Harecroft Holly Blue

This year brings the 75th anniversary of my favourite model horse company of all, Julip Originals. Made and painted by hand since 1945, Julips today combine the quirky charming cuteness of their toy origins, with detailed, realistic paintwork - each horse, pony or donkey is a little one-of-a-kind work of art. It'll come as no surprise to you if you've checked out the rest of my blog, but I collect a lot of model horses. Current total stands at somewhere over 1,600. But a Julip arrival is special, somehow - they're expensive but worth it, each one precious and full of character - they somehow count more than any other model horse. And they're highly addictive, I don't think there's any such thing as buying one Julip, they very soon work their magic and you find you own an ever-growing herd of them.

The annual official Julip live show has always been a highlight of the year for fans; a chance to get together in person, to meet new collectors and catch up with old friends, as well as taking our models along for competition classes, and if we're lucky, come home with a new addition from the 'spares' table.
Spares are a concept which might seem a bit strange if you're more used to collecting models with a production run, so let me explain : rather than being made to a range of set designs, Julips are a true mix-and-match kind of creature - usually, you choose the mould, the colour and markings, maybe send in a reference picture, and it's made, specially for you. But now and then, Julip make up some random mould and colour combinations, and because these spare models aren't set aside for any particular customer, they became known simply as Spares.

Because this year's Live show had to be cancelled, the Diamond Anniversary celebrations were adjusted into an online event : instead of a live show in a village hall, Julip ran a photo show, the specially resurrected old mould made it's debut online, along with the announcement of commemorative rosettes and pets, and instead of selling the spares in person, they were sold through the forum. Needless to say, they were very sought-after, with more people than ever hoping to get their hands on one of this anniversary batch of Julips.
Their photographs went up in the days before Spares Night, and we each had chance to draw up a little shortlist of which models we liked best, which we hoped to try for - to make it fair, there was a limit of one Julip per person, so you really had to be sure you were aiming for your favourites, and cross your fingers you'd manage to get hold of anything at all in the mad rush! My first choice sold in the blink of an eye, so it was on to concentrate my efforts as hard as I could on my second favourite - and to my astonishment, I got him!

This here is one of the most adorable Julip ponies I've ever seen, with his soft glowing colour, gently faded dappling, and sweet, innocent face. I don't have many greys, and almost all my dappled ones are very dark (by chance, not choice - that just happens to be what's come my way over the years), so he instantly stood out as one I'd love to own, though it's so hard to grab a spare I tried not to get my hopes up!

I've named him Harecroft Holly Blue, as earlier on the day I bought him, I'd seen holly blue butterflies on a country walk. He'll be Blue for short, although I don't mind Holly for him either - speaking as a Red Dwarf fan, it's definitely a boy's name!

The other side, showing his beautiful mane. I used hair mousse on it to help tame the over-the-top fluffiness, and that's brought out the lovely natural wave in the hair.

Of course, I couldn't leave him long without some tack of his own, and the first thing I made was this little headcollar and leadrope set, inspired by the silvery grey and blue shades of his namesake butterfly. My superglue wasn't the best, so it didn't end up quite so detailed as I'd like (I planned a blue thread trim between the braid and the grey edge), but I think it suits him well.

As well as his headcollar, I wanted to make him an in-hand bridle inspired by the same blue butterflies which gave him his name - a bright sky blue, a soft deeper blue, and the braid enhanced by thread in silver and metallic royal blue laid carefully along the ribbon overlaps, which shines when the sun catches it. Usually I'm all about traditonal, workmanlike turnout, but some ponies just seem meant to carry a bit of bright'n'sparkly (as long as it's not pink!)

Another angle, which shows the touch of grey at the base of his tail, and that lovely dappled bum.

And one final pretty portrait to end on - welcome to the herd, Harecroft Holly Blue, and happy 75th Anniversary, Julip!

Mojo Fun model horses

I've always been a great fan of collecting toy type brands, whether the handmade one-of-a-kind charm of Julip and Magpie, or the variety to be found in the realms of what I unofficially call 'toyplastics' - the likes of Schleich, CollectA, Safari, Bullyland, and Papo. They're all around about the same scale, so they mix and match well whether you want them for play or display in a collection, and over the years I've built up quite a herd.
For a long time, Schleich were the market leader and a hobby favourite, giving decent value if you wanted models which were easy to get hold of in toy shops, and not too expensive. But along with a lot of adult collectors, I've gone off them more and more in recent years, as their sculpting changed direction in favour of some kind of stylised cuteness, at the expense of looking much like horses any more. Meanwhile other brands like Safari and Collecta were putting out much, much more realistic moulds, for not a lot more money, and so my collecting shifted toward finding better toy models, not just what was easy to get hold of in local shops.

One brand I hadn't really taken much notice of in the past was Mojo Fun - I think I'd seen some of the earliest models years back, and nothing had caught my eye, so I'd never investigated further or kept up with what the brand was doing.
Recently, some Mojo horses came up in an ebay search, and I though 'Hang on, that's really nice...' and had a poke around the listings, gradually getting more impressed by what I found.
The more recent models are very nicely sculpted indeed, and I find it's always, always the mould which is the make or break for me - an ugly, badly proportioned model lacking detail and realism can be painted any kind of wonderful lifelike colour and I'll still think it's terrible, but a really nicely done mould can easily get away with a simple paintjob and remain impressive.

So I sorted through the Mojo listings, and narrowed down the wishlist into a few particular choices for my first order.

First up, the piebald cob, sold as a 'tinker' mare. She's really nicely sculpted, capturing the honest, willing face, chunky build, and smooth stride of this type of horse so well - she reminds me very much of one of the kind but sparky horses I learnt to ride on. Here's a couple more photos...

 

What's interesting about this model's markings is how much they've changed over the years, if you look her up on Google images, there's been three different designs - the first seems to be an airbrushed, soft-edged style, the second was a sharper, stencilled-looking pattern, and then this current design has a similar crisp-edged look but a different arrangement of patches. I like this one best, but all three have been decent, each a good attempt at a possible set of tobiano markings, not the highly unrealistic random black blobs some poor piebalds get lumbered with.

Next up, the shire stallion, another mould which stands out as nicely done and well proportioned. The plastic is quite sturdy and heavy in hand, adding to the feel of a chunky horse, they're not lightweight and flimsy plastic, but solid and feel like they'd stand up well to childrens' play if you're after models for a younger fan.

Another angle on the shire, showing his handsome profile better than the side shot (the only problem with photographing models posed with a turn on the head), and one with his absolutely adorable foal!

I mean, look at this! I think he's got to be one of the nicest heavy horse foal sculpts I've ever seen, particularly from the toy-type ranges.

Here you can see what I mean about a relatively simple paintjob lifted by the quality of the sculpting - black is one of the most basic colours to paint, but the effort taken really shows, his socks have a gently fuzzy edge to blend them in just enough, and there's a nice depth of dark brown in his coat rather than being plain black plastic.

Another must-have when I was making up my order was this irresistably sweet donkey! Just look at that little face, and the big ears pricked make her look so happy. And she didn't travel alone...

Yep, if there's one thing cuter than a happy little donkey, it's an even littler baby donkey!

 

I love how uncertain and shy this one looks, his hesitant pose and worried ears, like he's waiting for a reassuring touch from mum, or a gentle fuss from his owner to encourage him.

 

Now, I know one of the most helpful things in a blog or forum post about a lesser-known model is always a comparison with something more people know in person, so here's my donkey posing with some new 'friends', the various toy-type brand donkeys already in my herd...

With the newest Schleich donkey, they're more or less identical height at the shoulder, but the build and conformation are different enough that they actually feel different sizes in the hand, the Mojo being much more petite.

Left to right we have here : Bullyland, Collecta, older Schleich, Schleich mammoth donkey, newer Schleich, Mojo. (The Colleca example is actually the African Wild Ass standing in as a domestic donkey, because I realised I don't have theirs yet!)

And the Mojo baby meeting the Schleich one, the difference in proportions is even more pronounced here than in the adults, especially the length of leg and size of head.

Left to right : Bullyland, Schleich mammoth donkey, Collecta, older Schleich, newer Schleich, Mojo.

So there they are, my first parcel from Mojo Fun, but definitely not going to be my last, there's already four more I'm hoping to tick off my wishlist soon.
Oh, and if you're impressed and thinking of ordering any of your own, I know people always love a tip-off on a good place to buy the less readily available brands - I'd thoroughly recommend buying direct from the company (check the seller name on the ebay listings) - the prices are better than any others on there, with a money-off deal if you buy more than one, and the friendly customer service is absolutely second to none, you can tell they really care about the models and the hobbyists who buy them. And we all appreciate that!

Tales from the Body Box - experiments with Flow Aid have varying results.

Earlier this year, I'd been talking about painting techniques with a hobby friend of mine, Chloe at Henhafod. Check out the Henhafod Instagram or Facebook pages for some lovely custom work! Both of us are handpaint-with-a-brush painters, rather than the airbrushing and pastelling favoured by most model horse artists, and the subject of Liquitex Flow Aid came up, a clear thin liquid which looks just like water but works in a much more technical way to push pigment molecules apart in water-based paints. It's supposed to make painting easier, and Chloe swears by it while I'd never even heard of it, so we agreed to seal some up in a little pot and pop it in with a parcel of bodies I'd bought.

So next time I'd got a colour idea and a body it'd suit, I decided to try the Flow Aid, and...

...it was almost a disaster.

This stuff changed everything I thought I knew about paint, it was like having a first go at customising all over again, I really struggled.
It seemed to make smooth blending much, much harder rather than easier, cos I'm used to using a tiny amount of reasonably thick paint, undiluted, layered on thinly to build colour by smudging it firmly to spread it around, and letting the colour underneath show through. This flowing medium just made the paint swim around wet, leaving marks and blobs and not sticking where I wanted it, no matter how tiny a touch of the stuff I added in.
For the dappling, it was fine; in fact, it did much the same as my trusted old favourite - and vaguely disgusting - method of licking the brush before touching the paint, so it goes on with a little bit of sticky spit and can be teased into blurry dapples before it dries too much to move. Told you I'm disgusting. 
But this high-tech additive definitely didn't do my painting any favours for the base colour and shading- I had a huge amount of damage limitation to do by trying to cover up and smooth the worst of it, then add more normal, dry shading to hide the bad parts by turning him into a sooty buckskin instead.

I've named him El Cometa after the comet which was visible in the skies at the time I painted him. Well, some of him. Because the worst part is, I've only painted one side!

I found the paint with Flow Aid in just didn't want to dry, so I couldn't turn the horse over to paint the other side without it sticking to me and smearing the paint layers off faster than I could put them on! So he's strictly a photo show only model, cos the non-display side is just plain beigey tan all over - I know I can't just fill it in another day, there's no way I'd ever manage to make the same rescued mess of a paintjob twice, hahah! 

So, having discovered that it was a big hinderance to producing genuinely nice and non panicky paintwork, I made up my mind that I'd keep it just for dappling on my next attempt, which came along pretty quickly...

The August page of my horsey calendar had a beautiful dark dappled mulberry grey Iberian horse, and as soon as I'd turned that page, I'd had the idea of painting him. And in my most recent batch of bodies was a suitable mould, the new(ish) Mirado, which I'd given a little chunk of extra mane when I had some leftover mixed Milliput from fixing a dent in a different body! I just wasn't keen on the gap between the mane and the back on my OF one, so filling it in before painting seemed like the best way to go for my first custom on the mould.

Here he is, Harecroft Fénix (the Portuguese for 'phoenix', the mythical fire bird). 

All his base colour was done by hand brushing undiluted paint, then the dapples were added with Flow Aid in the mix, with a final layer of paler grey dry-brush shading over the top to lighten and soften the colour a little bit. The dapples do look ok, perhaps a little on the blobby, blotchy side, but then that's always an issue with painting by brush, and something I've always struggled with - I wouldn't say they look any worse than usual, though, which I'll call a resounding success after the terrible first attempt!

I do really like how he turned out, not just that he's a satisfyingly accurate match for the calendar horse, but that his colour looks perfectly fine from a distance - close up photos always seem to catch and accentuate every little flaw and weakness in the paintwork, which just don't look at all obvious when looking at them in-hand or on the shelf. 

The mould also seems a little deeper through the girth thanks to the addition of the extra mane, I think I'll be doing the same again if I end up with any more of these to customise in future.

And look, here's proof that I actually did paint this one just as well on the other side! 

It's an interesting mould for pictures, because both sides can be posed toward the camera without one shot looking awkward or facing away - I prefer the off side on this particular model because of the extra mane laying down behind that shoulder, but it's still a decent photograph from this 'wrong' side, too.

That's it for now, for my next custom I left the lid firmly shut on the Flow Aid and stuck to paint as I know and love it, with just a little lick of the brush if I needed it to flow! 

But don't let me put you off.

As I said, my friend absolutely loves this stuff and finds painting infinitely more difficult without it, so there's two sides to every experiment in such a creative and individual hobby as this : what I find to fall generally on the side of failure, and reach 'phew it's no worse than normal' at best, may well be your next big success!

Breyerfest Ballynoe Castle RM

Earlier this year, I wrote about how I like to buy Breyers in person at various eventing weekends through the calendar, and how this year, to make up for a season of missed spectating, I ordered up some models from my wishlist, to open and add to my collection on the dates I would've been out enjoying the sport after my bit of horsey shopping.
The final trade stand visit of any year is at the magnificent Burghley Horse Trials, world-class competition with a famous cross country course through gorgeous old parkland, I'm lucky to have been able to go for so many years in a row, and hopefully things will improve enough that I'll be able to go again one day, maybe not next year but at some point in future when it's safe enough to brave the crowds.

Ironically, the Breyer I bought last month but chose to keep back as my 'Burghley day' model, isn't one I'd have been able to buy on the trade stand!

Ballynoe Castle RM is this year's Breyerfest Celebration Model, the one that comes included with every ticket to attend the event in Kentucky. Of course, this year's Breyerfest had to be cancelled, and the special runs were all sold in some sort of complex online system which I couldn't hope to understand let alone sum up in a single sentence here, but people still got their Celebration models by booking the right kind of virtual tickety thing to be involved. 

Not everyone always wants to keep whatever the 'free' model is each year - maybe they don't collect Trads, or don't like the mould chosen, or just want to sell this one on to fund their must-haves instead. This is great for collectors who do like the Celebration model, as quite a lot of them come up for sale on the second-hand market in the days afterwards, and we can often nab a brand new Breyerfest SR for the same price as a regular run.

Here he is again, with different lighting - trying to avoid the deep shade down the front of his chest in the first shot, by turning the set-up into the sun, meant I had to move him away from the background to keep his shadow off it, and that left a gap I had to fill with some fake vegetation. His base is hidden, by not gluing the grass sheet down to anything I can pop his foot peg through the paper and into the slotted base, so the big lump of clear shiny plastic doesn't spoil the shot.

I'm a big fan of this Show Jumping Warmblood mould, and always have been - my first step into Breyer collecting in the first place was the original nameless chestnut release, didn't he start something!

I've now got more of these than any other Trad mould, taking up not one, not two, but three shelves of a bookcase; I think I have about twenty in total, which is rather conclusive proof that I like the mould a lot! 

It's lovely having a handsome new release to add to my herd, I already had a very dark bay (Royal Kaliber), and a shaded bay (a custom portrait of favourite 1990s showjumper It's Otto), but no bright bay, so he'll fit in well with my ridiculously long conga line, and I'm extremely pleased to have got him - a lucky case of right place, right time to see the bargain Ebay BIN before anyone else did!

There's one last pleasant co-incidence about this being my making-up-for-no-Burghley model for 2020.  I thought I'd check out Ballynoe Castle's record on BDWP to see if he ever competed over here, and sure enough, it says he was 11th at Burghley in 2009. I've been attending since 2003 (the year Pippa Funnell won the grand slam), so checked through my photos from that year, and yes, even though it was my older camera with slow reactions meaning less photos per horse, I have three shots of him and his rider Bruce Davidson Jr in action on Showjumping day. 

As with most of the pictures I post on the blog, click the small versions to see them bigger :

  

My apologies to Mr Davidson for accidentally omitting his head from the last one - they were taken on a long zoom from way up in the old free-entry bit of the arena!

This means Ballynoe Castle joins Headley Britannia and Michael Jung's Sam as Breyer portrait horses I've actually seen in real life (I also met the real Milton, but didn't buy his model cos I didn't like the mould, maybe I ought to do a custom mini one - now there's an idea!)