A Julip arrival

This week sees the first Julip horse to arrive since I started this blog, a bit surprising perhaps as I'm known mostly as a Julip collector. But I don't add them to my collection at a very fast rate these days, I just can't afford special orders any more, and even spares are a rare occurrence in my herd as they're so hard to get due to the demand - how could anyone resist snapping them up when they all seem to be so gorgeous lately! I do still try, but online my internet is too slow to see them before they sell about 95% of the time, and I only make it to about one show per year and attending doesn't guarantee getting chance to pick one in person then - last time they'd sold before I even got there.

So when a Julip comes up on ebay, for a sensible second-hand price, and most importantly of all, the colour, mould, and the cheeky face all say 'Buy Me!', I jump at the chance! And eventually, after a bit of dithering at the very end of his journey here (the courier kept coming when I was out at work, my retired neighbours who are almost always in, were also out, and he got perilously close to being returned to sender!), I finally got to unwrap this wonderful little grey Welsh boy :)

Now, we have a little bit of a problem here. I recognise him from photos in his old home which were posted on J-club, and his name was Storm. I already have a Storm (the famous catalogue model with the longest run ever, appearing in no less than eight issues of the Julip catalogue between 2002 and 2008), and then also a Stormy who was named after a real life cob I knew, called Storm but I had to adjust the model's name by a letter so it wasn't quite the same as the Storm I already owned.

So a third Storm presents a bit of a dilemma. He could be Storm III, but that sounds a bit weird. Then I had a great idea. I'll change it to whatever the word 'storm' is in the Welsh language! That way, he kind of keeps his name, it suits his breed, but he'll be very different to my other Storm and Stormy.
Right.

Look up the Welsh word. Hope it's not too hard to pronounce.

The Welsh for storm is... storm.

He looks as though he doesn't care what you call him as long as he gets a bit of a fuss and maybe a bit of a carrot too! And what a colour! I've noticed that a lot of my recent Julips have been darker shades of dappled grey - pure co-incidence, but oh so pretty. 

He had a slight haircut and style (the mohair has the big advantage of being easy to tame with combing and water, much much better than the old nylon which if it once decided to stick up, just stuck up forever), I didn't have to heart to go too short like I would on a hunter or sport horse type, so he's still got a very flowing mane - but I did give him a rather more practical parted forelock so he can see where he's going!

It was a blustery sort of day when I took his pictures, and while his hair looks reasonably calm in some shots, like the one on the left, the one on the right shows how it curls and twirls around him as the wind catches it!

One of my favourite things about this mould is the way the head tilts to one side, that along with the asymmetric ears and the general air of welshie cuteness gives them such a lot of quirky character - you can imagine them as the one riding school pony all the kids love cos he's got personality and a bit of oomph without being scary, or the show pony who does his job impeccably in the ring then spends all his down time between classes chucking the entire contents of the grooming kit boxes everywhere then pretending someone else did it. That face is either butter-wouldn't-melt innocent, or up-to-something devious, and you'd never ever know which!

And one more picture, I made him a little bridle, with a plaited browband - there's no particular reason behind the colour choice, it reminds me a bit of mint choc chip ice cream, but I found these two colours from my giant massive blob of multicolour tangled mess ribbon bag were a bit narrower than the standard 3mm you get everywhere, so they had to be used together cos they wouldn't've worked with any of the others. I think I might have some similar colour felt somewhere, so I may have to make him a mint choc chip themed rug and headcollar to match!

Tales from the Body Box - Racehorse portraits

Breyer have made portraits of a fair few racing heroes over the years, but I've also done little tribute models to some of my favourites, and on saturday I was inspired to add a new star thoroughbred to my collection - meet mini Enable, one of the most remarkable racing mares Britain's ever seen.

After waiting all day to see if she'd win her big race, and being so pleased for her when she held on against a real challenger, I immediately rummaged through my box of SM bodies for one of the spare TBs I knew was in there, and got out my paints to recreate Enable in miniature.

Although Enable's earnt a lot fans for her fame on the track, I have an extra reason to have always liked her - she's a similar colour variation to my own horse, lacking the usual fully-black legs with her bay colouring. She's also got really nice markings to paint, from the quirkily shaped starry-stripe and snip on her face, to the white on three of her feet - there's a white heel you can't see in the pictures, too. 

As I said, sometimes on the blog I'll feature older models, and I thought it'd be nice to show you my other racehorse portraits, two National Hunt favourites of mine from recent years.

Firstly, Big Buck's, a staying hurdler who won an incredible 18 races in a row, including some of the very best - not least his four consecutive World Hurdles at the Cheltenham festival. 

Having watched him for most of his career, I'd got quite attached to the tough dark horse with the big ears and the friendly face, and I painted him soon after his retirement was announced - it's been nice to see occasional photos of him enjoying his new life ever since.

He was also a nice colour to paint, mostly black with a hint of brown, and a clip line just showing on his legs. Sometimes a lack of white can make a model look fairly plain or even unfinished, but when they're portraits it doesn't seem to matter cos if you get the colour just right, they'll look just like who they're meant to be.

Second portrait, and it's Sire De Grugy, a big chestnut with a distinctive white face and a character you couldn't help but cheer on through his races - he may not have had the unblemished winning streak of Big Buck's or Enable but he took some magnificent wins in his career and will be fondly remembered by many a racing fan, long after his retirement.

I have a few more thoroughbred bodies for racehorse portraits - one is set aside for Annie Power, another's having plaits sculpted to become Sprinter Sacre, but I have a couple more and haven't decided who else ought to be made in miniature - Altior, perhaps, and little Tiger Roll? Or go back through some of the greats from the 20th century, and paint an Arkle, a Desert Orchid, and a Red Rum? 

I'm more inclined to do the ones whose careers I've followed live, modern stars who've had me excited and worried through their races, and celebrating their wins. If you watch the racing, which horses have you connected with in recent years?