Yes, I do this although I've been too busy with the mini to do it for over a year and a half now. Sand off the seams and any mold marks on the model until it is smooth, then wash it off with rubbing alcohol or soap and water and let it dry thoroughly. Spray the model with several light coats of sandable automotive primer, being careful not to fill in all the details by spraying too close to the model or too heavily. Several light coats are better than one heavy one. Let it dry according to instructions on the can, sand any places that look rough and primer one more time.
Acrylic craft paints work just fine for painting models and don't take nearly as long to dry as oils do. One tip to get realistic colors is don't use any color straight from the bottle. No "Burnt Sienna" body, black mane and tail, and white markings! It will come out looking very flat. For instance to get a bay you might mix burnt sienna, a touch of burnt umber, and a bit of something tannish to get a richer base color and then you can do shading and highlighting by using a little more of the lighter color mixed in for the light spots and a bit more burnt umber added to the original mix for the darker areas like the topline. Mix titanium white and a drop of a pearlescent white for white markings, burnt sienna and white for pink skin and places where the skin shows through on white like the back of a fetlock, and you can mix a tiny tiny hint of a blue pearlescent agent into black for that life-like sheen. A little goes a very long way though, don't overdo it! :new_shocked: I need to go look up the formulas for light and dark hooves, I'm afraid I can't remember it right now.
: I must be slipping!
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Paint the horse its base color and then shade one area at a time. Leave the majority of any areas you expect to add markings to unpainted and add white markings last so they go on clean and you don't have to do a million layers to cover the dark base color. White works best if put on in several watered down layers rather that all at once; it gets chunky if used straight out of the bottle. The eyes are the very last thing you do and they are what bring the model to life. Paint a burnt umber layer over the whole eye then fill it in with layers of dark rich color and add a black pupil in the middle. Then add eyewhites and put a dot of that pink blend in the corner and voila! Instant horse.
When you've done everything take the horse outside, trying not to handle it much so you don't get skin oils all over it. Spray it down on some newspapers with Krylon matte finishing spray, again in several light coatings according to the instructions on the can. The very last step is to put some thin clear nail polish on eyes and hooves and you're done!
Making portraits of your horses is fun and can be a great gift idea if you get good at it. I showed mine and did pretty well but I only did the really tiny models about the size of your thumbnail. I loved packing all that detail into such a tiny horse.
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Leia
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