Challenging Horses

My recent foray into historical gaming has presented me with some interesting challenges. One of these challenges is painting, no longer is my painting station full of comforting guard greys, it's now swamped with an array of new pots holding all sorts of non grey colours.

Never being one to shy way from a challenge, I decided the first historical models I should tackle should be horses. My Norman force has a substantial cavalry element, so I've got quite a few of these beasts to paint, 17 to be precise!

(I always thought my first horse would be a rough rider, who'd have guessed they're be William the Conquerer's mates.)

Anyway, I digress, it's not only new colours I've got to contend with, it's new painting techniques as well. Dry brushing and hard edge lining don't work so well on horses, so I've had to start to learn layering, blending and washing as well, it's the dark arts of painting I tell you!

The final challenge I've had to face is the actual colour schemes. 40k gives you a lot of freedom when it comes down to colour schemes. It's down to you what colours you paint your army, there's no real right or wrong way, and most the 40k community accept this happily. The same is not so with the historical bunch. They like their models to be accurate and so I've found myself researching what Normans would wear, how their shields were decorated, what dies were available etc. Who would have thought I'd end up doing history homework as part of my toy soldier hobby!

Luckily, my mate Mike is a fountain of knowledge when it comes down to these things but even with his help, I'm still having to do lots of research. Take these horses, I must of spent at least three hours looking through google images to work out various colour schemes for them and I'm only just getting started.

So, those are the challenges and these are my first very challenging horses, let me know what you think in the comments guys!

Col