Planning Pintos

I have a new tool for planning pinto patterns and marking that I wanted to share with you all. Some of you may have caught a peek in my last post.

Consulting my notes while working on details

One of my current commissions is a pinto drafter. I had gathered reference pictures for his pattern, but none of the same horse. As is often the case, I needed to do some sketching to make a pinto pattern that combined two references into one realistically-marked horse.

My reference photos

I decided to look around online to find a horse outline that I could use to sketch the patterns onto. I was stoked to find this image on the UK’s government site.

Click to enlarge

It’s meant to draw detailed pictures of your horse’s identifying marks for a Horse Passport, which makes it perfect for me uses. I modified it slightly, printed it out, and then used a pencil to sketch in the patterns.

Now I can see where I need to adjust the reference horse pattern to fit together nicely. I’ll do my base chestnut coat first, and this drawing will guide me as I map out the pinto markings. I’m excited to have found this so I have a blank to use whenever I’m planning complex markings. And it was great to use for Ducky since I was trying to match a specific horse’s marking exactly.

And speaking of Ducky… he’s all done and wrapped up to go home :)

I added his pictures to my Bay & Black gallery. I also added some better pictures of recent customs to their respective galleries. I’m looking forward to painting and posting more ponies soon!

MEPSA Donation #2: Color Poll

The second custom I’m working on as a MEPSA donation is a G1 Morgan Stallion. I’ve given him a better tail, delineated mouth, more refined forelock, real stallion parts, and completely redone his club feet. He looks rough without primer, but he’s going to be really nice with some color on him.

I’m torn about what color to paint him. I definitely want it to be something found in Morgans, since he has such nice type. I’ve picked out a number of option and want you to help me decide! As with my previous poll, please vote for your three favorites using the gallery and poll below. Click to enlarge the pictures.

#1 dapple palomino

#2 dapple brown

#3 silver bay

#4 buttermilk buckskin

#5 bright dapple bay

#6 bay minimal sabino

 

MEPSA Donation #1: Color Poll

I really enjoy showing with the Model Equine Photo Show Association, or MEPSA. This year I am working on two models that will be prizes in the year end championship show. Last year’s show was super fun and I was very thankful to win some beautiful prizes, including the First Draft resin that became my little foal Kaylee. I wanted to help out this year so I’m working on some customs. But I need your help picking colors!

The first custom is on the G2 Appaloosa. I’m envisioning him as a dun appy, but I’ve picked out a few possibilities. What do you like best? Please vote for your three favorites using the gallery and  poll below. Click to enlarge the pictures.

#1 chestnut with blanket

#2 buckskin snowcap

#3 chestnut with minimal blanket

#4 red dun blanket

#5 sooty buckskin semi leopard

#6 chestnut snowcap

#7 chestnut semi leopard

#8 bay pinto

Alpo is Finished!

As of today, Alpo is officially finished and sitting crankily on my shelf.

Prophetically, around the time he was getting his final coats of sealer I ran across my original Alpo brainstorms which were tacked to the bulletin board in my old studio.

I hadn’t realized how long ago I started him- but it was at least a year if I was still in the old apartment. He took his sweet time getting done. But then, he is a pony that does things his way.

I’m very pleased with how he turned out, and it’s lovely to have him displayed in all his glory with the other finished horses. And of course, (if I can coax him into the trailer…) he’ll be attending next weekend’s show. I’ll post a few more pictures on the grey gallery page.

Choosing Colors with Genetics in Mind

Now that I’ve started learning about horse color genetics, I really have to think when I’m planning something like a dark bay tobiano on a half Paint horse. I was having enough trouble figuring out what pattern I wanted before I realized that he couldn’t show any homozygous tobiano traits, since he can only be heterozygous for tobiano. This is both exciting and frustrating.

One of the reference horses that I’m considering is this unique Paint filly:

Freckles, bred by JT Paint Horses

I really like her cool black spotting on her lower legs. When the spots are adjacent to the hoof, this is known as ermine spotting (and occurs on non-pinto horses as well). The markings higher up on the legs are known as distal spotting.

Fortunately, some quick research showed that while distal and ermine spotting are often signs of homozygosity, they are not always. So Liam sporting these cool details would not be impossible. What would be impossible, however, would be if his pinto pattern featured cat tracks.

Horse bred and photographed by Spotted Fawn Paints, featured on White Horse Productions Equine Genetics page

Cat tracks, also known as ink spots, are small, often roany spots usually grouped on the horses barrel or haunches. These markings are homozygous indicators, so they would not be possible on a Paint x Percheron cross.

I tend to like minimal pintos best, and have planned Liam as a pretty minimally marked tobiano. Happily, the amount of white on a tobiano is not dictated by its hetero- or homozygosity. One might think that a horse with two copies of the tobiano gene would have more white than a horse with only one, but there is no genetic or phenotypic evidence for this.

Basically, even with genetics in mind, there are about a million possibilities for Liam’s pinto pattern. And I’ve collected references for about half of those million. So now I just have to narrow it down and make a decision! As I said, both exciting and frustrating.