages, and my first five at this scale.