We've had Trad scale unicorns, Classic unicorns, unicorn foals, blind bag unicorns, and sparkly clearware unicorns. They've varied from arabians to ponies to draft horses. In fact, you might think there's been a unicorn for every possible kind of collector. But one thing (the regular runs at least) all had in common is the fact they've not been real horse colours. Sure, there's been 'grey' unicorns, but they're heavily pearlised and usually given metallic hooves, while the vast majority have been colour-tinted, too, with pink, blue or lavender pearly paint, and the recent Stablemate blind bags and mystery foal sets have added to this shiny rainbow with yet more colours.
But even though I can appreciate the variety and choice, and know that a lot of people love them, it's left my collection completely unicornless, because I didn't want a decorator unicorn, I wanted a real unicorn.
Yeah, give me a moment here, let me explain!
I don't for a minute believe there could be unicorns out there in the hidden quiet places of the world, merrily going about their daily business of eating and napping and pulling grumpy faces at other unicorns, like wild normal horses do. But if we look at the unicorn in antiquity and legend across many cultures; it all comes from a creature people did believe was real. They thought it absolutely was a living animal, flesh and blood, just extremely rare and hard to find in far away places, which explained why nobody they knew had seen one.
The unicorn of middle-ages to renaissance art is usually a white grey, occasionally with dapples or dark legs, sometimes more of a steel grey shade, even more rarely a pale cream or sandy colour. I've seen a magnificent dappled rose-grey in the border of a manuscript once, though that could've been colours fading to browner than they were originally painted. The point is, the artists who painted these pictures, designed these tapestries...they made their unicorns in real horse colours. All the pastels and glitter came much, much later, and the unicorn as the sparkly rainbow fantasy creature of current popular culture is very far from the original horse-ish - and sometimes goat-ish - realistic animal of legend.
I must pause here to point out that I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with loving Breyer's colourful pearly unicorns, as with all collecting it's a matter of taste and you should buy what you love, what puts a smile on your face every time you see it, what gives you a thrill to track down and tick off the list. I can easily appreciate that for some people, that might be decorator unicorns. But they're just not me. Because for as long as I've been collecting models, I've been wanting Breyer to make one, just one, regular run unicorn in a lifelike matte grey horse colour.
Last month I got myself a bulk lot of SM bodies to repaint, and in amongst them was the pink G3 arabian unicorn. My first thought was that I could easily remove the horn and use it as a normal body, but then...the idea clicked and slowly settled into place...here was my chance to paint that real unicorn.
And here he is! I went for a light, faintly dappled grey, with darker legs, just to give him a little bit more interest than being plain white paintjob, and to emphasise that he's based on the concept of a real equine with a coat that would grey out over time, and just happens to be a unicorn too.
I think out of all of the SM moulds to have been unicorned so far, this is what I'd have chosen if this custom had been more planned, so it's kind of a perfect co-incidence that it was this one which found it's way to my body box.
So, at long last, my collection includes a model unicorn, and it's a very satisfying thing indeed!
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