I've made some Dun colored Quarter Horses and I'm just looking for some feedback on them, maybe see if there's anything I can improve (I'm a tad bit rusty on this stuff)

I work around horses and used some references along with a download to make the horses look less shiny. I was meaning to make this an entire line of all the main types of Dun horse (Red Dun, Bay Dun, Grulla, Dunalino) but figured I'd settle on just doing this cute couple.

The first horse is a Red Dun Quarter Horse mare named Mya. The second horse is a Grulla/Grullo Quarter Horse stallion named Miley.

Last edited by hollytreharn046 : 22nd Mar 2012 at 12:42 AM.

For the red dun, usually dun coloured horses have a darker mane and tail. I like the blue dun though, perhaps you could add some slight dappling like on the image of the blue dun horse?

It may help us to have some better lit images too, try putting the horses inside and place lots of lights.

The red dun's colour is too red. I've made this comparison image to show you, these colours are sampled directly off the images. The first three are three different red dun horses, the bottom is your sim horse.





See the difference? Now, you can't take colours straight from an eyedropper and import them to Sims, as they often turn out different, but I just wanted to illustrate that you need to shift towards more yellow and less saturated.

Both of your horses lack overall detail on their coats. If you look closely at a real red dun horse, they are not all one colour, there is lighter shading often on their flanks and belly, and darker shading on their neck. Same with the grullo. You can see this effect clearly on both of the comparison photos you provided. Subtleties like this can make a world of difference in how realistic and beautiful your sim looks.

I agree with Simsample that you need some better screenshots. Indoors with even lighting is best, and definitely NOT in Create-a-Sim.

Last edited by PharaohHound : 21st Mar 2012 at 04:08 PM.

Ah thank you I'll try that and repost them when I'm done

I'm not entirely sure on how to import colors with the eyedropper though?

Sorry I wasn't clear. I just posted those colours to give you a general idea of the direction I would suggest you go, it's actually generally a bad idea to import colours into TS3 pets, they normally turn out different then you expect. If you would like to, just as a starting point, find the hex codes of the colour you want using the eyedropper tool of any graphics editor, then in TS3 paste that code into the screen where you recolour the base coat (there's a specific text box for hex codes). It may turn out looking too saturated, so you must do fine-tune adjustments using your eyes.

I personally have the game in windowed mode when I'm creating, then I can alt-tab quickly between my sim horse and my reference photos. It's just a suggestion, but I find it helps me.

Thank you Pharaoh I'll get the hex codes for those now and try it out.

I re uploaded them. Haven't been able to take any in game screenshots of them though since my sim keeps freezing up every time I tell him to take their saddles off but hopefully they look a little better?

Last edited by hollytreharn046 : 22nd Mar 2012 at 01:02 AM.

The base colouration looks much better on the red dun! I'd say the grullo is a bit off though, too blue. When doing pets, the importance of finding good reference pictures cannot be emphasized strongly enough. The reference picture for the grullo you've included is not a good reference for colour, because the photograph is overexposed (too light) and the colours are not callibrated correctly. Here are some good reference pictures of grullos
















The last three are a little overexposed, but not too badly. Notice how the colour is sort of a mousy tan, rather than a blueish grey.

Both your horses still need some shading on their bodies like I mentioned in my first post.

I like the primative markings.

Thank you for the better references Pharaoh, it's really hard to find them for that color. I used to own a grullo (he was so dark he was almost black though) and the light just sort of bounces off of them... makes it really hard to find a good picture of one. I think I'll use the second one as my reference now I'll post him back on here when I get done with him. I tried putting some lighter colored shading on their flanks and behind their front legs but think maybe I slid the opacity down a little too far. I totally forgot about the darker shading on their necks.

No problem. If you have any pics of your grullo, I'd love to see them, maybe we could find some good reference pictures of a horse closer to his colour, if you'd like.

I can see that you added some lighter shading on them both, it just looks a little faint and isolated. There's normally also lighter shading on the hindquarters, as well as sometimes behind the shoulders and between the shoulders and neck. You can see that pretty well with the second pic I sent.

Here's a picture of the grulla updated. I think he came out looking more like a bay dun though. He does look slighter lighter in the game though but once again my sim kept stalling out at taking the saddle off.

He looks lovely! I think to reduce the bay dun look, you might take a bit of yellow out of the coat (I see it being too yellow mostly on the back and sides). Also, on your sim the back seems to be lighter than the belly, whereas on the reference picture there is actually darker shading on the back, and the sides and belly look light in comparison. Right now the lower legs look yellow/brown, on my monitor at least. What I like to do for leg markings like this is use a partially transparent black stocking, then add darker shading around the joints using solid black markings.

You have picked a very challenging colour to replicate, you're doing great so far! It may seem like very nitpicky stuff I'm focusing on, but having uploaded my fair share of animals here I know that the quality standards are very high. If one can follow through and listen to the advice one receive, I certainly think one's creations become better for it (myself included!). The more time you spend working on it here, hopefully the smoother the moderation process will go.

As for the saddle glitch, have you removed all of your mods and CC? Maybe something is causing a conflict? Unfortunately, technical stuff is not my area of expertise...

Thank you. I'll try that.

I love trying to do the more challenging colors, it's a little more interesting. I've noticed a lot of the pets uploaded look incredibly real. I've jumped on the bandwagon of creating an equestrian center webpage and would like to improve the looks of my horses before I start breeding them and photographing them. One of the breeds I'm doing is Appaloosa while the other is Danish Warmblood.

I've tried removing them all but it still hasn't worked. They seem to go through a phase after I move them onto a lot. The first day and a half they do that but then they finally take the saddle off. It's a bit weird but I think it was from patching the game the last time since a lot of weird things started happening in the game after that.