Niggling little question about horses' undersides...

[Kurimanju]

Getting ready to try my hand at painting some SYW cavalry, I noticed that they all have a straight pole between the legs (even the mares, presumably), as part of the molding process.
My question is, do other people snip these off, or leave 'em on and paint around it?
If you do snip it off, what are you using to do so?
It's a fairly narrow gap to get in there...
Sorry to ask such a pedantic question. It's probably just my mind thinking of more ways to put off the actual painting.

[FierceKitty]

Not too difficult to remove; lazy though I am, I think it's worth gouging it out.

[Leon]

First off, welcome to the Forum!

On the metal pole, it's left on some of the figures just to help get the metal to flow up into the belly of the horse.  There are a few options to get rid of it, you can clip it off with a pair of snips, or a quick flick with a scalpel will soon go through it.  Most of the poses provide enough space to get in, the only tricky one is the galloping horse with the legs close together, as the bottom of the metal pole connects to the horses hooves at the bottom and is a bit harder to cut through.

I've not seen many people leave them on, but I suppose with a bit of grass it could easily look like a plant/shrub underneath the horse...  

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Does this one need to be in the FAQ section Leon?

[Techno]

Welcome from me, as well, Kurimanju. 
Cheers - Phil

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Moanimg - please ignore all Welsh, forigeners and anyone from Runcorn

IanS 

[Leon]

Does this one need to be in the FAQ section Leon?

Done!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Hello and welcome by the way, was too early this morning when I first replied!

[fsn]

I leave 'em on.

Paint 'em the same colour as the base and they don't show, but I live in Runcorn so probably don't count.


Welcome, by the way.

[Sean67]

Welcome to the forum.
regards
Sean

[Womble67]

Definitely remove them it only takes a second. And welcome to the forum

Take care

Andy

[paulr]

but I live in Runcorn so probably don't count.

I think it is more that you are an oik

Welcome Kurimanju

[Glorfindel]

Welcome to the Forum - a nice friendly bunch here.

I must admit that I always remove this - just use modelling snips as suggested earlier.   I tend to
cut one end and then carefully bend the metal backwards and forwards until it comes off.   A
couple of bends usually does the trick.

I am currently painting up a Prussian SYW army so will be interested to see how you get on with
the cavalry.   I have found a good colour combination for horses and tend to stick with this :

   a.   Black undercoat
   b.   Paint the horse flesh with GW Scorched Brown, leaving the bridle and other equipment black
   c.   Add a highlight in GW Bestial Brown (leaving the edges Scorched Brown)
   d.   Add a final dab of GW Snakebite Leather

Looks great with minimal effort and I don't have to paint the horse bridle etc...

The downside is that all my horses look like clones...

A couple of pics of my army here :

http://s761.photobucket.com/user/glorfindel-666/library/Epic%20Armageddon#/user/glorfindel-666/library/10mm%20Seven%20Years%20War?sort=3&page=1&_suid=1445540355621005317232428915308

Cheers,

Phil

[fsn]

I think it is more that you are an oik

Fair enough.

[FierceKitty]

Would it were more widely known that when they cloned a grey tabby a decade or so ago, the resulting offspring was a ginger. It's not a bio-xerox process.