Painting horses - colour recipes

Richard Phillips pointed me to a Youtube channel, I think it was called something like "Loki's Great Hall", that had an excellent series of tutorials on painting 28mm horses. The creator used Vallejo acrylics and because that's the range I mostly use, it was really useful. Sadly the channel seems to have disappeared.

Russian dragoons - a chestnut nearest the camera,
a brown behind it.

Fortunately, though, I scribbled down some of the recipes. I'm sharing them here in case they're of use to anyone and as a bit of insurance in case I lose the piece of paper.

In each case there are three colours in order from darkest to lightest. The technique is to base coat the horse in the darker colour and them gradually apply layers with the lighter colours applied to increasingly smaller areas that are higher up and/or catch the light more. These layers are applied as follows:

• Layer 1 - first colour
• Layer 2 - 50% first colour + 50% second colour
• Layer 3 - second colour
• Layer 4 - 50% second colour + 50% third colour
• Layer 5 - third colour.

My usual technique for mains and tails is to paint them in the base colour and, at the end, dry brush over the third colour.

For anyone who's interested, these are the recipes I captured:

Liver Chestnut:

1. German Camo Black Brown 822
2. Hull Red 985
3. Mahogany Brown 846

Standard Chestnut:

1. Hull Red 
2. Cavalry Brown 982
3. Red Leather 818

Bay:

Paint as a standard or liver chestnut but with black stockings, main, tail, and ear tips. The colour recipe for the black parts is Black, Black Grey, Basalt Grey)

Red or Golden Chestnut:

1. Cavalry Brown 982
2. Red Leather 818
3. Orange Brown 981

Brown:

1. German Camo Medium Brown 826
2. Beige Brown 875
3. Cork Brown 843

Brown (alternative):

1. Leather Brown 871
2. Mahogany Brown 846
3. Beige Brown 875

Palamino:

1. Splinter Blotches II 347
2. Feldgrau Highlight 339
3. Light Mud 315

Palamino main and tail:

1. Dark Sand 847
2. Pale Sand 837
3. Off White

Black:

1. Matt Black 950
2. Black Red 859 or Black Green 980

Black main and tail - black with Black Grey 863 highlights.

Grey:

1. Deck Tan 986
2. Silver Grey 883
3. White Grey 993

Grey main and tail - Pale Sand highlighted with Off White.

Grey horse's nose:

1. Rose Brown 803
2. Beige Red 804
3. Salmon Rose 825

Note that where horses have white markings on the foot, the hoof is paler. I've seen a horse with a tiny white marking on part of the foot and a corresponding pale band on the the bit of the otherwise dark hoof below it.  "Loki" recommended two hoof colour recipes:

• Dark - Burnt Umber and US Field Drab
• Light - Beige Brown and Brown Sand