Long time, no post!

So sorry for the time span between posts, I was really hoping to keep the momentum going with Heartbreakers CM! My real job and finishing off a few more commissions pushed the CM work back.

I have been fiddling with him in fits and spurts, he has ears (Laura Skillern has the BEST tutorial on sculpting ears on her Blog, I highly recommend a visit to 'Don't eat the paint').

I make my ears and eyeballs up in bulk with any left over Apoxie I have no use for. I make them lots of different sizes from stablemate to traditional. They are very easy to sand down to fit any horse. This way I always have ears on hand, and there is no waiting around for Apoxie to dry :) Right now, I have about 20 little pairs made up.

Unfortunately I jumped ahead a little forgetting to take photos along the way :( not too far though :).

So onto his lower lip.
Another sausage, this one is rolled to the correct length, taking care to taper the ends off.




You want the ends to fit just underneath and slightly shorter the the top lip. I have coloured the sausage yellow. Underneath in purple, is a small ball of Apoxie that has simply been squished on for his chin. I have then smoothed the bottom lip and the chin with Aves safety solvent, then once dry, refined with sandpaper.


On most horses, you will find the bottom lip is wider then the top in front, but narrower at the back. Hence tucking the bottom lip sausage in under the top. Foals this young are also toothless (or only have their milk teeth), and can often be seen with their lips and chim compressed much more then an adult horse would be able to.



More sausages! First is the red sausage, it makes the bones of the lower jaw, I like to wait until this one is dry before moving onto the others. You can see in the above photo that it was done the same time as the bottom lip and chin.

I also like to do both side of the head at the same time. Unlike the body, which depending on the movement, has muscles doing different things on each side, a horses head is symmetrical.

Sausage number two is the blue, then a shorter fatter tapered sausage makes the green. Orange is made up by a little triangular blob that makes the stretch of skin between the mouth edge and the jaw.




I blob these on roughly, squish then smooth, smooth, smooth.



Study these parts carefully on your horse, as each is different, some have more detail, some have less. Some show much more tendon, some don't. Older Arabians that have 'dried out' and super fit lean TB's can have some of the best definition, study photos and anatomy charts, learn what is under the skin.

More soon!

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