Breyer Dominante

Breyer's 2019 Spanish stallion Dominante XXIX was one of those models which I thought was handsome, a good example of his breed, and of course, always nice to see a new mould reaching the regular runs, but - perhaps because he's a plain colour - I wasn't wowed by him. 

With the prices rising, I've had to cut back on my brand new Trad buying, and rather than get every single one of the models I like, I now only order the ones I love immediately, and leave the rest to chance - I thought I might get him at some point, if I happened to see him on my favourite trade stand at eventing competitions, or second hand a little while down the line. In the end, I never did see one all last year, and didn't get round to ordering him, either, though I'd dithered over him several times throughout the year, comparing prices on various online shops and being tempted time and again, but never getting so far as clicking Buy.

But then everything aligned just right - I was given some christmas money by my old boss, and decided this meant I could do a bit of guilt-free model horse shopping (she always thought my hobby was quite interesting and positively encouraged the creative side, saving me various things which could be recycled into tack or props!). 

I had a browse around and found Dominante was in the Ponyclubstore sale, with free postage, and they'd announced they were giving a percentage of all sales in January to a charity rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife caught up in the Australia bushfires. So it was the ideal time to get a horse I'd been wanting on and off all that time, for a bit more of a bargain price, and do a bit of good with the purchase, too - it can't count as the naughty kind of overspending when half the money was a gift and part of it was going to charity, too, right? 

So Dominante has finally come to join my herd, and complete his family set - I've already got the mare Fantasia Del C and their foal Gozasa, so it's really satisfying own the stallion too, I'll have to rejiggle my shelf space so he can stand with them.

I've named him Harecroft Magnifico, another of those names which's been rattling about on my list for a long time waiting for a horse to suit!

In person, he's such a nice little chunk of a horse, I'm sure I would've been powerless to resist if I had ever happened to find him for sale in person - he's got such a kind, cute face, with big eyes and a quirky off-centre crooked stripe. His eyes don't have the brown painted in, only the whites, and I realise I'm not sure quite why some regular runs get this added detail while others don't - it's mostly saved for special runs, but Bryant's Jake I remember had a brilliant pale blue eye on one side, miniature horse Hamlet had two of them, and last year's jumping horse Voyeur had brown eyes.

Oddly enough, so did my appaloosa sporthorse on the Strapless mould, yeeeears ago, but that was a bit of a strange situation because it appears I actually got a Black Tie Affair in the regular run box - if you check out the comparison photo here mine is definitely the one on the left, with more white bits to her blanket pattern, browner tones to the shading rather than jet black, and as I said, the coloured eyes. But I bought her brand new in box from a UK toy shop, so I've no idea how Breyer managed to pack up some SRs in the RR shipment!

As you can see, I've made him his very own show bridle. I had to wait til he got here cos I've got no others on the mould to get the size right, but spent the postage wait googling the authentic designs for his breed. Many have no browbands at all, others these braided ones with much larger and longer-tailed rosettes than on the traditional British-style ribbon browbands; some have a chain lead, others have leather; the main common feature among them all seemed to be the raised noseband, shaped wider in the middle, and with a little supporting leather link at the sides (some drop nosebands used to be made this way, before the metal rings with fixed pins at right angles became the norm, and then drops went out of favour anyway and you hardly see them now!)

I meant to take a photo without the bridle, too, but it was just too difficult getting any shots at all with the usual winter sun issues - you know, the fact the horse is already balanced on a box on a bin on a board across two chair arms with a stake propping the shady tree branch out of the way and me standing on top of the drain against the wall leaning as far over as I could, just to get the horse and background into the light and with no shadow on the backdrop, and then the sun moves and there's shadows everywhere anyway so there's no time left to untack him for another try!

His magnificent mane, I really like how rough it looks, not too stylised and sleek (I have a long-maned horse, she only ever looks smooth right after brushing, and I spend so, so much time saying 'c'mere, you've got a thing in your hair' and picking bits of dead weeds or twigs or leaves off her!). For some reason I really like the gaps in the hanging part past his neck, that's just a nice touch to make it more detailed despite the fact it must make the moulding process a little more complex, something they wouldn't have wanted to cast a few years ago but are willing to cope with now.

So my review for dear old oh-not-another-plain-bay Dominante is get one, if you're dithering like I was, you won't be disappointed!

WIA Eberl Gustav x2

What to do when you see a gorgeous new model but can't decide which colour to buy? Get both!

These two models are the WIA plastic release of Brigitte Eberl's Mini Gustav. I've had a poke around and can't find out much about WIA to know what else their range includes - I haven't even been able to find a company homepage let alone a shop site - most of the search results are pages or quotes from random Google books, or other hobbyists' mentions of the WIA horses in their collection. So all I've seen are these, one other 1/18th scale horse, and some 1/9th scale resins, all on Modellpferdeversand, the multi-brand model horse retailer based in Germany.
If anyone knows where WIA are hiding their info, do let me know in the comments!

So, what are the horses like? In hand, they feel very much like a Collecta or Schleich model, to pick a couple of more familiar names compare to - a good solid plastic with a decent weight to it, very slightly flexible in that reassuring way which means they'll probably bounce entirely unharmed if you knock them over or drop them.
They're a slightly smaller scale than Collecta, but not enough that they couldn't join a mixed herd if you wanted them to pose in group scenes for photos or live showing. I've got one Gustav standing next to my Belgian mare to check, and she's maybe a touch over half an inch taller at the withers, which you could pass off as her being a 17hh example of her breed, and him being a 15.2hh example of his!
The sculpting is, of course, quite lovely, and the paintwork's a good bit over and above the typical standard for these OF middling-scale plastics - rather than being toys which some adults do collect, like the mass produced brands of Schleich, Safari, Bullyland, Papo, Mojo, and Collecta, these are aimed firmly at the adult collector, who appreciates an anatomically, conformationally accurate horse, with a realistic pose and expression.
I can't see any record of how many are made, so I've no idea if they're a small limited run or whether it went to a few hundred or thousand, but they seem to be an MPV exclusive (I got mine second hand on UK Ebay)

Here's a really lovely picture of the bay, he looks so warm and glowy in this light but it's actually just me forgetting to change my camera settings from a very cloudy previous day!

This is more accurate for his colouring, a beautifully rich bay with mealy shading and a hint of grey on his face, elbows, and stifles. He's even got some gentle dapples on his ginger belly and beside his tail. And look at his eyes, they're realistically painted in, and even glossed - this is OF paintwork that easily rivals some CM paintjobs in attention to detail, they've done a great job on him.

This might be my favourite angle for him, with that high head carriage and flash of eye-white as he looks at us. The original Gustav resin was a very big Traditional scale, this little guy has every bit the same amount of pride and presence!

Another angle which shows off his handsome and expressive head, I really like that roman nose!

And here's the leopard spotted edition, which I'm going to have as a Noriker horse - in fact, I'm calling them both Norikers; most horse books pick a spotted example to show, so that's the first thing I thought of when getting a spotted draft for my collection, but there's a lot of solid colours in the breed too. 

Much like the Lipizzaner, the Noriker has a particular naming system, where the horse's first name is what he's known as individually, and his second name is what stallion line he's from. My spotted one will be Julius Elmar (the Elmar line being the source of the spotted/tiger pattern), the bay will be called Maxim Nero.

You can't really see it too well in the photos, but his spots are nicely done, with faint mapping and layering of airbrushed colour, to make them more than just the usual stencilled or blobbed-on solid dots. 

I can't help thinking he'd look great dressed up in a traditional stallion set, with roller, side reins, and bridle, trimmed & decorated with different colours of leather (often red and white on black) which you often see on the continental draft breeds. But I've never made tack smaller than Julip/Classic scale, so I'm not sure how ready I am for that challenge!

Here's a little headshot. There were two of the spotted model on Ebay, I chose this one because I liked his face the most - the other had an almost solid black head, the shading on mine makes it look like he's got a lot of roaning with his appaloosa pattern. 

So that's my two Noriker boys, Julius and Maxim. Which colour do you like best? Or are you, like me, more of a 'both!' kind of collector? And oh but wouldn't it be great to get my hands on some custom bodies at some point, I could have a lot of fun with this mould if a nice cheap scuffed one ever needed a new coat of paint...