Day 3 - Pastels & Pearl-ex

I got my acrylic base coat done on day 2, and moved on to the pastel (Earth Pigments) portion last night, finishing that and adding the Pearl-Ex today. When applying pastels and Pearl-ex I wear a cotton glove on the hand I am holding the horse with.This is important because holding it with your bare hand can rub paint off, and deposit oils that will grab pigment differently than the rest of the horse. It also minimizes the amount of dust that gets on places you don't want it. These cheap cotton gloves can be purchased online or at some art stores. 

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​So here is Kipling in acrylics with one or two layers of Earth Pigments over top, and sprayed with Testor's Dullcote. I have used them to blend the belly color with the darker color over the rest of the horse. The back, nose, eye area, ear tips, and shoulders are all done with some black. The rest is burnt sienna and a little white in between the back legs and around the sheath, and slightly up the flank area. now he is ready for some Pearl-ex. 

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I use a fluffy old brush to grind the Pearl-ex powders into the coat. When they first go on, you can see how glittery they are (left). The second picture shows how they look after grinding them into the finish. You can blow any excess off (careful not to spit on it! Haha). 

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Here he is all glowing with a coat of Super Copper Pearl-Ex. 

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And some black added to the topline, down the middle of the back end and along the barrel and elbow areas. 

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I still have not sprayed him since the pastel coats in the beginning of this post. Now I use a small old flat brush to very carefully place some black pigment into creases and shadowed areas. The stuff I use for this is not the Earth Pigments. The EP are good but the black is not as dark as I want. The pigment I use for the black here, is meant for tinting nail epoxy. It's a "black hole" sort of light sucking black that I have found to be unrivaled. It's the only thing I have that is dark enough to match black mohair, so it's VERY useful in horses I am going to hair. This stuff does not move and blend like the EP does though so you have to be VERY careful where you put it. Because once it's there, it's not moving. The benefit of putting it over a fresh layer of the Pearl-ex is that it sort of lubricates it. It allows me to blend it in a little more than I would be able to normally. 

Here I have added it into some target areas (you can see the stripes of it in the wrinkles near the withers, and in the lower muscle depressions below the hip. 

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Once the black is blended in, I go over it with more of the Pearl-Ex to set it in. You still want it to have a sheen, you just want it to be a little less than the highlights. 

This is the "black hole" pigment I use.

I ONLY use this for small things like deep shading, the areas where the black on the legs blends into the bay body color, and around eyes, ear tips, and noses. I would not try to paint an entire horse with it or do general body shading with it. It really does not blend the same. It's GREAT for small spots though. 

​Adding the metallic powders and pastels is a back and forth process for me. It's not a matter of finishing one and moving on to the next permanently. Sometimes the metallics are just TOO shiny, and you have to set them back a bit with more pastel over top. Sometimes you need to tweak the color a little more, or bump up the contrast. Sometimes it's the addition of dappling. 

In Kipling's case, I needed to lighten the belly area a little more. I also use a light coat of white pastels over the 'black hole' black that I used on the skin areas. This makes it softer and more natural. The reference horse has a LOT of roaning so a good deal of Kipling's color will come in there. More layers of pastel and Pearl-ex may be added over the hair detail to set it into the coat.