I’m just curious how long it takes everyone else to paint a tail. I’ve been looking at tutorials and am not sure I’m doing right. Does it take you guys hours to paint a nice tail??

Usually, yes lol. And that's my short answer.

Hair painting, I find, gives me more satisfying results if I have a loose wrist and take my time. Plus, the more layers you build the more dimension you give your hair. Tutorials definitely help, but over time you'll also figure out your own touches that make your art unique.

It sometimes takes me three hours for both the mane and tail, at times this can be even longer. As Adonis stated, it really is the kind of thing that takes time to complete and that extra hour can make all the difference.

Manes and tails are something that I've always found really simple (and I use a tablet), so my estimates may be far lower than the average; if there's a good base mane/tail to work off of from the stock image, it might take me 20 minutes tops (usually much less) to "regrow" it into something natural-looking. If I have to start from scratch and repaint the entire thing I'd say it might take me half an hour to 45 minutes depending on color combinations (black-based manes are easiest, split color or flaxen I find hardest).

Like I said though painting hairy horses is one of my favorite things so I'm pretty quick about it. ^^;;

Thanks guys, that info is really helpful. I used to just smudge the tails *facepalm*. Now I’m making a serious attempt to paint them and make them look better. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t spending 3-4 hours on something that only took everyone else 30 minutes lol!

 Usually manes will take me longer (If i go stupid fancy or something) But yeah, i Usually spend a good few hours on mane and tails no matter the style/wind/etc..

I find that it really depends on how much movement is in your mane and tail to as the dimensions, highlights and lowlights really change an vary dependant upon that movement. At first a tail took me quite a while (and I wasn't very good lol!) but when I was consistently maniping I got it down to probably 20-30 minutes. Of couse some took longer dependant upon how long the tail was too. Some people wanted a mystic feel to their image with a long beautiful tail. Those took a while. :P 

Keep on practicing and it'll be faster and faster. :D