Patches and Polka Dots

A few OF arrivals to introduce this week, and for the sake of not flooding the blog with new posts all at once, I thought I'd make all of them share one together.

Harecroft Gauntlet, aka Durham, one of this year's 'Best of Breyerfest' store specials. He was part of a set of five models, but I only really liked a couple of them (gloss and pearl paint put me off some otherwise pretty colours!) so I bid on just the ones I wanted from a split set on UK ebay, and was amazed to get this one for about 21p more than normal regular run SM price!

I haven't had dapples at Stablemate scale for such a long time, and it goes so well within the pinto patches, great little horse! I've long been fond of this mould, for several years I had a complete set of all OF releases, but of course these days there's a lot more exclusive and club models than there ever were, so I'm out of aiming for complete congas and just aim for nice long congas instead!

And here's his travelling companion, Viaje, renamed Harecroft Gleaming North. Not for a particular conga ambition (though technically, with the term 'conga line' referring to three or more in the same mould, I do have a tiny OF conga of them, as he makes it four!), I just fell in love with that paintjob and had to have him!

I love the detailed jagged markings, and the crisp masked edges - luckily the only slightly fuzzy mishap in the masking is on his mane, where the colours would be more softly mixed in a real horse, too, so he gets away with that!

Working up the Breyer scales, the next horse I have to share here actually arrived a while ago, but got missed out of my blog postings somehow.

Harecroft Happy-Go-Lucky, the regular run paint mare from last year. I liked her at the time but had run out of room for Classics and decided I really shouldn't have more - but then two whole new shelves happened, my classics got rehomed there, and there's now plenty of room for squeezing in a few more!

This mould is called the Running Thoroughbred, but it's really impossibly chunky in the leg for a TB, so I think this paint horse release suits it far better. 

And the biggest arrival, here's Lil Ricky Rocker, yet to settle into any of my own name ideas.

Another which I kind of liked at the time, this one I wasn't too sure about whether I needed, and somehow over the years he never worked his way up from being quite a nice Trad, to a wishlist model. But recently I'd looked at owners' own photos online and thinking I would like one after all, so I've been watching several second hand ebay listings and hoping that sooner or later, I'd catch a bargain. And here is that bargain, £20 less than 'new' price!

He's one of those models which don't have a notable good side - the mould is facing dead ahead, so there's nothing about the pose which makes me favour either way round to display, and his markings are just as nice both sides, too, so there's nothing to decide between them!

 

Some different angles, showing off all those wonderful spots. I'm so glad they went with a stencilled/masked template of accurate shape-and-direction spotting, rather than the paint-spatter method.
And I realised something surprising when pondering his imminent arrival - I don't have any other leopard appaloosa Traditionals! All my appaloosa Trads so far, whether OF or CM, have been blanket or semi-leopard patterns.

He's got such a nice face, the colour suits the mould well, and I love how laid back and cool he looks. I don't know how I spent so long thinking I didn't want to buy him!

Finally, just take a look at those eyes! I mentioned on a previous blog post how unusual it is to have the eye colour painted in for a regular run, a detail usually saved for the more important of the special runs, but occasionally cropping up in the ordinary range too. Here you can see he's not only got a pretty golden metallic brown eye colour, but carefully applied pink eyewhites, too.

Breyer 2020 Stingray

My birthday was earlier this week, and my present from my mum was one of the 2020 Breyers on my wishlist, Stingray - after a few days of rain and high winds, the weather finally settled enough to get pictures of her.

Getting her ready for her photo session wasn't too straightforward, though, as she arrived with a bit of an issue. Take a look at the shots below...

 

The metal pegs in her feet, and the slots in the base, just did not line up! If you aligned one peg with the slot, the other was a good half-a-hoof-width out of place. 

Luckily I've been in this collecting hobby for long enough to pick up the tips and tricks to solve a problem like this. A glass jug or mug of freshly boiled water does the job in minutes - just submerge the model to the hock in the hot water and it'll soften up and become flexible, then by pressing the hoof against the inside of the jug, you can gently bend the plastic. This is why glass is the best option, you can see exactly what you're doing and not over-correct or get the bend in the wrong part of the limb! I like to carefully slide the leg up and out of the water til it's touching just the rim of the jug, so you can keep the right amount of pressure on as the plastic cools, and it sets in the corrected position. 

The boiling water method works very nicely even for models who've been left with quite dramatically curved or wonky legs during the moulding process, but because Stingray didn't have an obvious mishapen leg to fix, I tweaked both back legs outwards just a fraction, just enough so the slots lined up.

Rather ironically, I then didn't have the correctly fitted base showing in any of her photos, so you'll just have to take my word that it is there, hidden under my sheet of fake grass!

First up, let's get it out of the way : the thing most people have noticed about this model, whether Breyer collectors or Stingray fans from the world of barrel racing - she doesn't match the real horse.

Stingray is a sooty palomino, and a quick google search of her name reveals she varies in colour through the year, from pale dusty grey-cream, to a more golden glossy tan in summer. I know this colour extremely well, because my own pony is the exact same shade of sooty palomino, and her ever-changing coat colour matches every single photograph I've found of Stingray, at various times of year. But they don't ever go red-brown. They don't go anything like this colour paint. 

I just don't understand what Breyer were doing here, to be honest - it's a horse with several different correct colours to choose from, and they design one it never is. And they've nailed several of those possible 'right' colours on other models, so it can't just be a pigment problem where they physically can't make paint that matches. A bizarre situation indeed!

But ignoring the fact the model doesn't look like the real horse, it's a nice colour. There's depth, there's shading, it's striking, and it suits the mould. And it goes without saying that I really like her, otherwise I wouldn't have wanted her so much!

Will I show mine as a sooty palomino? Probably not - I'm thinking silver bay would be more fitting for the reddish brown body colour, combined with a white/grey mane and tail, and brown instread of black legs, it'd work.

Here you can see the big brown patch on her side, copied from the real horse far more accurately than the coat colour! It's good to see these interesting and unsual markings cropping up in models now and then, we've had the occasional Bend Or spot (Flexible and Topsails Rien Maker both have them, if I remember rightly, though I didn't actually buy either of those models!) but nothing like this til now.

This is my first model on the Gaming Stock Horse mould, and actually my first time even seeing it in person, as I somehow never saw Babyflo on trade stands in previous years. It's a very detailed mould, neat and smooth, with no seam lines or flaws to note, a powerful muscular sporting horse with an expressive face, ears laid back in enthusiastic exertion as she leaps forward. 

Here's another handy tip - see how effective it looks to have those plastic bases hidden under the sheet of grass! Just by puncturing the paper with the metal hoof pegs and fitting the base underneath it, you can make the model look like it stands unsupported.

I've named mine Harecroft BlazeAway, a name that's been ticking over on my scribbled list for quite some time waiting for a horse to fit it, with her fiery colour and forward-going action pose she is that model to suit the name!

Tales from the Body Box - Paragon, a portrait

This horse is not particularly famous.
He isn't a sporting legend, or a much-loved character from fiction or history, nor is he a founding father of his breed. Most horsey people will never have heard of him, nor had I beforehand, but from the very first time I encountered him, I liked this horse.

His story starts on a day out one summer, visiting Grimsthorpe castle, a grand home full of art and antiques, beautiful architecture and design. We were taken round by guided tour, no free-flow wandering, and as always, it was the horses in the paintings which I spent most time looking at, trying to take a moment longer to inspect the colours, the tack, the art style, then having to rush to catch up before the tour moved too far away. 

At one point, we were standing on the staircase, and the guide was telling about a huge, bigger-than-lifesize painting of a horse, some behind the scenes whispering that it might be a Stubbs which they wanted to have investigated by experts, I looked but it was a relatively bland painting - dark, dull, a lifeless looking plain horse standing still. Maybe it turns out to be a Stubbs, if so it's not one of his best.

The matching counterpart on the opposite side of the wall was another matter. A big imposing stallion, tense and alert and showing the white of his eye, and his colour beautifully detailed in a way which makes a modern horse-colour-enthusiast stop and stare. Bay sabino, brilliantly captured in oils, with white flashes and roaning, and several dark spots. I looked for as long as I could, then had to move along with the tour, no photography allowed inside the house I just had the image of this horse imprinted in my mind's eye, to try not to forget him.

I haven't been able to find the painting online anywhere since, but you can just about see him, peeping out from behind the left shoulder of the emperor Hadrian in this photo on the castle's own website.

A year or more later, another summer, another day out - Wimpole Hall, and this time free to wander at will through the mansion. I came into one room, and there was a huge horse painting above the mantelpiece, I made a bee-line for it, and there, in the lower right corner - the same horse. 

There's no mistaking those spots, three white and one brown just behind his shoulder, and all the white markings the same, too. I'd found the sabino stallion for a second time! 

And here, the painting had a caption plaque, crediting Dutch artist Abraham van Diepenbeeck but also containing the first clue in figuring out who he might be : 'Six Menage Horses belonging to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle'. 
William Cavendish was one of the most prominent 17th century writers on horsemanship and haute-école dressage training; if you've read any good books on the history of horse riding, schooling, or tack, the chances are you've seen some illustrations or quotations from his work. So this gave me a great starting point to research that horse, when I got home I started looking up the name of his book, and found this title page :

There, on the right : see three white spots behind the shoulder. It's that bay sabino! Further investigation, and I found this print...

There's the unmistakable spots, and more importantly, it's annotated. Welbeck, at the top of the page, is the name of Cavendish's stud, but below the horse's hooves we see Paragon un Barbe. Paragon. We have a name!

Determined searching brought up a fair selection of illustrations from the Duke's books, and the fascinating realisation that the horses providing the examples aren't just a standard generic mount to demonstrate poses and movements, but the Duke's own precious herd, clearly his pride and joy! Here's a few of those which feature Paragon...

 

  

This snippet of information from Thoroughbred Bloodlines adds a bit more history to the horse's story :
"A royalist who left England following the defeat of the King's army at Marston Moor, Newcastle attained lasting fame during his tenure in Rotterdam where he established a riding school which cultivated the art of haute-école or high-school dressage riding and published his first work on horsemanship titled La Méthode et Invention Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux (1657-58). Whilst in Holland he also acquired eight barbary horses in which he was reputed to take great delight. All of them appear in one or more paintings by Abraham van Diepenbeke including the Turk named Machomilia and the brightly coloured Barb named Paragon."

The fact Paragon is illustrated with Welbeck Abbey in the background suggests that he came back to England with the Duke after the Restoration - he may have been used at the stud there, though I had a little rummage around the records and he doesn't seem to feature in any early Thoroughbred pedigrees like other arabian and barb stallions in the 17th century foundations of the breed. It seems his trail goes cold at this point, but I'm hugely satisfied to have gone from standing awed by a single painting, to knowing so much about him.

Of course, after all this investigation, I just had to make my own mini version of Paragon. 

I chose the G2 Morgan mould, for the pose (matching the second painting I saw), and the fitting proportions of small head, arched neck, deep chest, and strong quarters. I did some resculpting for the mane & tail, tweaked his profile, and made his feet bigger, and then set him aside because his colour was difficult; a pause in progress which lasted around four years!
A few weeks ago, I found him, and with painting going well lately, decided it was time to tackle that unforgettable sabino and spotted coat at last...

There he is! A fascinating paintjob to work on, trying to catch the ideal point between realism and matching the oil painted style of the artwork which first introduced me to this flashy little stallion. I've left him a little more brushstrokey, a little more 'painty' looking than I'd usually try on a sabino coat, with smudgey shading and a soft edge to his white markings.

He's got a great little face, wide forehead and expressive eyes, and I think this mould really works for that - there's much more pink eyewhite than I'd usually paint myself, but it's such a feature of his own portrait and general equine art in this era, I had to include it in his 3D portrait too!

The original mould has a longer tail to provide the third balancing point for it to stand, but Paragon's portrait shows his tail cut square and well above the ground whenever it's pictured loose, so he has a pin glued into the end of it to hold him upright.

I really am happy with him, how well he matches his portrait and that I finally managed to get him finished after being put on hold for so long, because painting motivation is a tricky thing and I'd been putting off the creation stage even though I really wanted him to exist!

Tales from the Body Box - Altior

Although I can't travel around and see racing in person, I watch the coverage every time it's on tv, and get to know the horses through their careers. Every now and then a horse stands out with amazing performances and becomes deservedly famous, and those I like most tend to end up on my to-paint list, little portraits to honour them and give my custom collection a variety of real-life characters amongst the made up horses.
My last racehorse portrait was a flat racing star, Enable, the next lookalike on my list is one of the very best current chasers - Altior. The horse who beat Big Buck's winning streak of 18 by just one race, known for his awesome sprint finish and often leaving his rivals many lengths behind, he's a big handsome dark bay with a touch of rabicano ticking and a white top to his tail.

I had planned to use the G2 TB with a little resculpting to make it look more like him, but then I happened to get hold of a spare copy of the more recent walking thoroughbred mould, and all that needed to resemble him far better was an alteration of the loose mane into a row of neat little plaits, and it was ready to paint.

I really like the way he turned out, one of the browns I used in his paint blend has a tendancy to mix badly and cause roughness and mess, but I managed to tame it down with some much better behaved red-brown and tan, and of course being so dark there was a lot of black to smudge in and shade his coat, too. 
Here's a link to one article about the real horse, with a nice photo to see his colour incase you're not familiar with him and wonder how well I've matched his model counterpart!

Because his rabicano white isn't nearly as heavy as the others I painted earlier this year (in some photos it barely shows at all), I just did a little faint paint-spatter from a toothbrush to give him a touch of ticking on his flanks, rather than painting in hair-direction roaning. And I'm especially pleased with his clip lines, because it's a sort of half-grown-out clip his body isn't all that much paler than his legs, so I ran a fine line of light brown along the joins to make them stand out, as the edge of long hair will on a real horse.

The other side, to show his modified mane, I hate resculpting in general but plaited manes are just about within my comfort zone - first I file off the old one, then using milliput I add a series of bumps along the top line for the roots of the hair, then stick little scrunched up blobs on to represent each rolled braid. Once it's all painted black it looks fine!

My Stablemate scale favourite racehorse collection now numbers five : Big Buck's, Sire De Grugy, Sprinter Sacre, Enable, and Altior. I have a couple more in mind, but now I've started on this new mould I want to use more of these in the mix, rather than go back to having the G2 TB for everyone again!

Tales from the Body Box - Collecta draft horse customs

Or, an exercise in painting models the same colour they were already!

Last week I bought some bargain Collecta horses on ebay, a bulk listing which worked out at just over £3 each, containing six I'd got already, plus one appaloosa who's been set aside to join my OF herd once his picture is done.

The first to be picked out for customising were the bay Ardennes, and the grey Percheron, and here they are, as....uhhh..a bay Ardennes and a grey Percheron.

Having spent most of last week on the WIA Gustavs, Collecta are only the slightest increase in scale, so painting these big chunky horses wasn't quite as daunting as jumping straight in there after a couple of years of Stablemates only.

Meet Hercule, the French form of the name Hercules, perfect for such a strong draft breed. I've been painting a lot of darker bays lately, so I went for a much lighter, sandier tone with him, with a mealy muzzle and bright highlights on his flanks and elbows.

Here you can see his new bay coat, compared with my OF Cornelius, standing in as the 'before' in this Before and After shot! My favourite thing about the upgraded hand-painted paintjob was detailing the ends of his mane.

A couple more angles, he's such a wide and muscly chunk of a horse, and I think the shaded custom colour is more flattering to the mould than the basic bay he comes with - I'd like to see him in roan, too (but I don't have any others to spare, so that'll have to wait).

His companion doesn't have a name yet, but I love her! The Percheron mould has long been one of my favourites out of all the Collecta horses, and she was a really satisfying to paint - a base coat of shaded grey all over, then a couple of hours spent adding the dappling in layers of diluted cream and white.

With her OF counterpart, Clémence, which shows again how the added detail brings the model to life. 

Her colour's based on another breed example from The Ultimate Horse Book, the same shot's now uploaded on Alamy as a stock photo so I can link it here.

One of those make-the-quarters-look-even-bigger angles, loved by draft horse breeders the world over!

I accidentally rubbed the end of her nose as I was resting it on my knee to dapple the other side, and rather than attempt to re-do the shading without messing it up, I gave her a pink snip, decorated with a spot inside, and a pink lower lip to go with it. I always think inventing markings makes a paintjob more than just a colour idea, it turns them into individual horses with their own character, and is one of the most fun bits of customising!

Tales from the Body Box - The Tetrarch

If you spend any amount of time reading about horse colours, you're sure to have come across the more unusual spot markings by now. There's the dark Bend Or spots, named after the first famous thoroughbred who had them. Then there's tiny white Birdcatcher spots, named after a racehorse who didn't have them! And there's my favourite of the three - Tetrarch or Chubari spots, which either are named after the first famous racehorse to have them, or not, depending on which you call them - we seem to favour Tetrarch in Europe, and Chubari in the States.
The spots appear as slightly speckly or fuzzy oval patches of white in a greying dark coat, they vary in size, and number - some horses just have a couple, others are covered in a whole flurry of them. I've had the idea of wanting to include them in a grey paintjob for a long while, but recently got my hands on the new Stablemate walking thoroughbred mould, with it's long, lean, old-fashioned type, and was struck by an even better idea - rather than paint a modern horse with the spots that carry his name, why not paint The Tetrarch himself!

 

Because he pre-dates colour photography, my references were a selection of black & white photos (the clearest one shown above), and the colour paintings below, which don't quite agree but show him as a warmish hint-of-brown grey, so I adjusted my paint mix accordingly.

 

I picked a shade of grey somewhere between the two painted portraits, not quite so dark as the first or as pale as the second, and stuck with copying the photo for the placement of the spots - apart from those he just has a small white face marking.

What a difference the lighting makes! I think the first one shows his paintwork to the best advantage, but I liked the shadows in the second so I thought I may as well include it here too. I really ought to make a little two-sided 'stable' backdrop, so he could be photographed the same setting as he was painted. 

I'm now considering a few more mini Breyer portrait customs of famous racehorses from history; I've done a few current favourites while they're racing or shortly after retirement, but this is my first picked out of the huge back catalogue of greats from an earlier era. I just need a lot more of the new TB bodies before this plan can go anywhere!