Smalley Saddlery: The Horse Who Does Not Want To Be Painted, aka NaMoPaiMo 2018

"NaMoPaiMo" is National Model Painting Month.

The object of NaMoPaiMo is to completely paint the model horse of your choice during the month of February.

This is the story of my 2018 experience:

Here I am innocently posing with what turned out to be

The Horse That Does Not Want To Be Painted.....

Here was my objective:

"My NaMoPaiMo horse is Knightly Cadence. I have admired this resin for a looooong time and I got this guy almost 2 years ago. I have been waiting to build enough skills to be able to give him a nice paint job myself. He will be my 3rd fully finished airbrushed horse, and it will be my first time painting an artist resin horse (I have painted Herden cows, but not an AR horse). He seems a little heavy for a hollow cast resin, and he's a little on the large side, so figuring out how to hold him while I paint will be a challenge!! I am still exploring airbrushing, and want to try to push my limited skills and new airbrush to see what I can do.

I think he wants to be a bay, but there is a potential that he could go chestnut or even get spotty as a tobiano pinto."

After prepping/sanding, the first thing I did was spray a coat of grey primer to make any other flaws to show up so that I can fix them.

Well, he had other ideas...

He decided to throw himself onto his side mid-priming.

In my panic of not wanting him to dry on his side and stick to the newspaper, I grabbed him to stand him upright, leaving hand prints in the primer.

Back to sanding and fixing flaws!

Finally, he behaved and I was able to prime him.

Of course, the Rustoleum primer left a rough texture.

I used steel wool to smooth out the texture.

(wear gloves and protection and work on top of newspaper or something, as this leaves tons of tiny splintery bits of steel everywhere!!)

I am still newer to airbrushing, so I painted a test horse in the color that I planned to paint my project horse.

Here is a Legionario body looking lovely in my chosen color for NaMoPaiMo.

Time to start airbrushing!

Someone had a hissy fit and decided to throw himself onto his side about an hour into painting...........

I gave The Horse Who Does Not Want To Get Painted some inspiration to look at while I was at work of what he could look like if he would just let me get some paint on him!!!

The Horse Who Does Not Want To Be Painted prefers bubble baths over painting sessions.

No success with trying to repair the scuffs down to the primer.

Jerk.

I got about half of his paint off with soaking and had to sand and steel wool the stubborn remaining bits.

This guy....

He ended up with a lovely rough texture from the Rustoleum primer AGAIN, from a brand new can.
Back to steel wool and sanding.

Bathed and getting a pep talk from his test horse.

I decided to put magnets into his feet to hold him on his base.

(he is wearing his glorious plastic wrap outfit to keep him clean as I work)

He has stainless steel rods that run through his legs into his feet.

Stainless steel is harder than regular steel, so drilling the wires won't work with a steel bit.

I purchased a tungsten carbide Dremel bit and zipped right through those wires.

2-part liquid epoxy worked to set the magnets into his feet.

I was out of epoxy, so I used E6000 glue to set them into his base.

The E6000 did not set, so magnets in the base were out.

Option 2 was to cut a small disk out of steel for the magnet to stick to, which worked!

"Ok, I am starting to think that I am dealing with a streaker. I swear this horse is doing everything possible to avoid being painted, so that he can continue being naked! (Ok, so he is wearing primer...)"

Then he had to get washed AGAIN due to trying out using a tack cloth to remove little bits of things right before painting, which left RESIDUE! GAH!!!!

Back to the sink for a bath!