Painting 10mm Union Cavalry Horses

I recently finished painting a unit of 10mm GHQ union cavalry miniatures. I'm going to post pictures and a step by step description of how I painted them to hopefully help gives others some ideas and painting tips. For those who haven't painted in this scale, it will hopefully help convince you that it isn't at all as hard as it might seem. I don't claim that my methods are the best way to paint, or even a good way, but they're how I painted this partcular unit, and it turned out pretty well.

I'll make separate entries for the horses and for the riders, since they were painted separately then glued together. First up will be the horses.

The flash and mould lines are removed from the horses, and they are glued to large popsicle sticks.


Black spray paint is used to give the horses a black base coat. Any spots that are missed by the spray paint I go back and cover with a brush to make sure there is a good solid but thin coat of black everywhere.




The body of each horse is painted, using several different shades of brown for different horses. One horse is painted grey to serve as the bugler's horse.


The tails and manes are painted various colors, and some of the horses have areas of lighter colored fur painted on them.




Different shades of brown and reddish-brown ink are applied to the brown colored horses. Between the different colors of paint and different shades of ink, the result will be a variety of different looking horses without much effort.



Some highlights are applied to all of the brown horses in the colors they were originally painted in (since the horse is now much darker because of the ink). The manes and tails are drybrushed to highlight them. The grey horse is also highlighted in a lighter shade.


The saddles are painted a leather color, which required several coats to cover the black undercoat.




The saddle blankets are painted a medium blue color. The blanket rolls and canteen covers are painted light blue. The straps holding the canteens are painted a light tan. The saddle bags and whatever is laying over the front of the saddle are painted dark grey, leaving some of the black undercoat in the recesses. Eyes are painted white.

I later discovered that cavalry troopers would normally keep their overcoat bundled up at the front of their saddle. In that case, it should really be painted sky blue rather than dark grey.



The reins, straps, hooves, and eyeballs are painted black.



A light pink color is painted on the inside of the ears and nostrils. The strap buckles and other metal parts are painted a metallic gold.


Touch-ups are done on any areas that got the wrong color on them, or areas where some painted rubbed off, such as the tips of the ears. The bases are painted green, and they are all varnished. They're now ready to be based.

Hopefully that was helpful. If you have any tips or suggestions, please leave a comment. I'm just learning how to paint in this scale, and this was my first attempt at painting 10mm scale horses.