k.b. wrote:Lovely unit which certainly from a distance are my favourite unit of yours. Your colours are beautifully muted as someone else has said and your horses are sublime - not sure if I've seen better painted bay / chestnut horses in any scale under 54mm!
However, if you don't mind me saying so there are a few little points which if you were to take just a little longer you could transform beautiful minis from a distance into beautiful miniatures FULL STOP. I'm referring to some shaky lines - such as crossbelts, sword belts, cords, etc .. which if you touched up would make a huge difference. Your white also lacks depth which is a pity because the gradual transitions in your reds/dark blues and browns are stunning ie you need 1 or 2 mid greys before you get to your pure white. Your horse hooves should be a lighter colour when the horse has a white stocking. Saying that we all know how much time we are prepared to spend on our miniatures - and at the end of the day who am i to say you ought to spend longer on yours!
Firstly, thanks for your kind words and very useful observations. It was you who moved my painting on with some great advice a couple of years ago, so I'm always grateful for that. Yes, I'd certainly agree about the white shading and intend to pay a little more attention in future work to see if I can improve it. A little more light grey involved might well do the trick. That said, like a good washing powder - I can't help but like my whites nice and bright! But greater effort on shading white seems like a very sound suggestion to me, though.
Great advice on those hooves too - you're quite right and I wil certainly something incorporate that idea with my forthcoming ponies. I'm lazy with hooves. Sometimes I think about maybe painting them all brown and calling it 'mud'!
Uneven lines are about patience and skill - and I've finite quantities of both!
These detailed figures from Zvezda took me a while so I was running out of steam a bit by the conclusion...