NUA Blog: Horse Research + Skyrim Colours

In war, horses originally trained to be war horses were used of course and sometimes horses were purchased from breeders and homes if they met high standards, but towards the end of the war (around 1917-1918) horses were simply seized from farms and working homes in order to feed the war effort. This was done on both ends and although we as the English like to think we are an ‘animal loving’ country, we took more horses and returned fewer than any other nation. Maybe more horses were sacrificed for the English at this time then in any other instance in history.

The horses toward the end, when the conflict was debatably most horrid and bitter, were nearly all victims of soldiers simply stripping the country of its reserves to bring to the front. These horses were not the wonderful spritely thoroughbred horses we see in films but were heavy, hard working draft horses. Oddly this fit the needs of the effort as by then horses were used primarily to haul heavy equipment. Horses of high breeding were mostly confined to use by better ranking individuals.

We can see many of these truths shown in the film War Horse in fact, and I was pleased to see many draft horses being used in back ground shots; giving itself a more truthful and accurate then other films depicting horses within WW1.

Joey the main horse of the film was shown as a extremely high quality and rare horse to be in a rural farming community; he is the only one of his kind being sold at market in the first few scenes and we can see the horse being dwarfed by Shires and Punches throughout which was likely also used for some comedic effect.
He is then purchased by a high ranking official as one would accurately do at the start of the war.

I have studied the War Horse film in great detail and taken a huge bunch of screen shots here of important factors.

The main horse featuring in our game needs to be chosen. What of its breed and its colour and the general look of it.

Its personality would emerge through game play.

I looked through literally hundreds of breeds and weighed the options of each.
I feel a draft horse however needs to be the one chosen. Although the stylistic appeal of the film would be slightly compromised (you would not be riding a magnificent stallion with billowing mane), for accuracies sake it will work well. And it will also benefit game play in terms of being able to achieve more with the horse.

Looking at other games we see that nearly all horses come in the standard ‘Dull Brown’ colour. Sometimes they are lucky enough to have white socks or blaze but it is rare.

Skyrim however picked up on this and thankfully made a selection of coloured horses for the play to pick and choose from. Sadly the base of the horses is all exactly the same, only the colour mapping has been altered. It would of been nice to see some horses with thicker necks, different fetlocks, varying lengths of manes and tails etc but at least they are not all madding the same brown colour which I have come to detest.

The Black horse, with black mane and chestnut eyes:

The Bay with white socks and blaze with black mane, chestnut eyes:

An Exotic Palomino horse with light mottling, white socks and flaxen mane, blue eyes:

The Dapple Grey which has very fetching dapples along its body, white socks and a sleek black mane, brown eyes:

The very handsome painted or Pinto horse as it should be referred to, with black and white patching with a flaxen mane and chestnut eyes:

Then there are fantasy horses like Shadowmere who is the darkest black with red eyes:

And the white (grey) horse frost here who is fighting a bear because he felt like it:

These colours are not very explorative into horses, but then for the game they couldn’t make ‘Snowflake Peal’ or ‘Dapple Grey Pinto Star’ colours. However for our own we are taking horses of every breed and colour into consideration and our main horse can be whatever we want.

Here are some photos collected of horse colours I feel are very effective and could inspire our own future designs.