Basic dappling without an airbrush...

One of the most common questions beginner model horse artists seem to have is, "How do I do dapples?" I remember wondering the same thing many years ago when I was painting in acrylics with regular brushes. This tutorial shows my basic approach to doing dapples, in acrylics, using anything but an airbrush.

Meet Mr. Fugly FAS. He's my test body that I try new things out on. Here he is in a white primer. You don't want to know what weird stuff lurks under that innocent white exterior. Really, you don't. Seriously!  Oh,  I used Rustoleum Painter's Touch primer to bring him to this angelic looking state.

Mix up some paint. I want to do a dappled palomino so I used a mix of Americana "Camel" and Ceramcoat "Lt. Ivory" for my base color. You can use plain old white but I wanted to use up the Lt. Ivory, so that is what I used.

Shake those bottles really, really well and squirt equal portions into a mixing container, then add a bit more white to create a light to medium golden color. Mix well!

I also added in some distilled water my mix to thin it down to a consistency where it would brush on thinly without leaving brush strokes.

This is the brush I used - an old Liquitex Basics #12 Flat - to paint on my base color. Don't use any stiff bristle brushes as they will leave brush strokes. You could use a larger brush, but if you use a smaller one, it will take longer and there is more risk of uneven application of paint.

This is what Mr. Fugly FAS looks like after one thin coat, so don't expect to get the horse completely covered in one pass. It will take several thin coats like this to get the model completely covered.

And here is Mr. Fugly FAS completely covered in my mix of Camel and Lt. Ivory. Time to get dappling!!! But first we need to set the stage....

...and that will require the use of a make-up sponge. Yup, a lowly make-up sponge. And some paint, of course. This time, we are going to use the Camel color straight from the bottle. This color will be the "outside" of the dapples.

Squirt some paint onto your palette or whatever you are using for a palette (plastic paper plates make nice palettes). Wet your make-up sponge and squeeze out most of the water. Then dab it into the paint, dab it around on the palette a bit to disburse the paint around on the sponge and...

...dab the color onto the areas where dapples usually appear. Here I dabbed it onto the side of the neck, along the back, down the shoulder, barrel, and rump. Don't worry about being precise - the general area is fine. If you want the dappled area to be a bit darker, reload your sponge and dab dab dab some more!

It's a good idea to rinse the sponge between dabbing sessions as the paint can dry in the sponge, leaving dried bits of paint behind the next time you go use it.

Now, onto creating the "inside" of the dapples.

Please excuse the shift in color....the dark background in the earlier photos really threw my camera for a loop and it made the color look weirdly pink....this is more like the true color.

Anyhow, the first method involves the same color we used for the base (Camel + Lt. Ivory), applied with a thin brush. The brush I used is a cheap nail art brush purchased from eBay. It came in a set that cost me about $2.00 for 8 short handled brushes of varying sizes and shapes.

Here I dabbed and stroked and drew the dapples on. It might take several layers before the dapples are the same color as the surrounding base color.

The benefit of using a small brush is you can easily vary the size and shape of the dapples, making them look more like real dapples than polka-dots.

The second method involves a bit of scissor wizardry and a cheap round brush with natural bristles.

I took a cheap #7 round brush, cut the bristles straight across (like a stencil brush), then "rounded" the end by trimming the outside bristles on an angle.

Now, some people like to use a dry brush for the next step, but I prefer a damp brush. Wet your stubby brush, dry it a bit by squeezing it in a paper towel and then dab the lightly damp brush into the base coat paint, dab most of the paint out onto a paper towel and then dab the brush onto the horse. Yup, lots of dabbing going on again! This method will give you very round, rocking horse style dapples, but you can vary the size and shape a bit by dabbing with the edge of the brush instead of dabbing straight on.

Here is a smaller version of the bigger, cut down brush. I dabbed it in the Camel color, dabbed out most of the paint onto a paper towel and then dabbed the color between the dapples to help soften the dapples and change the shape a bit to not be so round. You could also use this size to make the dapples, only smaller ones. Remember, dapples are not the same size all over the horse. Size and shape vary from area to area so please check your real horse references before creating your dappled masterpiece!

You can also combine the methods, making the initial dapples with the cut down brushes, then refine and shape them with the fine, regular brush using thinned down base color paint.

There you have it - a couple of ways of creating dapples without using an airbrush.