hey! I love the horse that you painted, it looks so good! I was wondering what that process looked like, like what kind of paints you used, how you primed it, etc. I have a life size horse sculpture very similar to it and I need to repaint it
thank you for asking! and thank ALL of you for all the love on my horse statue, it means so much to me! š„¹ā„ļø
for painting a statue like mine, the material of the statue and where it will live once finished is super important and could impact the process depending on those variables. (this could be like doing more things to prepare it, or using a different kind of paint or primer, ect..)
my statue was a hollow fiberglass statue with cement poured in the hooves to help it stand upright without wobbling. it was filthy and damaged in many areas so i had some extra work to do before painting.
okay iāll quit yapping now and get down to business lol >>>
the first thing i did when i started working on it was clean the hell out of the thing because it was absolutely nasty. like spider egg sacks in the things butt kinda nasty. i also had to cut off the leg wraps that came from its previous owner. hiding under said legs wraps was mold and alot of leftover rainwater that was leaking out of the legs of the horse through tiny cracks. also had to remove any tape or flakey bits i could find. basically make the surface as smooth and clean as possible before moving forward.
after spending i kid you not THREE HOURS cleaning that thing, i could move on to the next step.
from there i began sanding down the entire horse, focusing on any cracks or scratched areas in particular to smooth them out as best as i could. the end goal for sanding is to basically get as much of the original paint off as possible. for that i used an orbital sander and like 80-100 grit sandpaper. i definitely recommend using a lower grit for that it goes way faster. i spend a lot of time sanding the larger cracked areas on the side of it to smooth them out as much as possible. after i was finished i took a damp towel and wiped it down completely to get whatever excess dust i could off before moving forward. * i had to wear a respirator for this part because itās fiberglass and is unhealthy to breathe in. also recommend wearing safety glasses for that because your sanding from weird angles the dust and paint flakes go everywhere. *
i then had to repair the holes, and because i did such a complicated coat pattern, i diddnt do a whole lot to make it looks nice. the pattern makes the patchwork pretty much invisible from a distance. for patching i used flex tape, i just placed it over the large holes. one of the ears actually cracked in half while i was sanding so i had to tape that whole thing with flex tape and trim the edges down really well to make it as unnoticeable as possible. (i did not do to great with that unfortunately lol it is very noticeable up close imo) and it had a broken leg which my friend actually patched with fiberglass tape and pasty stuff that i was able to sand down a little to make it less noticeable. iām not sure exactly how she fixed it, but itās pretty solid now so yay i guess.
after spending a very long time doing that, i was ready to prime this thing.
for priming i used rust oleum primer. it was the spray can kind which worked alright but i recommend getting one of those spray paint trigger handle to attach to the top because that would have been immensely helpful for my poor hands. i used 5 cans of primer, and could easily have gone for 6. for spraying it i just took my time and tried to make sure it was as evenly distributed as possible. (wear a mask for that)
and that my friends, was day one of working on this thing. after this we transported it to my garage via horse trailer (lol) and mounted it on a rolling wooden platform to help me move it around without messing up the paint while i worked on it.
from there it actually sat in my garage for a week or so because we had 100 degree heat like every day that week and i was not about to paint outside in that shit. while it was sitting in there, i planned out where each color would be by taking photos of my horse from all angles and then using the reference images from my friend to try and figure out where all of her details go from there. i digitally planned out every angle and color of this horse in procreate and put each color on a separate layer so i could isolate them if i needed to better see where they all went. i did not have the greatest ref photos for her so thats why i ended up doing thatā¦ and her coat was so complicated it was kinda necessary. i tried sketching it out with a pencil first on the body but that didnāt work out how i wanted so i did a messy digital version instead and that worked great.
ok so paint. for paint i used a flat exterior acrylic paint, specifically BEHR Premium Plus because itās cheaper than a lot of other brands and is sold at home depot. i probably used about 2 gallons total to paint this(?) i think thats just an estimate it might have been less. because i had so many colors i had to layer it one color at a time, starting with the lightest color and moving to darkest. once the basic pattern was all finished i moved on to doing detail work where i switched between colors alot.
once all the painting was done i let it dry for about 2 days before spraying it with clear coat. i used 5 cans of rust oleum exterior enamel clear coat spray. and put extra clear coat over all the damaged areas i repaired and on the legs to hopefully prevent future water damage or prevent anything coming open again. the horse lives outside in the elements and is regularly hit by high winds, rain, snow, ice and extreme cold and heat so i tried to make sure it will survive as long as possible. the clear coat dried for about 3 days, i recommend drying it out indoors and making sure thereās a lot of ventilation because it stinks hella bad and prob isnāt good to breathe in. (i wore a mask when spraying the clear coat)
but yeah after that, it was done!
sorry this was so long š
, i suck at summarizing things and it was a very lengthy process regardless. lol my writing just gets progressively more lazy in this iām sorry yāall.
i made a post on instagram a few weeks ago (@ iceteaadict) explaining my process with a lot less detail than this but it could still be helpful if your doing something similar. feel free to check it out if youād like!
thank you so much for asking this, iām always happy to answer whatever questions you guys have! ā„ļø
