Making a Trusty Steed:-Painting a Battat 20 inch or My Generation horse

He looks great! Way to bring him back to life!

 

Wow, you did a great job painting him!!!

 

Wow! He looks amazing! You did a wonderful job!

 

You are quite correct. Virtually all of the "heavy horse", "cart horse", "dray horse" or "farm horse" breeds were originally bred for the mounts of knights. When gunpowder put paid to armored and mounted knights, the breeds went on to the humbler, but more peaceful work of pulling farm equipment and heavily laden wagons.

 

a really good restoration !!

 

Interestingly enough one "smaller" (relatively) breed, the Lippizan, was also bred for carrying mounted fighters--just not ones that competed in that heavy tournament armor. Lippizans are about the size of normal jumping horses, and the beautiful "dancing" movements they are trained to perform are all derived from battlefield maneuvers. Lippizans start out dapple-grey, like the Percheron, and turn white over the course of about five years.

 

I am impressed, and want to see more as you continue to outfit your dolls. Keep us posted with pics as you fashion each piece of equipment. I especially want to see the armor, the chain mail and the horse's tack.

Another type of horse that someone might use for a tableau is the Caspian, (endangered breed) developed in the Caspian Sea area and used to pull chariots. All those Greek, Roman and Egyptian artists who created the sculptures and paintings of small horses pulling chariots were not taking artistic license, Caspians are indeed quite small, but formed with the leanness of a horse, not the roundness of a pony. I have seen quite a number, a friend was a breeder.
I saw Tutenkamen's chariots in the Cairo Museum several years ago, I could see that full sized horses would not fit between the shafts. Reportedly, Sadam Husan used to drive wild herds of them across contested territory to find grenades.

Maybe someone will do a Cleo and Mark Antony, or a Greek goddess sometime. I saw Lippizaners perform a few some time ago, and think I was told that they were born black. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Absolutely right! They are born black, quickly turn a dark dapple grey, and become white over the course of about five years. Until the 18th century they came in several colors, but white (actually, technically a "grey", because they have black skin and white hair) became the preferred color, and so became the norm we know now. The Spanish Riding School, however, has a tradition to always have one bay stallion. Only the stallions are trained in dressage; the mares are trained to pull light carriages.

 

You are mostly right regarding Lipizzans. However, they are way smaller than the nowadays average warmblood. Warmbloods (Hanoverians, Trakehner, Oldenburger, Bavarians, you name it) are at the withers on average 1,70 m high. Lipizzans of the traditional type are not over 1,60 m high (1,65 min in rare cases). But if trained correctly, they can indeed be excellent jumping horses (I know this, because I had the honour to own and train a Lipizzan cross up to Hohe-Schule on earth).

Regarding knight's horses: Your take on these is absolutely correct. I am very much looking forward how you will continue your fascinating project.

Two years ago (I think), I actually made a plate armour: /threads/armouring-part-1-dessous-for-a-knight.474339/page-2

It was always a dream of mine to actually make an armour. I will have to redo his helmet. I got it up to the point where I found a horse for him. Unfortunately, that's all by now.

 

Beautiful work! It's also interesting to learn so much about horses!

 

Great job! I've been thinking of painting my Battat horses, and see the big improvement it makes. Definitely worth the effort!

 

this is so cool! i have an old black battat horse and foal that i got when i was younger for my american girls, and i'm considering modding them into Fresians for my MSDs. thanks for posting this, it was good to see how you did it.

 

Thanks so much! I still have the project ahead of me of turning my daughter's old rocking horse into a Destrier for my knight. I have already prepared a saddle tree. And luckily the stirrups were saved from the original pleather saddle (saddle is long gone). These may prove very useful, though they are a bit large for an SID's feet.

 

I have three of these horses sitting in storage. You've inspired me! Gorgeous result!

 

The results are mindblowing . The horse is so lifelike! I look forward to seeing armor You will make for the horse and the knight.

 

Amazing! You're very talented, he looks great!

 

In case you missed it in the Noble Threads thread, you'll want this:

Man and the Horse: An Illustrated History of Equestrian Apparel | MetPublications | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

It is a 100% legal free download PDF of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's book on horse furniture, tack, and "apparel."

 

What a wonderful transformation. Thankyou for sharing your pics, I loved them

 

I have breyer and resin horses that I'm thinking might be usable with Iplehouse BID's. I must get on with trying something out. Your pics are really inspiring.

 

Very nice job! I redid 3 of these horses for my granddaughters AGs; I even made one a unicorn which she took with her when she moved.

 

He looks fantastic! I love how well you were able to achieve the dappling! Dappled horses are so pretty

The newer line of My Generation horses look so great. The particularly the way their heads are sculpted. I have a 20 inch doll horse from around 5 years ago that I am customizing as soon as the wefts I ordered come in ^^

Mine's head is a little funny shaped compared to the new ones but he is covered in a soft thin fur fabric (like Minky but not quite as nice) so he is nice and soft at least XD Also his legs have a bit of jointing done in them so they have a small range of movement.

Here he is with his owner, my 45cm Withdoll Egon who just came in.





I want to figure out something to make his eye a bit less bug eyed round. maybe use some black craft foam as a sort of upper eyelid for him.

His mane and tail are made with a super crappy synthetic fiber that gets ratty and tangled if you even look at it wrong. I can't count how many times I have tried to brush it out and trim the ratty bits to try to make it look nicer. And I've hardly played with him in all the time I have had him.

So I ordered some nice heat resistant wefts from Arda wigs and am waiting on them so I can redo his whole mane and tail. Also going to take the opportunity to give his legs long feathery hair like I have always wanted on him.

Ordered both black and white wefts so I can add a bit more interest into his mane and tail. I love the mixed colors that you see in some black and white horses' manes and tails.

 

@ceejay
I have not tried leave in conditioner, but I will keep that in mind as an option for later.^^ Though the wefts I ordered are heat resistant and so hopefully will behave themselves.

And thank you! I should have the wefts sometime in the next week, so I will go ahead and make him a thread when I get them in and can start on him.

On a side note, when ordering the wefts I did a group order with a friend and it turns out there was a miscommunication so twice as many wefts were ordered than I'd asked for, so I will be getting enough to rehair my horse (his name is Moonsong) and have plenty extra to play around with making bjd wigs.

 

Wow this is an amazing transformation! We have a My Generation (or whatever the generic American Girl brand at Target is called) horse that I've been wanting to make more realistic for my daughter's MSD. Thanks for the inspiration!

 

@ceejay
I figured out the brand I have! Its a My Life As brand. Here is a link to the Walmart listing for the colors they have now. Looks like the Black isnt available anymore but they do have a Palomino.

The other option is a spotted horse but I saw them both at my local Walmart today and while the Palomino has the soft fur like my black one, the spotted one is just a cheap, coarse fabric with no fur.

On all the colors though the ankle area looks really weird as the fur/fabric cuts off. They use leg wraps to hide it on the front legs but leave the backs as is. I am going to be covering the awkwardness of the area by giving mine long hair on his lower legs. (I know they are called feathers but if I say "I am going to put feathers on his legs" it sounds like I am going to glue white turkey feathers onto him XD )

 

I am so glad I found this thread. I have an extremely old American Girl horse from my childhood. I pulled her out of my closet today and I intend to mod her. I hate the texture of the fake fur they have, and today I skinned her (it was really weird) and began to clean glue off. There's some seam-filling, modding and sanding I'll have to do to make her body passable, but her tail and mane are intact if in need of detangling.

 

My mom got REALLY mad when she saw this horse's fur skin lying next to it ahaha....any ideas on getting glue off? I tried water, but no dice, and I am not sure about using acetone in case it melts the plastic.

 

I suspect it might be hotglue. Here is a link from Lifehacker to removing hot glue, which, weirdly, comes up as the word "Group."

Group

 

Your work is fantastic!


And now, I want a horse for one of my dolls...

 

Brautiful job painting him! Well done!

 

Love the paint job!

 

I can't wait to see your next horse project. I've been inspired to keep my eyes open to old kids toys at yard sales and second hand shops.

 

Can't wait to see what you do with the second horse. The first looks brilliant!

 

Beautiful work on the horse! Can't wait to see what the next horse will look like and what your knights will look! Wishing you luck on the next projects you are coming up with!

 

I see I'm not the only person around here with the crazy idea of turning ugly plastic horses into noble steeds. I have one I bought with this exact same plan in mind but I've been avoiding it as too scary a project especially since the mane is too far gone to keep and really needs to go.
I'll take any tips you have on pulling the mane out without damaging anything.

Also incidentally, I just found out about Percheron's. Id been gathering inspiration photos from Belgian draft horses till I got the chance to see a Percheron in person last week. It's nice to see they come dappled.

 

holy moly it looks so good, i will defiantly be doing this