Brownie the Runaway

Almost four years ago now, some of us from the Julip forums arranged a horsey day out. We met up at a riding stables for a group hack, and I got bolted with by a small, fairly old, and extremely energetic horse called Brownie!

At the time, we did discuss the possibility of getting Julips made of the five horses we'd ridden out together, and we'd even speculated on which moulds might suit them. I don't think anyone ever did get round to ordering these possible portrait ideas, but when a second hand model came up for sale last week, in the right colour and the very mould I'd mentioned as the best match for my horse that day, I decided it would be really good to have a Julip of her after all. 

It was such a memorable experience : the first and only time I've ever jumped a ditch at a gallop, as well as being an absolute miracle I managed to stay with her all the way as we charged headfirst at other horses then after some sharp-angled manouvers at high speed, leapt completely out of the stubblefield and off into the countryside...and still able to laugh about it with the others when we eventually got back, rather than being traumatised!

Of course, the Julip's white markings weren't an exact match already, so I spent a few minutes with the photos and a paintbrush, then gave her a hair trim, and here she is, Brownie, the runaway horse a few of us can never forget.

The connemara is perhaps a bit chunkier than the real Brownie, but the other choice would've been family horse, and I've already got a chocolate brown one of those, so this was the best option, I think. The body colours are a really nice match, considering they're a co-incidence rather than a special order!

The real Brownie's mane was a bit lighter, but not enough to need to rehair her model self, I think after a trim they're close enough (I didn't even trim as short as I should have, cos I wanted the mane to still lay flat and neat, any shorter than this and mohair has a tendancy to just stick up like a punky mohawk styled stripe of fluff, rather than hanging downwards nicely )

 

And her head, with the spotted pink nose, and some roany speckling to the stripe and also above her eyes where she's going a bit grey.

It's always lovely adding a new Julip to my collection, even more so when it's such a vivid memory of the adventure I had with the real thing, and my Julippy friends :)

Tales from the Body Box - little horse, big transformation!

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in Chestnut Ridge's Grand Photoshow, and my big grey Trad marwari custom was lucky enough to be awarded CM Champion. 

Each rosette winner was sent a bonus prize of one Mini Whinnies blind bag, and inside mine was the pearly pink rearing unicorn. As I wrote here a few weeks ago, decorator unicorns aren't my cup of tea, so this was the perfect opportunity to try something new - painting my first ever Mini Whinnies custom.

What colour? Well, you can probably guess!

I quite like all the shrinky and new-sculpt moulds in the unicorn bags, but I was glad it was this one - it's the sort of horse which perfectly suits being a hairy patchy cob custom, and for a first attempt at Breyer's smallest scale, I thought I ought to go with a colour I'm very familiar and confident with. So this signature bay tobiano was inevitable as soon as I'd opened the bag!

Incase you're not familiar with the size of Mini Whinnies, here she is with a penny for scale (British pennies are the same size as US and Canadian ones, and Euro cents). 

It was interesting, and not as difficult as I'd expected, to convert my stablemate painting style to a much smaller scale, I just needed finer brushes for the shading as well as the markings, and used a pointed detailing brush for the highlights which I'd normally be smudging in with a small but chunky brush.

Although it gives you two toe-tips on the hind feet, you could just about get away with a running pose as well, or you could do a bit more custom work to reposition that near hind to be a flat weight-bearing foot, if you really wanted to pose one horizontal rather than vertical.

  

Here's a couple more angles, showing off just how nice the sculpting is on these new moulds - really good proportions and pose, and so much neat sharp detailing compared to the old original Mini Whinnies, which were cute but not nearly so realistic. 

She also had hardly any seam lines, just a couple of extemely light ones which easily buffed away for customising, and weren't even ugly or prominent if leaving OF.

I'd definitely like to paint some more of these, it was nowhere near as scary going down a scale as I'd anticipated, and I'm so pleased with the way this little mare turned out, my lovely tiny big hairy patchy cob!

Breyer 2020 Mid Year releases reviewed

I thought I'd take a moment to review Breyer's recent regular run releases, as I'd done a write up on the main batch 2020s, but nothing since.

First, we had Winx, who was revealed as a Spring release. But to be honest, here in the UK the month Breyers actually arrive in stock with our retailers rarely matches with the season they're filed under - spring is long turned to summer before we can even get all of the main-batch models, and Winx is currently pre-orderable but not here yet. 

My main impression is slight disappointment that the colour is so plain. It's not just that she's dark bay, without any flashy white markings - that can't be helped, the real mare hasn't got them either. But if you look at a couple of photos of Winx, like this one, you can see she's got really beautiful variation to her colour, from bright gingery bay, through mahogany, to deep dark brown, with sandy behind the elbows. And in this picture without saddle and number cloth covering her back, you can even see some wonderful dapples. How much nicer would her portrait model have been if they'd captured that depth of shading, or even added some dappling into the paintjob. 

I'd have been top of the list for a pre-order if mini Winx had been anything like as lovely as the real thing, but the uninspiring translation of her colour from photograph to paintjob means I'm not even planning to get this one unless perhaps a cheap second hand ebay one needs a new home at some point years in the future if they haven't made it in a better colour by then. Which is a bit of a pathetic qualification for a wishlist, really, hah!

Next on Breyer's 'new' page is Peptoboonsmal, one of those names which makes me want to shudder because although I get that it's made up from other names in his ancestry, it's just a bit eurgh, isn't it!

Unfortunate name aside, he's really rather handsome. 

I haven't seen much of this mould, because I don't collect the club exclusives, can't afford shipping/customs fees on US-only runs, and haven't been to a non-Julip live show in years, so I'm very unexposed to new moulds til they reach the regular run line! What I like about this one is how casual he looks, we're so used to high-drama poses it's nice to have an action sculpt who looks so relaxed and chilled with life. He's sculpted as an Australian Stock Horse, but here portraying a famous American Quarter Horse - I think if I get one, he can revert nationality back to being an Aussie as I've not got many of that breed!

His colour does seem to vary a huge amount, though - the one being the example on Identifyyourbreyer is gorgeous, with a subtle layering of paint to really do justice to the roan colour - look how his chestnut base coat fades out from head, knees & hocks, with a white fine mist of roaning fading in at the shoulder, then some speckles of chestnut again over the top of that. But if you check out the models with sellers' own photos currently on US Ebay, they look like the chestnut is just slightly fainter on the barrel of the horse, with a hint of white speckly spray over it, leaving the coat much, much darker and a lot less roany looking. I'd be so disappointed if I got one like that, so with trade stand picking-in-person out of the question this year, I'll put off ordering him til I can be sure of buying an in-hand model from a seller who's taken their own photos, and know I'm picking a pale one.

The next horse is Checkers, a chestnut on the Loping QH mould, another portrait model. He's very pretty, I like the soft shading on his pale nose, and something about this mould always makes them look very sweet and friendly. Again it's a great little action pose without being over the top, he'd make a lovely performance showing horse, for anyone into western or performance (I'm not, but I can't help seeing the potential for people who do like their models to work under saddle). Not one I'm extremely excited to order, perhaps because I've got the bay already, but not ruling him out, either - he's the kind of model where I can easily imagine seeing one in person and he'll insist on being brought home.

Last of the trads (apart from a couple of decorators, which I never review), Adiah HP. 

This is one I'm putting straight on the wishlist, a bright flashy skewbald on the Totilas mould. Her markings are just great, really eye-catching with detailed ragged edges and a nice amont of shading within them. And it's about time they gave us another regular run Totilas, ever since the black one there's only been a Holiday Horse release, I'd been hoping for a new colour every year - but I admit I was expecting to see a bay or chestnut, rather than something pinto!

The real mare is an unexpected mixture : 3/4 friesian and 1/4 dutch warmblood - that's exactly the kind of thing which would have model hobby judges thinking 'What, why?!' if we made it up out of the blue for photo show entries, but clearly it worked somehow to produce this horse in real life!

The final mid-year release is this new set of Stablemates Blind Bags, to mark Breyer's 70th Anniversary.

Even though the initial excitement has died down a little since these were first revealed and all us SM fans went a bit crazy, I do really love the idea of mini versions of Trad moulds. 

Smart Chic Olena looks as great tiny as he does big, same for the Connemara mare, the vanner, and fell pony. Even some of the vintage moulds I wouldn't buy full size (the missouri fox trotter and indian pony) make extremely cute minis. 

And imagine the custom potential of so many new SM moulds to work with! I can't decide which one I'm looking forward to painting most - probably a good idea if I don't anticipate any one mould, cos with random blind bag buying I might not get any duplicates on whichever I'd made most plans for!

So that's one Trad I definitely have on my shopping list, one's a maybe, one I want but only if I can get a nice pale one, and some Stablemates in lucky dip format and no idea which I'll end up with. What's on your wishlist from the mid year releases?

Another Copperfox cob for the collection

Yes, this week welsh cob number seven has come to join my herd!

D'Abernon Tiger Woods, portrait of a real horse and one of the very first Copperfox model horses - the initial Kickstarter edition can be told apart by their mapped socks, just ten were made, compared to 250 of this later regular run version.

I'm not usually a great fan of jet black models, without the depth of variation and shading a colour can seem a bit unexciting and plain, but I think he's got just enough white to stand out and look striking, he's a very handsome horse and his coat has a velvety smooth sheen to it, rather than looking too shiny and plasticky. 

The reason he was sold for around half the price of the seller's other Copperfox listings was some damage to his cheek, a deep chip in his paint which went through the primer and right down to bare plastic. With a little bit of super fine sandpaper I smoothed out the edges of the chip, and carefully filled in his missing paint with some of my own - this is where being black was a huge advantage, I'd have struggled to get the colour and shading matched on my other Copperfoxes, but pure black is pure black and his repair was a perfect match straight from the pot!

I've named him Harecroft Welsh Legend, in keeping with the rest of my welsh cob conga - he's going to have plenty of new friends to stand with, here. In fact, there's only one friend left for me to find for my herd, the chestnut, Rupert, and then I'll have the complete set of regular run cobs.

Tales from the Body Box - new moulds, hurrah!

Because I paint almost entirely Stablemates these days, I'm working with a set number of moulds, and it's always very exciting getting my hands on something brand new, which I've never painted before. 

After such a long time of having just the G2 moulds in production, the G3s were a welcome introduction of variety in breed and pose, the G4s added even more choice, and since then we've had occasional new moulds making their way through to the regular run division one or two at a time - I can't afford any of the exclusive specials as OFs, let alone as bodies, so it really is a case of waiting til they do a cheap run before I can get customising!

This year, the deluxe collection set included three moulds I'd never had before, so after getting one pack to keep OF, I bought a spare boxful to paint, and of course couldn't resist the temptation of going for some of those new moulds first!

First of all, Neapolitano Furiosa, the brilliant new lipizzaner mould done in grey. As I said in my post about the deluxe set before, I'm a bit baffled why they didn't make him a grey to start with, and can only assume they're saving that colour for a single release later? But I knew that my first custom just had to be the iconic colour the breed is known for.

I used him as a chance to make grey a little more detailed to paint and realistic to look at, rather than plain pure white with just face and feet filled in. He's got some level of shading all over, his dark skin showing through his coat in places, then a tint of blond to mane and tail where he's not shampooed to absolute brilliant white perfection, and just enough fleabite speckling to be noticeable without darkening his coat colour. 

I'm really happy with him, and think I like him even more than the OF black. It'll be fun to try some other colours in future, too, a younger darker dappled grey maybe, and there's the possibility of historical customs in pinto or spotted, famously seem in the 18th century art of Johann Georg Hamilton.

My second pick from the new, exciting corner of the body box was the Darley mould, and he's another transformation I'm really delighted with, a pretty little national show horse stallion. Although the sculpt was intended as a pure arabian, with his long, lean, high-action American type I think he makes a better NSH (arab x saddlebred), so I've decided that my customs will all be this particular kind of partbred, too. 

This means I get to play with all kinds of flashy colours, pinto being especially popular in the breed - rather than yet another bay one, this time I went for a flaxen liver chestnut within the patches. He was painted on Indepence Day, so I named him Fourth Of July, and gave him a little red, white & blue thread braid in his mane - this custom couldn't get more American if he tried!

His markings are made up, I don't even really plan them when I start painting, only a rough idea of the white/colour ratio I'm after, and in this case that I wanted some white to come round the front of the neck cos it's been a while since I did one like that. I find copying a reference to be far more difficult than just making something happen as I go along, so unless they're portraits I just trust in some sort of tobiano instinct which invents plausible patterns as I go along, trained up by all the horses and horse photos I've seen over the years!

Tales from the Body Box - the lockdown herd grows and grows

During lockdown, I suspect many hobbyists are finding a lot of distraction, comfort, or just plain time-filling while other interests are off the schedule, by throwing themselves into whatever creative pursuits they can get on with in the safety and seclusion of their own homes. 

I've already painted as many Stablemates in the last few months as I did in through all of 2019, resulting in rather flooding the blog here with newly finished customs. Luckily I've not yet run out of paint, and have even had a little parcel of exciting new SM bodies arrive, so there's no sign of this Tales from the Body Box category fizzling out any time soon!

First we have Courvoisier, the dressage hanoverian mould in fleabitten grey. The inspiration for this was the Burghley winner Ballaghmor Class, though it's not a portrait model I've always liked how extremely speckled that horse is, and I'd never tried painting one with that much colour, so I gave it a go. I did the faintly shaded grey base coat first, then used a toothbrush to flick on the dark brown paint, diluted a tiny bit to make it spray finely rather than spattering in an appaloosa spot style, and just built up layer after layer til I was happy with the level of speckling. I'm quite pleased with the results, I'd definitely try this technique again.

Next up, another grey, based on this reference picture, though he ended up a little bit different because dappling by hand is so fiddly and nerve wracking and easy to mess up, I stopped before it got any worse! 

I've named him Maximus, and was going to dress him up for the show ring with braid and ribbons, cos a bright colour would make his paintwork pop, but soon realised his mane's on the wrong side of his neck for that (it'd be plaited with the loose hair falling down the off side in real life), and that put me off wanting to do it - a whole lot of fiddly work, just to create something that'd be wrong anyway!

What I love about this mould is how they can be tipped into a rearing pose - they'll balance like this ok for photos but I do make sure they have their front toe down on the shelf just so they can't suddenly decide to shift position and set off an equine domino effect all along the bookcase in the middle of the night!

Finally (for now - I've already started on the next batch!), here's Thunderbird, a colour idea I've had in the back of my mind for absolutely ages : the mustang in a loud pinto. 

Maybe I paint too many of these round-patchy tobianos. 

I definitely paint too many bay pintos. 

But I like painting bay pintos, so who cares! I think now more than ever the #1 rule for model horse collectors should be to buy or paint what you enjoy, whatever makes you happy; and painting bright little skewbalds is keeping me happy so there'll always be more and more.

Breyer Stablemates, old and new

A little batch of new OF arrivals in my mini scale herd! 

First off we have the Deluxe Horse Collection set of eight - another from the boxful I ordered earlier in the year before lockdown, I'm really glad I've had this spread-out opening of models as it's made several little parcel days to look forward to, just like a normal year, and the more normality we can try to recreate in such a difficult year, the better!

Let's have a look at the horses...

The good old G2 TB mould; the third time it's been released in chestnut pinto, but the first one of those I've actually ended up owning! I like the contrast of a really bright, vivid colour against plain white, it's a nice design. Breyer call this one a Paint on the packaging, but I'll be going for a partbred sporthorse type to allow for the light build, it just doesn't say stock breed to me. 

This one might be my favourite of the whole set, they've absolutely nailed the shaded, peachy colouring, with subtle grey to the face and a big wide snip marking. I didn't know I needed a palomino

on this mould til I saw it, but such a nice little model. I've named mine Harecroft Summergold. 

I still never know what to do with jumping models in pictures, I don't do performance classes (only Julip ones!) so I don't have any jumps this scale to use, but then you've got the problem that a horse wouldn't be going over a jump with no tack, anyway - even loose schooling they have a bridle or cavesson or headcollar on. So I just use a little chunk of wood as a 'log', or cover the base with some lichen, so there's something under them and they're not just leaping empty air!

Another 'hey wait a minute Breyer, didn't we have this already?' colour/mould combo! There was a regular run in a brighter bay, but also a JCP special run with four socks and a blaze which is pretty much this exact shade. If she'd been a single release I'd probably have skipped buying this one as she's so similar to the one I've got already, but never mind, still a nice model. I've named her Harecroft Adalheida, just picked from a list of popular Belgian human names!

The G2 morgan is a mould which's grown on me gradually, I didn't like them early on but once I'd ended up with a couple I got rather fond of them after all. They hold up well among all the newer moulds, and this colour's very nicely done, using thinner/thicker application of paint to give the sandy golden dun some depth, and a sort of deliberate overspray from the mane to shade the neck and shoulders a little bit sooty. He's called Harecroft Tiger Moth.

I still think of this mould as 'Driving', after those original World Equestrian Games tie-in releases, but I think it's known as the Trotting Warmblood now. It definitely looks like the heavier kind of warmblood, with those chunky legs, so the name makes sense. Much more sense than the packaging calling this one a thoroughbred! The colour's nice, better in-hand than in the promo photos I think. I've named her Thunder Moon, the name for the full moon in the month I unwrapped her, and also appropriate because there was a huge thunderstorm the day I took her photo.

Here's my first in the Mirado mould, and I like it more in person than in pictures. I think the head's much better than the pictures of the very first Mirado release made it look, with his white blaze hiding a chunk of his face against the plain background. The mould does seem a little bit lightweight, though, not deep through the chest and neck like you'd expect for an Iberian type, it seems to be more legs than anything else!

The other side, just cos it's a new mould to me and might be for any regular run buyers reading this, too. I've named him Coronel AR, because I'm showing mine as an Alter Real - the Portuguese strains of Iberian horse can tend to being a little lighter and leggier than the Andalusian.

Another new mould to me, this is Darley. A really detailed mould, more finely built and with a neat, sharp sculpting style, brought out nicely by the rich, dark paintjob. Here's the other side...

He's sculpted as such a very American type of arab, elongated and snakey with a high snappy action rather than the short, deep, rounded arabian of the original desert (and Polish and British) type. In fact, yet again, I'm going to be having mine as a different breed - I just can't see this as the type of arab we have outside the States, so I'll be showing him, and all my subsequent Darleys, as National Show Horses instead. The NSH is a mixture of arabian and saddlebred blood, in varying proportions, so some favour the arabian side while others look more saddlebred; I think this breed allows for the conformation and pose of the Darley mould quite nicely!

The last in the Deluxe set, the little black lipizzaner. My first time seeing this mould in person, and it's much less chunky and ponylike than it looked as Darwin, the first release - it's amazing what a change of colour can do! I love the pose; the controlled, balanced levade manouver so different to the fast, flaily rear a horse will do when misbehaving or playing, and you can see that in the way he's standing steady and strong with his weight held in balance.

I don't know why Breyer picked the very rare black lipizzaner instead of the white-grey they're known for - perhaps they're hanging on to release a grey one as the first single regular run, rather than using it up in a set. I've named him Siglavy Toscana, just because all my grey lipizzaner models are named for the Neapolitano line, and I thought he was the ideal chance to pick another name for a change!

And what about the 'old' in the title? I had a little ebay bid on a lot of three second hand G3 warmbloods.

This one I've named Artemis, and I'd wanted to find her for a few years now - there were mystery foal sets released during the year my old job was coming to an end, and I had to stop spending because I didn't know how quickly I'd find a new place to work. I did manage to pick up one of them the following year on a trade stand, but never saw the set containing this lovely roan, so I thought I'd missed her. She's why I put the bid on in the first place, and I'm really glad to have her at long last.

And this one I've named Dazzling, a JCP Parade of Breeds special run. I didn't spend a long time coveting her because I didn't actually know she existed (I don't keep up with what JCP are selling, we don't have that shop over here), but as soon as I saw her, I knew I'd like having her in my herd - what a lovely colour!

And this is the third horse in the lot, which I thought would be a duplicate and end up in my body box. But when I compared her to the one I'd already got, she's not quite the same!

Well ok, they do kind of look the same, but to obsessive OF collectors, there's a definite difference - the body colour is paler and a bit less speckled, the mane and tail have a lot more highlight and less red, and the face markings are distinctly different, too. This chestnut roan was sold as both a horse and rider set (which I bought), and also in the Show Stoppers 4-piece set, which it's possible the new horse may have come from.

Here's one showing the blaze is much wider on the left-hand horse, including a lot more of the muzzle and not narrowing in the middle at all. 

And the same on the off side, my first horse having a white face (I've checked out several of them on Google images, most have this jagged, chunky blaze), while the second sports a stripe and pink chin.

I know SMs can vary from horse to horse as the masking is so small and easy to put on a bit wonky, and each person on the production line might handle the painting a little differently, but this is more than the usual expected variation, and makes it worth keeping both models - my original one was named Sergeant Pepper, so I've called the new not-quite-identical twin sister Red Pepper.