 Hi there, it's DJB and in this video I'm going to be teaching you how to paint white markings on your custom briar model horse. This is one of the most difficult parts of customizing, but it can also be the most rewarding. White markings occur on horses in many different forms. This can include just simple sock markings and face markings to extreme pinto patterns and apple loses. Adding white paint adds a unique touch to your customs. I'm just here to tell you that there is no cheat in painting white markings. There's no easy route, no shortcuts, no tricks per se. Really, white markings just take a lot of time. It's the most time-consuming part of painting model horses, it can be the most tedious and frustrating as well. White markings will make or break your custom, and that's why you have to take the time to really understand them and do them properly. I tried many different methods over my time, adding gesso to the paint, trying every different kind of white paint, different mediums, airbrushing, masking, all kinds of different crazy things, and really it just comes down to painting a ton of layers and it takes a long time. Because of this, I do recommend having a couple of projects on the go at one time. If you ever feel frustrated, impatient, or antsy while painting, set the horse aside, walk away, and come back a different time. Don't ever rush the paint markings, that's exactly when you screw things up. When painting white markings, the primary concern that you should have is if the markings are smooth or not. Smooth markings are essential for a high quality custom. You don't ever want to see the stroke lines, the paint lines, or as if you have painted on the markings. You want it to be seamless within the color, and that is what makes paint markings so difficult. In order to get this smooth texture, the best method I've found is just watering down your paint and doing many, many layers. It can take up to 30 layers to complete some of the dramatic paint markings that I achieve. This is often why large-scale traditional paint marking horses are worth the most in the custom world. I paint all of my horses with just acrylic paint. Over the years, I have switched to several different types. You can refer to my other video in which I review the different types of white paint. At this current time, my favorite paint to use is Joe Sanja Artists Acrylic. I find that it is the most matte inconsistency which I prefer for my paint markings. It's very similar to craft paint in which it dries very, very matte with no gloss in it at all. Because of this, I don't find it gummy in any way and it eliminates the most brush strokes just in its consistency. You can get away with using basic craft paints such as Americana or Folk Art. I like these brands because they are such a matte consistency. I've also had success in using Vallejo Model Air straight out of the container. This works really well for stable mates, medallions, and micros because it has that watered-down consistency already. I would avoid cheap artist acrylic because this paint can be quite gummy and cause a lot of problems. In some cases, golden high-flow acrylic is also very good. I do find that this gums up quite a bit, so it's personal preference trying different brands and what works for you. For brushes, I generally don't have a specific preference into what kind of brush I use. I just have a variety of acrylic brushes in my studio. You can use a variety of different sizes depending on what scale you are painting at. I generally just look for soft bristles as they eliminate the most brush strokes possible. That being said, paying a little bit of extra money for good acrylic brushes can be beneficial for the white-marking process. Most of the brushes I reach for the most are the single brushes that you buy at your craft store such as Michaels or Hobby Lobby in the section where they're a little pricier and not coming in a pack. However, it's not super imperative that you have the perfect brush for painting these markings. It's more so what you feel most comfortable using. For fine detailing on micros, stable mates, and traditional herring, I definitely recommend using the Windsor & Newton Kalinsky Sable Series 7 brushes. I use a variety of size 0, 00, and 000. I always refer back to these brushes as the sable hair is super soft and these are super good for using on intricate detailing and subtle markings that are harder to replicate with your average cheap talcon brush. So here I will show you how I watered down my paint. Typically, I was using a Windsor & Newton paint in this scenario and here I'm just adding water with my brush into the paint. But I don't add it into the whole dollop of paint just the edge and kind of fan it out and to get good consistency. I once read that you want the paint a consistency of milk and that's pretty standard. For the first layer or so you can have it a little bit thicker and as you layer up you want the paint to get consecutively thinner as you go because you don't want it clumping up and leaving lots of lumps and stroke marks. Another thing to consider while painting white markings is planning your horse in advance. Some models have large patches of white which can be easily achieved in the airbrushing phase. For a custom like Bacillus, I mapped out his markings before painting his whole body color. Because the large part of his shoulder was painted in white, I was able to leave that white and only shade the other parts of his body. For a custom like Rattler, I did the same because her entire high and quarter area was supposed to be white. I started this with an airbrush base and the same goes for my juggernaut Apollosa as this just makes it easier to achieve full coverage depending on the style of custom you're going for. On both of these Apollosa's I was painting Apollosa spots over top of their blankets but for a different effect you definitely would want to paint the entire horse and then paint those markings in later. It's totally a process, personal preference, and learning curve that you must accomplish yourself. In this example I am painting the custom ET for this guy I use a combination of large size and small size brushes. He is a traditional model so I vary the size of paintbrush depending on the size of the marking. Generally speaking I like to use a soft and supple paintbrush. This creates the least amount of strokes. When it comes to painting white markings what sets the good customs apart from the poor customs is simply in smoothness and opacity. The white markings don't want to look like they have been painted on. In order to achieve this you want to minimize the amount of paint strokes that are created. In order to do this the easiest way is many many thin coats. This avoids paint strokes and slowly reaches opacity rather than slathering the paint on and having the risk of a bumpy texture. You want the markings to be as smooth as possible and have a seamless blend into the coat color. When working on specific customs sometimes I will seal the model before painting the white markings and sometimes I won't. This is a personal preference thing. If using pastels obviously the model needs to be sealed first. Sometimes when the model is just painted in airbrushed acrylics I will let the model cure overnight and then I will paint the markings without sealing it first. Occasionally your sealer can cause problems and make the paint separate in strange ways as if the sealer is reacting to the water content within the paint. And it's really up to you on what works best. There's no fancy trick for this it's completely personal preference. This is very much a learning process and it gets better over time. I highly recommend that you follow closely to reference while you paint so that you don't just paint random markings and you're actually following the hair growth pattern and the genetic pattern that occurs in real life horses. For this particular custom of ET I am just mapping out the markings as an example here on a traditional sized horse. For this guy I was using a Joe Sanja acrylic paint that was watered down. This is my favorite phase of the painting of the markings because it really maps out where the markings will lay and brings the horse to life. I go on exchanging brushes and making sure that I am leaving out the designated areas that do not want to be white. This is the most efficient way of painting these dramatic markings. Leaving the actual paint job exposed makes a much more realistic paint job with way more depth than if you were to add those tiny markings back in with the color of the model. I find this doesn't work as well and you definitely want to leave these spots out. I'm now going to show you examples layer by layer on this old medallion that I painted to a Bay Tobiano. Starting with the airbrush coat I did not seal this horse. I'm using Vallejo model air in white and a variety of Windsor and Newton Kalinsky Sable brushes in size triple zero and at some points I believe I switched to a double zero. So the first layer is just mapping this paint out. I'm just using the paint straight out of the container. It has a pretty good consistency as it stands and I will just map out exactly where those markings want to be. After the medallion has fully cured we can move on to the second layer still just using the paint directly out of the bottle. I will just go back over all of the markings that I previously laid down. It slowly is gaining its opacity. I let this dry fully and move on to layer three. Here we go through the same process of just layering this on. You can slowly see the opacity come to life. You have to go slow. This is a tedious, tedious process. There's no quick route. So here you can see we're reaching a pretty good opacity already just after three layers. Layer four we continue on after it's fully dry to continue to fill out those areas making sure to follow in the lines and not go over. On this layer I decided to start adding the edging detailing. Edging just comes by using a fine point paintbrush. I use the Kalinsky Sable Series 7 in triple zero and I will just create the hair detail in pattern with the coat growth. So this is a similar technique to Roning in which I have a video explaining the true process of this. But hair by hair you will just feather those edges to create the most realistic look. Layer five is very similar. We'll be just filling in more of those layers touching up some of that mapping. And within five layers I have achieved the optimum opacity on this particular custom medallion. Here we have the finished piece. You can see I've added back in some shading in areas on this guy just because he is a flat medallion. But the opacity of the white paint is showing no bay through which is exactly what we want. And this guy was also very smooth in texture. So here I'm just mapping out the texture of this paint marking and you can see my phone is open for good reference here. And I will just paint those markings in slowly and carefully. It's a very relaxing process. Be careful not to add too much because you can't take away paint markings once they're laid down. But you can add to them and they will generally grow bigger as you paint. So you want to start a little smaller. You can see here though the separation of the pigment is happening in this on this horse because I was sealed her with too much sealer before I went on with the paint markings because this paint is watered down significantly. It is kind of separating on the model as I apply it down. Another example is on my Apollusa Larry horse here where I'm preparing the paint to paint his Apollusa marking before adding the spots. Just using this brush I use a simple dabbing technique. You don't really want to just stroke it on. You kind of want to mix match your directions as well. I find it that works best to eliminate the stroke marks. If you go in the same direction the whole time, you're probably going to end up with some marks. I continue to apply this paint the thinner the paint the better in this situation because he's nearing the final few coats of coloring. So I hope that this helps in your customizing journey and just letting you know that it's very real to be frustrated with paint markings. I generally keep a couple different horses in the studio at any given time so that I don't get bored of painting the same horse. I make sure to go slow and if I'm feeling anxious or antsy at any point, I'll put the horse down, walk away and start something new. So thank you so much for watching. This has been DJB Studios and happy customizing. All of the links to the products mentioned in this video will be listed in the description below. Make sure to check out my website, Instagram and Facebook. And don't forget to subscribe for weekly Wednesday uploads.