Painted in 2021

In 2019 I first posted a recap of every custom I'd painted during the year, and enjoyed looking back on them so much that I did the same in 2020. Now it's time for 2021's round-up - here's all my customs from the last twelve months. 

Astonishingly, without even realising til I came to write this sentence and counted them, I've completed even more than last year - 72! 

Among them, there's 48 solid colours, 15 pinto, 9 spotted.

Bay is my single commonest colour to paint. I've done some dilutes for the first time here - classic champagne and gold champagne, plus a pearl Andalusian. There's more variation through appaloosa patterns, as I tried my first snowflake and snowcap this year. Pintos are, as usual, mostly tobiano, but with an overo and a couple of manchado criollos to vary it.

13 of the customs are portraits; one pony I own, two cobs I knew personally, five famous sporting horses (an eventer, a showjumper, a western reining horse, three racehorses), one character from a fictional book, and one quagga from London Zoo.

Five of these are Breyer Stablemate moulds I'd never painted before, it was exciting to get my hands on them and decide which colours to go for. I also tackled my first Mojo Fun custom, as well as four Magpie Models, plenty of CollectAs at standard and mini scale, one more WIA Gustav, a Peter Stone Pebbles, three artist resins, and two Breyer commercial resins.

Again, another year I'm pleased to look back on - nice variety of moulds, a wide spread of breeds and colours, some very much-loved customs which are as good as anything I've ever done. Which do you like best?

Tales from the Body Box - A repainted Breyer resin

Last week, I decided it was about time I got the brushes out again, and completed a custom project which has been in my body box for a while.

Back in 2012, Breyer released a Breeds Of The World series of mass-produced, factory finished resins, each fixed permanently to a simple scenic base. This is the Andalusian from the set as he was originally made - his sculpt will be very familiar to Stablemate fans, as it was shrunk down and re-used as a new release in plastic form a few years later!
I didn't buy any of these resin breeds brand new as they were quite pricey, and then because they weren't around for very long in the UK (one batch, and not every stockist got every breed), not many come up for sale second hand over here, either - I only have the Clydesdale in my collection.

A couple of years back, one of the Andalusians came up on Ebay with a starting price of £3. Admittedly, the model was missing the base, but I didn't think that mattered too much - I could always make a new one if he couldn't stand without it, but the Mini version of this mould stands just fine on his three feet, so I had a suspicion the big guy would be perfectly ok, too. And I was very pleased to be the only bidder : a bargain horse!

When he arrived, I noticed there were more problems than just a missing base - I think this model had been the victim of a dramatic shelf fall - he had a broken leg, a missing ear, one nostril entirely smashed away and the other one chipped, had lost several several chunks of tail, and suffered a few paint scuffs and scratches, too.
Ah well, for £3, it hardly mattered; no harm done, and I didn't feel scammed cos the seller had put 'sold as seen' and not claimed good condition (admittedly with such a terrible small fuzzy 1990s-webcam-style photo you couldn't possibly have seen the damage; I'd been assuming the missing base was the reason for that buyer-beware attitude.)

So the Andalusian went to my body box instead of my shelf - a bit on the big side when I was only tackling Stablemate sized customs, but something I knew I'd probably get round to, one day.

Earlier this year, I did his repairs - a new ear and nose, hair extensions to sort the broken tail, the snapped leg (which had a wire inside, so it had never dropped right off) stabilised with glue and smoothed over with Milliput, and I took a hacksaw to the ends of the wires which stuck out the bottoms of his hooves, and would originally have fitted him to the base. I was right, he balances perfectly fine without it, so he was all ready to paint...

And, continuing my tradition of Painting It The Colour It Was Anyway, I just couldn't get the bay idea out of my mind, and here's how he looked with his new coat of paint...

There's no sun in my garden in this middle-of-winter time of year, and for over a week we had nothing but rain and wind and more rain so I couldn't even do shady ones. Why rush the pictures, rather than just wait til the sun gets high enough in the sky for some sunny shots?

- I wanted to post about him now, while the satisfaction of completing him is still fresh in my mind. Because it's essential to keep up my momentum and enthusiasm for painting and sharing customs, and not let it go dormant like has happened other times when I've paused and accidentally stopped for years!

- To keep the blog properly organised, I was keen he'd be posted promptly, under a December 2022 date.

- So he can be included in my upcoming end-of-year summary collage, and doesn't have to overlap into next year's round-up.

Eventually I managed to get a small doorstep photoshoot done, with enough daylight to see him properly - and I managed to name him in the meantime, so meet Harecroft Valiente!

Although I am an enthusiastic Stablemate collector, and love painting minis, I have to admit the larger scale of this sculpt allows for more detail and slightly more accurate proportions, like the fine narrow fetlocks, and the crispness of the detailing to neck and head - you can tell this is a bigger model.

This shadier shot is probably closest to his real colour in hand, I tried for a richer and more shaded bay than his original factory paintwork, and couldn't resist a little bit of dappling and pale highlight.

Another angle - he's very steady on his feet, and while I wouldn't dare break one of these resins off the base on purpose, for fear of cracking legs or losing hooves, he's perfectly fine without it, and I much prefer the free-standing look for photography.

His profile is very handsome, a really good rendition of that Iberian look with defined nasal bones and expressive features.

I wasn't going to give him a face marking, but when I had him in hand filling in his eye details, he just somehow seemed to want one to look finished!

This'll be my last custom of the year, but I'll be back tomorrow with my annual summary post showing everything together - here's 2019 and 2020's posts if you'd like to look back at my past years' work in the meantime.

Tales from the Body Box - CollectA Minis

A while back I bought a partial set of CollectA's mini horses from a friend, scaled down versions of the standard (1:20) or deluxe (1:12) moulds we're already familiar with. I've gradually been painting my way through them, taking their pictures as I went, and just now realised I hadn't posted any yet! I'd like to keep the blog neatly organised by making sure all the customs go up within the year they were painted, so here's all the minis in their new colours.

First up, the appaloosa stallion, one of the nicest renditions of this breed among all the mid-scale plastics (not an officially agreed hobby term, just my own invention because I wanted a collective term to call, and tag, all my Schleich, CollectA, Safari, WIA, Bullyland and Papo)

I've named this one Harecroft Sunset Over The Sea, and he's one of my favourites from all I've painted at this smaller scale.

 

Here he is with a penny, so you can see just how small these miniature versions are! It made the detailed paintjob a little bit fiddlier than on a Stablemate, but with a tiny brush and carefully steadied hand, it wasn't too bad - being able to make up the spot placement as I went along made it a lot easier than if I'd been trying to match them for a portrait!

Harecroft Firestone - a bit of teamwork here, as this one had been started in his last home, but needed finishing with a couple more coats of white, as well as feet and a face! The original mould is a Hanoverian, but in shrinking he's got noticeably chunkier legs, so I think I'll probably file him as an Irish Sport Horse on my site. 

Perhaps a bit predictable, going for a white-grey on the lipizzaner mould, but for my first I wanted to stick to their typical colour, then if I ever buy another set of these, I'll go a bit more obscure! I've called him Neapolitano Romana - all my grey lipizzaners are given the Neapolitano line, while I chose the Siglavy line for my first (and so far, only) black coated stallion.

Two different views, it's a very narrow mould for a breed which is very compact, rounded, and muscular in build, but the pose is great and the head is handsome, so I'll forgive it that!

Harecroft Commander, the clydesdale mould which works beautifully in miniature as the legs were already chunky, just as the breed is meant to be. I always imagine this one in varying shades of bay and different amounts of sabino marking, so it was inevitable mine would end up this colour (I've got a big one in the body box, too, he may well end up looking very similar!)

I don't know why the paints seem to end up more shiny on my CollectA repaints than something like Breyer's plastic, I don't ever use any sealant or varnish over the top, so you'd expect them to have the same semi-gloss smoothness as any of my other customs, but as you can see from the light catching him here, he has a very glossy coat.

I don't usually do duplicates from the same reference, but I really loved the shade of chestnut I used for my Stablemate custom of Blazin' Chic Olena, and wanted to play with it again at a different scale and pose, so here we have Harecroft Blazin' Rebel.

 

A fun little action pose, I don't have many reining or cutting models among my collection, as it's very much outside the disciplines I usually see on tv or in person over here, so it makes sense to paint this little one like the only real horse I've ever seen doing these moves!

The Shire mare, in a different shade of bay so she doesn't look too similar to the Clydesdale, with a sunbleached mane and tail and a bit more sabino marking. Lovely little mould, I think I like it even more in miniature than the usual size!

I've named her Matilda - after the Medieval queen, not the Roald Dahl character!

And the last one, Harecroft Aberama Gold, the friesian mould repainted as a partbred cob in buckskin tobiano. I've always had my eye on this mould to use for a possible cob custom, I just expected it would be the standard scale I got my hands on, not his tiny counterpart!

I would've taken a final catch-up shot of the whole batch together, but the middle of winter just isn't favourable for photography in my garden - the entire space is cast in deep shadow because the sun, even at midday, doesn't get high enough to reach over the roof or the wall. I've also got a recently painted resin, and a brand new and exciting Traditional scale arrival, neither of which I can post about yet as there's no patch of sunshine for a photoshoot! 

Breyer 2022 regular runs reviewed

Time for my annual review post for the forthcoming regular runs!

Although the images have been out, and doubtless already talked about on social media, for a few days, I had to wait til Breyer had them on their own site so I could provide official links with my post. I'll have to remember to come back here and update all these links, once the models move on from the 'coming soon' category, but for now, these will work - they all open in a new tab.

The Ideal Series - Palomino

Third in the series, after the chestnut and pinto, this time we have a palomino. It's a rather brassy shade, not in terms of metallic shine, but just the choice of pigments used when they mixed the colour. But palomino coats are very varied, from softer shades to dusty greyish ones, and others that are almost orange, so it's well within the limits of a colour a horse could be.
I think this is the painting they've based him on (the artist did depict more than one palomino), though Breyer haven't actually included one on the page - perhaps when they swap over from the coming-soon section, we'll get those referencey photos of the horses who inspired each model.
Again, as I've said with the previous two releases, this isn't a mould I can bring myself to like, the head being too small and pointy, the eyes a little low. Not on my wishlist, but I can see anyone who's already collecting this series being pleased with another to buy.

MorganQuest Native Sun

Because it usually takes years and years for the new moulds to filter through from the various club exclusive and Breyerfest runs, I was genuinely surprised to see so many new moulds being thrown into the 2022 regular run batch all at once.
The handsome new Morgan mould made it's debut just last year, as Troubadour the pinto, and while the regular run is nowhere near as flashy, it's a nice choice and compliments the sculpt well, I think : a good solid chestnut with enough shading to be interesting, and accurate - I particularly like the way the legs are done with darker joints and a fade-out lightening toward the hooves. One for the wishlist!
Photos of the real horse have proved oddly difficult to find, considering he was such a prolific winner and went on to be a stud stallion, but from the few small action shots I've seen, it looks a good match for his shade of chestnut.

Nistar Blazing Kansas LOM & GTF Blazing Ethel

Oh how I wish these welshies weren't black. Now, there's nothing wrong with black ponies, in general. I love a gleaming black summer coat, or a softly sun-faded dark fluffy pony, or a striking black with white socks flashing, just as much as the next person. And I'm sure the real ones are just as deserving of becoming portraits as any other colour would've been.
No, my issue is with the fact Breyer just use black paint. That's it these days - a semi-gloss, solid, unshaded black. The eyes and hooves blend in, there's no difference in shine between the mane and the body, the muzzle isn't given any skin-tone grey, and there's no hint of warmth or brownish-greys in the soft parts of the horse where they'd be seen in real life.
These two are perhaps a little better off than most black Breyers, as they've got so much white marking to lift the paintjob out of 'we dipped it in tar' nose-to-tail black goo territory, but still, I'd have loved them if there'd been some shading to give life and realism to the coat. Think of the first release on the Kathleen Moody Andalusian stallion - black, but with different paint finish for the body compared to the mane and tail, shading, and even dapples. And now try not to wish these ponies didn't have half that amount of effort put in!

Sjoerd

And there it is again, plain semi-gloss black paint. Perhaps they've let it fade out a little bit on the hooves there? Hard to tell. But otherwise, the impression isn't of a living black horse, but rather a sculpture given a shiny black uniform finish as a piece of artwork.
I'm also not really the biggest fan of this mould, that raised foreleg looks like it would be far too long if straightened out. I prefer the chunkier version with feathered legs, which has a more natural proportion in the forelegs with both front toes pointed - you can see them here, side by side across the top of the page. I do love the alternative tail, though, with the slightly curled, crinkled hair and a nice heavy swish to one side.
A definite no from me, though; I'd have dealt with the plain black if they'd used the new Friesian stallion mould just to have an example of such a handsome new sculpt in the right colour for the breed, but no point buying a bland colour on a mould which I don't like and it doesn't look enough like the breed it's meant to be, hah.

Adamek

Wow.

Wow. I mean, look at it. Wow. 
Not only am I surprised to see the fantastic Akhal-Teke mould in the regular run range so soon, I'm delighted they actually gave us him in a good colour. Sure bay's a bit everyday, especially considering how many beautiful cream/sooty/greying combination colours the breed comes in, but think how easily they could've done the black semi-gloss thing on this one too, or a decorator release first.
I was always kind of sad that they'd nabbed the very best Akhal-Teke colour for the premier club release, cos that means we'll likely never see a metallic buckskin in the regular runs, and this sadness got a little boost when they went for the second most distinctive colour for the Breyerfest Uffington, meaning we'll never have a perlino, either.
But now we're treated to a regular run, and it's a really nice one, so there's that to be grateful for. Needless to say, this one is very top of my to-buy list, and will without doubt be the first one I try to buy when they eventually come into stock over here.
I wish I could paint large-scale models, cos I'd adore a big shiny sooty buckskin custom on this mould to make up for the OF I'll never get!

Phantom & Misty

I can hear the collective 'Ahhhh!' echoing through the model horse world with this one - Misty, but as a baby! New colours on beloved (and adorable!) moulds, expanding the family of these real ponies who found their fame through fiction.
Phantom takes her turn with the mould sculpted specially as a portrait of her grown daughter, while we have Misty as a very young foal, in the mould which was sculpted from photos of her own baby, Stormy. Both of them are nicely accurate depictions of the real markings - this is actually the first time Breyer have ever done Misty's quirky kinked face marking anything like correctly! Although it would've been nice to have some shading in the black markings (especially as the real Phantom was genetically smoky black), it doesn't annoy me quite as much in a nice loud pinto pattern, and the appeal of this pair is more their character and cuteness, rather than the paintwork design.
They're definitely on my wishlist!

After the Traditional scale releases, there's a couple of decorator Classics, Cora and Keep The Peace which I'm not going to review cos decorator just isn't my thing and I'd have nothing valid to say about them.

There's not much new for the Stablemate scale range this year, firstly one boxed set which manages to be both decorator and unicorn and therefore doubly not my cup of tea!

Rather more interesting is the new set of blind bag Mystery Horses. They don't seem to have their own page in the 'coming soon' section yet, so I'm just peering at the tiny pictures on the packaging in this image posted on the Breyer blog!
We have...
Peruvian paso in light chestnut (nice, simple but shaded, a colour we haven't had on the mould before)
Icelandic in pale buckskin or dun (very nice, gorgeous paint tone with good shading, my favourite of the whole batch!)
Mini Valegro in either black or very dark brown (another simple colour, but suits the mould, one we've not seen enough of in the regular run line)
Hanoverian in polka dot, uh, I mean, appaloosa (there's cheap quick ways to paint spots which don't turn out like that, surely)
Reiner in grulla frame overo (great, like they combined the Mystery Foal set's colour with the Wild At Heart pattern!)
Loping Quarter Horse in chestnut (lovely deep rich colour, nicely shaded, and suits the mould very well)
Then there's two chases, which I'm not going to get overly excited about in advance cos all chase pieces so far have been decorator paintjobs and they're the kind of thing I'd keep if I got it by accident (as long as it wasn't hideously pink and sparkly!), but certainly won't be chasing.
From the real colours, I'd do without the polkadot quite happily and won't buy it on purpose singly if I don't end up with one by pot luck blind buying, but all the others there are easily nice enough that I'd hunt them down on the opened-bags second-hand market if I didn't end up with them by chance. I'm also pleased to see Mini Valegro in there, as putting a mould in regular run blind bags gets a lot more of them in circulation, meaning I have a better chance of finding them new or used for my body box, and I'd really love to do some more custom painted colours on that one.

So what's my 2022 wishlist? Three Traditional scale releases (Akhal-Teke, Morgan, Misty set), and a new batch of blind bag minis to aim for.
Not bad - it would be too expensive if I ever loved every Trad release in a year, and deeply disappointing if I didn't want any of them, so I'm perfectly satisfied with liking about half cos that gives me enough to look forward to and collect, without taking up too much money or space. And it's always nice to have new Stablemates on offer, even if blind bagging them is rather annoying for anyone who isn't a small child addicted to opening things!

Breyer's Tractor Supply Co Jesse

Another Traditional Breyer to share this week, this one was a special run for the Tractor Supply Company in the USA. Breyer make two or three of these exclusives for the company each year, to be sold only in their stores and not anywhere else or online - they must have some sort of promotional deal between them.

As with all the special runs produced for just one chain (Target, Walmart, JCPenney, probably more I can't think of right now!), it's unfortunate for all of us who live in countries which don't HAVE those shops, cos very few of them ever end up second hand on Ebay over here, and so I haven't got many in my collection.

They're not expensive higher-quality or super-rare releases where they're originally sold, but because the postage and customs import fees to have them sent over would double or triple the cost of the model, they end up way too pricey for me to buy in from the States, and I just keep an eye on UK Ebay and see what crops up. Sometimes, you can catch a bargain and get one of these rarer horses for normal regular run price, or even if you're lucky, cheaper.
That's exactly what happened with this one - he cost me about £5 less than a standard regular run is priced in my country!

I think he's a real stunner, I love the delicate shade of pale palomino with a hint of ashy sootiness in the cool tone and the greyer legs. My own pony goes this colour in winter, so I liked Jesse as soon as I first saw the promo pics, though I never thought I'd get chance to get hold of him here.

Sold as a palomino Quarter Horse, Jesse is a gelding on the 'gaming stock horse' mould - my other in this action sculpt is a mare, so the mould has two versions, letting Breyer make any portrait models match the sex of the real horse. It's a nice athletic build, quite lean but strong, which suits the pose perfectly - he looks like a barrel racer or fit working horse, rather than the plump and muscly show-QH types.

He comes with a good steady base, sculpted to look like a sand arena surface complete with hoofprints, and very strong metal pegs embedded in the hind legs which slot into it firmly, so there's nothing to crack or snap like those horrible clear disc bases used for Huck, Salinero, and Totilas. But when I take my photos I always hide the bases, by pushing the pegs through the 'grass' paper - the very last photo on this post has the base visible, if you want to see.

I've named him Steal My Sunshine, partly cos QHs often have snappy pop-culture names (it's a song title and lyric from one of those one-hit-wonder bands of the 1990s), but also because it's SO hard to catch a bit of sunshine in my garden at this time of year - between the shade of shed, wall, neighbour's roof, and trees, there's about fifteen minutes of daylight which tracks across one side of the lawn and the hedge, so model photography is a great challenge of timing and balancing tricks!

Another mould which looks great from either direction, the sculpt just doesn't have a bad side! I've got him facing this way on my mantelpiece at the moment, and when time comes to find him a shelf gap in the other room with the rest of my collection, it won't matter at all if he fits somewhere facing the other way instead.

All in all, a new addition I'm really pleased to add to my line-up of Breyer quarter horses!

Now, there is one thing I'd like to point out, which doesn't reflect badly on this release, but rather, another on the same mould.
One of the 2020 regular runs was the mare Stingray, who unlike Jesse, is a portrait of a real horse. The thing is, he's much, much closer to getting the colour right, than her own model was!
This is the real Stingray. She's very pale and golden, not at all reddish. It's perhaps even more noticeable in this comparison shot Breyer themselves used in the promotional material and her box packaging.

Here's my Jesse and Stingray together. The pale sooty palomino on the left would've looked perfect for Stingray, if they'd copied her distinctive markings and brand onto that paintjob it would've been a brilliant lookalike.

As it is, I list my own Stingray as a totally different colour (silver bay, to explain the red coat, brownish points, and grey mane and tail), and think she's probably one of Breyer's worst colour-matching fails in recent years. A nice model, yes; a very striking colour on a dynamic and appealing mould, but definitely not like the real horse.

Tales from the Body Box - my first Orlov Trotter

Recently I've been comparing the list of breeds on my website with some of my horse books, and trying to figure out where the notable 'missing' gaps are. One breed I'd somehow managed to never get hold of is the Orlov Trotter, so I decided I needed to create one (though amusingly, this was one of the CollectA releases announced just a few days after my custom was finished and photographed!)

The mould I'd had in mind for this breed ever since it was released in mini plastic form was Breyer's 'Prince Charming' (originally released in porcelain) - the Stablemates version of the mould is a mare, though, so I'm not sure what we're supposed to call it - Princess Charming?

So I sneaked a unicorn version of this mould into my order along with the Icelandic model I already showed here - it's mildly annoying that they don't sell all the newest nicest sculpts without the added horns, but it's easy enough to snip those off and turn them back into horses!

I wanted to paint a dark dappled grey this time, so I found a helpful reference picture of the right breed and colour from a stock photos site (this horse here), and got to work...

She turned out more or less like I had in mind, the dapples could perhaps have gone a little paler but when a paintjob's looking nice enough as it is, it's always rather scary to push my luck too far and risk ruining it with any more layers of paint! But the colour and pose work well together, I think, she's looking like the breed I had in mind and does very nicely for filling that gap in my collection!

I've named her Babochka, which means butterfly in Russian (I really can't remember how I came to know this, I don't study or speak Russian at all - perhaps I learnt it from a song title, or it stuck in my mind from last time I was looking through potential names for a Russian horse breed?!)

It's a really nice little mould, with good slim legs and neat proportions, not too dramatically sculpted but not too simplified or stylised either. The two feet which touch are moulded together, which helps with stability and means they wouldn't easily get warped or misshapen in the manufacturing process - each one should be very steady on it's feet rather than a domino waiting to topple over like some of the other trotting moulds.

I don't know what breed the sculpt was intended to be, in the original larger porcelain form, but I think this mini mare would work well for a lot of light horse breeds - it's one of those which doesn't have strong conformation toward any type in particular, which rules out anything which does have distinctive features or body type, but leaves a multitude of other light breeds or crosses you could happily assign it!
I'd like to paint some more as Orlov Trotters in varying stages of greying out, but I could see her looking nice in many solid or pinto colours, too.

Breyer 2021 Icelandic - Sporður frá Bergi

When the 2021 releases were originally revealed, the one Traditional scale horse I most wanted to get was the pinto Icelandic, Sporður frá Bergi.

Despite being really keen to add him to my collection, I ought to just explain why I ended up waiting a while : back when the new year's models first reached our UK stockists, I'd had a lot of new arrivals in quick succession, and didn't really want to pile more spending immediately on top of what I'd just done!

So I thought I'd leave the 2021s for a bit - after all, they were regular runs, likely to be around for ages and not out of stock, right?

Well, keeping things reliably in stock this year has proved challenging for Breyer retailers worldwide, but especially in this country, when our supply was already slow and patchy - a lot of the time once something's gone, it could be months and months til the possibility of any more coming over, and maybe not even then.

Last week, when I checked my two favourite places to buy Breyers, the first had no Icelandic at all, while the other was down to just a single one left! So I decided it was probably wise to grab that one, and not risk missing out on him if he sold out now, then never came back into stock here before being retired, as has happened with some Breyer releases of the past - even in the years before covid existed and the global shipping problems took hold.

He arrived last week and had his photoshoot in one of the brief spells of sunshine, so here he is!

I really love him, I've already got Svali frá Tjörn (the sooty buckskin regular run) and Elska (the dappled grey special run) on this mould, so I knew in advance to expect it to be so small and chunky and endearing, but there's just something about holding these pony-sized moulds in-hand; they're a tiny heavy-set little chunk with a cute sparky face, much like real Icelandic horses!

His official name is Sporður frá Bergi (try to pronounce the ð as th like in 'the', it's not a d like most places selling him have typed it!), but I've named mine Ratatoskr, after the squirrel messenger from Norse mythology; I think it suits him perfectly!

There's a lot of action in that tölt pose, sculpted at the perfect moment in the stride, the one that would be the best shot when taking pictures of the real thing - the highest point of the forelegs and the furthest stretch of the hindlegs. The flying mane and tail help emphasise that this is a very fast-moving gait, a smooth running walk at the speed of a very brisk trot. If you've never seen Icelandics in action it's well worth a look on Youtube.

It's one of those moulds which looks ok from either direction, because he's moving on a straight line so his head isn't turned away whichever way you face him, but for me this is always the 'other side' because I think the leg position displays better when he's running to our left.

If possible he looks even sweeter from the front! With those big eyes and compact proportions they're a lot like native pony breeds, but Icelandics are always called horses, not ponies.

The coat colour makes him look more flashy than the fairly plain and dark paintwork we saw on the first regular run release, and I always rather like it when they're based on a real horse, cos the markings have that quirky individuality of being copied from something nature created, rather than designed by a human hand. I especially like the two-tone nose!

A horse I'm really glad to have for my collection, and would happily recommend to anyone else who likes models in the bigger scales, or the Icelandic breed.

Tales from the Body Box - CollectA and The Ultimate Horse Book

After a couple of weeks off painting, I'm back!

One of my favourite horse books is the good old Dorling Kindersley 'Ultimate Horse Book' from the 1990s - a precious (and to our family, very expensive!) gift from my grandad, the year I started riding lessons. It was the first time I'd ever seen or heard of most of the horse and pony breeds shown inside, and the photos in there are now so, so familiar, like I learnt them off by heart from all the times I flipped through the pages - they're ingrained in my mind to the point where they're often the first mental image I get when I think of any particular breed I haven't known personally.

So occasionally, when I want to paint a custom model of a breed, I decide to copy not just any random reference photo from the internet, but the exact horse or pony who was photographed as the example for this book.

Here's my first repaint back after my break, CollectA's lovely Norwegian Fjord, and the real pony he's copied from...

You can see he's quite a deep golden colour, a much stronger shade than I'd have gone for if picking a more average example of their famous yellow dun colouration, but I think I did a pretty good job of matching the book pony! I can always do a pale one next time a CollectA Fjord model comes my way, it'd be fun to have a little herd of the different shades of dun they come in!

Here he is in full detail, I enjoyed doing the primitive zebra striping on the legs and need to find some more breeds I can scatter wibbly lines on!

And a 'before and after' shot to compare the original paintwork - the one on the right is my original finish Fjord posing with his repainted pal, proving this is another of my Paint A CollectA The Colour It Was Anyway habit!

I've called him Gyllir, the name of a horse mentioned in the Norse sagas, it means 'golden' so it suits his national heritage and his colour nicely.

Sorry some of these pictures are really dark, I was taking them indoors in a patch of sun by the window cos it's been really rough and windy outside even when the sun's out, and I knew the entire set-up of scenery and horse would end up bouncing all round the garden if I tried for my usual outdoor photography!

You can see his two-tone mane better in these shots, it's a shame the black doesn't show from the side but his haircut isn't sculpted with the longer-in-the-middle trim some real fjords are given, so I couldn't really do anything with paint to make it look that way.

The dorsal stripe was the most nerve-wracking bit of the entire paintjob, as it has to go on in one single steady stoke of the brush, with no wobbles or shakes and no second chances. It's bad enough on the tiny Stablemate scale models, but this was three times further to hold my breath and keep my hand steady!

After finishing my Fjord, I carried on with more ponies from The Ultimate Horse Book, this time both British native breeds, and both 'Mountain & Moorland' breeds from the south of England.

I'll let the book pages do the captioning, although I mostly took these to show the model ponies against their reference photos (because it's rather a novelty to have them in print, the vast majority of my refs are on a computer screen), the title text in the top left is readable even at this size!

Let's meet them up close, firstly, the Exmoor pony...

I absolutely love him, not just as a successful paintjob I'm pleased with, but as an adorable little pony I'll enjoy having in my collection. I know that sounds a bit silly, about a model I painted myself, but he's just so sweet and full of character. The mould as sculpted as a Dartmoor, but I just couldn't resist doing a repaint to this breed I'm such a fan of.

I had a half-exmoor on loan for a few years (his other half was TB, a cross which used to be known as a 'Devon Cob'), so back then I did a lot of reading up on the exmoor ponies, their history, and collected some early 20th century novels telling stories from their life on the moors.

I've named him Harecroft Kestrel, a nature-themed name seemed ideal for a pony so rooted in a natural wild life, and when I noticed a hovering kestrel the morning after finishing the painting session, it just clicked as the perfect choice.

Although real exmoors are a bit wider and more compact in the leg than dartmoors, in miniature scales it doesn't seem too much of a difference in proportion, and I just like this mould better than the more recent sculpt they released as an exmoor stallion, the style has a spirited sparkiness and nicer balance, with the slim legs and sharp contours for the joints and hooves.

Here you can see his brand marking more clearly, copied from the photo example in the book - a star and herd number on the shoulder, then the individual herd's symbol and registered number within that herd on the hindquarters.

Looking at the camera, with that pure exmoor glint in his eye. The old books say 'If you can ride an exmoor, you can ride anything', they're just so opinionated and can be very unpredictable no matter how long they've been in from the moor.

My boy was 14 and written off as 'unrideable' when I took him on loan, and even after spending a while to get his trust and let me on board, he was a challenge. You never knew whether you were going to have a steady plodding day, or some rattling ten-in-a-row bucking fits cos he didn't want to go anticlockwise, mid-air jumps over nothing which landed at 90 degrees to the direction we'd been heading in, putting his head between his knees and tanking off til he stumbled or just plain fell over because he was too busy fighting about not wanting to go the way I suggested. You really do have to out-stubborn an exmoor, and need an old fashioned defensive seat (backward balance, strong legs, grim determination!) to stay on! When he eventually went back to his real owner and was sold on, he ended up with someone just as devoted to helping him carry on improving, and after a rough start while he pushed and tested her, they even went on to compete in some local amateur showjumping, so it worked.

I've done a portrait mini of him on a Stablemate mould before, and as he was half TB this pony mould doesn't even remotely suit being a lookalike of him, so I stuck to making a purebred this time, like my book example.

One of the nicest things about the exmoor colouring is the 'mealy muzzle', said to look like they've had their face in a bucket of oatmeal, with the soft dusty shading through pale tan to grey.

Love the lightly windswept mane and tail, not too ratty and tangled but not too perfectly smoothed either - this way it works equally well as a figure of a tame pony or a semi-feral one.

Slightly different lighting, trying to catch the sun on his coat in the most flattering way.

Now, on to the next pony, the Dartmoor. Dartmoor ponies aren't quite so primitive in type, they've had other breeds mixed in over the years to try to create a slightly more 'quality' riding pony, moving a bit away from the ancient native type without losing the toughness which lets them do well on scruffy pasture, or grow a thick winter coat and live out in all weathers. They tend to be raised in a normal domestic setting rather than loose on the moors, and that upbringing difference is probably why they have a reputation as less wild-minded and easier to ride than exmoors.

I rode one in at the riding school years ago, and he was very sharp and intelligent, and despite a few short battle-of-wills disputes when he first arrived, he was easy to reason with, learnt new things in a flash, and was very loyal and honest once you got him on side. With a rider he didn't like or didn't trust, he could rebel to the point of spinning on the spot or bolting - out on a group hack once I had to chase him down and ride my own horse into his shoulder at a gallop to turn him away from falling in a river ditch with a rider who'd had a crisis of confidence. I told her to get off and swap ponies - my mare carried her home safe and sound, and I rode Mr Difficult Dartmoor all the way back with loose reins in one hand, my feet out of the stirrups, and his nose nearly on the ground, cos he instantly relaxed once he knew he was back with someone he knew and trusted! He ended up being sold to a private owner, and last I heard, ten years on, he was still with her, relaxed and lazy, which meant he was happy.

Of course, my CollectA custom isn't a portrait of this pony, either (I've already done a Peter Stone pony like him), but the one in the Ultimate Horse Book, so here he is...

I tried to get his shading as different to the exmoor as possible, with that high smoothing of gingery belly into dappling, rather than the contrast of chocolately brown and mealy shading on the other breed.

Now, I have to admit, it took two tries to get the colour to a match I was happy with. I'd already thought I'd finished him once, and even took photos on the same day as the exmoor pony Kestrel, but the more I saw him over the next couple of days, the more I realsed I'd not really captured that photo ref properly. Although it didn't strictly matter, cos it wasn't as if this was copying a pony I knew and needed an accurate mini version of a real-life friend, it was still intended as a portrait of the book example, and not looking correct just bothered me.

Here's how he looked to start with, and after adding the golden lift of lighter colour under the belly and around the front legs :

Much better! Sticking with the native-species nature theme, I've called this one Harecroft Roebuck.

Again the flicking sweep of the tail to one side, just as appreciated a second time round. In a way it's a shame they're both bays, as it would've been fun to paint a grey or blond or ginger tail rather than two black ones, but I'm not averse to getting some more of this mould at some point, it's one of my favourites from the whole range and I'd love to have some more colours.

Again, different lighting and angle, trying to show his coat colour as the sun shines on it.

Looking every bit as cheeky, with less shading to play with his face risked looking a bit plain, especially as I didn't have the option of adding in a white face marking for more interest (my usual trick to lift a simple colour, invent some fiddly markings!), but the eyes on CollectA models are so well sculpted in, you can really get a lifelike expression when there's so much 3D detail to work on to.

They look like they're whispering secrets, or maybe plotting - I dread to think what would happen if you combined exmoor aptitude for destructive trouble with dartmoor intelligence!

Exmoor and Dartmoor together - normally I wouldn't paint two bays on the same mould, especially not immediately one after the other like this, but by having the aim of creating two different breeds, there was the challenge of making two ponies the same colour, look as different as possible. And I think it was a success, I'm really pleased with the results. Which one do you like best?