Tales from the Body Box - Scarlett O'Hara

This week's custom model is my first Peter Stone Pebbles repaint. Pebbles are 1/16th scale, which puts them a little bit larger than CollectA horses, but not nearly as big as Breyer Classics - around 4- 5 inches to the ears, depending on the breed and pose.

Pebbles haven't been sold in my country for a really long time, but that's ok because some of the bodies in my box have been there a really long time, and the other day I found the Saddlebred mares I'd bought then set aside for being too big when I was only painting minis, then promptly forgot all about when I wasn't painting at all. I decided it was time to tackle at least one of them this weekend!

Yes, I do like painting everything bay pinto!
Click any of my photos to see them full size, I don't like to overwhelm the blog pages with huge images.

And here's the other side. I think this way round with the mane showing is generally the display side with this sculpt, but I prefer how her patches turned out on the 'wrong' side (I was making them up as I went along, as that's so much easier than copying a reference!), so I don't really know which is the best way round for this one!

I've named her Scarlett O'Hara, after the character in Gone With the Wind - I'm not actually a fan of the film and I've never read the book, but it seemed the perfect choice because it combines names from two existing Saddlebred models in my collection : my first ever buy in this mould I named Scarlet Charlotte, and one of my recent Stablemate customs I called Southern Belle, so this name kind of pulls together the red idea and the historical/regional theme.
Real-horse people often give successive generations names which draw from one parent's side or another, or ideally mix both, so I like to play with similar ideas when naming my model ones.

I didn't stop at the painting, though - you may have already spotted the coloured braids in her mane and forelock (traditional show turnout for these gaited American breeds), and being quite a bit bigger than my usual scale, I was able to make her a bridle, too!

Saddlebreds are often photographed being held by a handler off-camera, with the reins disappearing away to one side, so I thought I'd do the same - though there's not a little 16th-scale figure holding them, but my own hand carefully trying to avoid casting an unrealistically huge shadow across the horse!

The bridle here is a double one, copied from photos - they always seem to have enormously wide browbands, almost always of patent leather, and usually red, no matter what colour the horse or the mane braids. Red seems to be the fashion, rather than co-ordination or picking something to compliment the coat colour, so red it had to be!

The bridle took longer to make than the horse took to paint, it's all carefully skinned fake leather with the backing peeled off to achieve the fineness of the leather used in real life - anything thicker would look bulky and out of scale.

Although I couldn't say I'm a particular fan of gaited horses, having never even seen one in real life, I do like models of them, with their dramatic poses and showy presence. Saddlebreds are famously referred to as 'the peacocks of the show ring', and look particularly striking when they're one of the wide range of flashy colours, so they're always fun to paint, too!

Showing her face markings a little better, a quirky blaze and one eye partly blue - this also captures her proud and showy attitude really well!

Breyer Buckeye, the dressage mule

Most of the new additions to my collection lately have been filed under the Tales from the Body Box category, as they're newly finished customs rather than arrivals, but a little while ago my mum (having discovered online shopping, and particularly the joys of second hand stuff on Ebay!) offered to buy a model for my birthday.

It couldn't be a surprise, as she has no idea which ones I've got already or which were on my wishlist, but we browsed together so the choice could be one we both liked, and we settled on this lovely wildly-patterned spotted mule by Breyer.

His official name is Buckeye, and he was released a couple of years ago as a portrait of a real mule, who competes in dressage and with that flashy colour, gets attention wherever he goes. Seriously, a Google image search on 'buckeye dressage mule' supplies some amazing photos - he's got great paces, and he can't half jump!

The other side, which was harder to photograph cos I only had a very narrow sliver of sunlight to catch between the trees (and it's been raining every day since my birthday on thursday, so this was my first chance to get him out there in the sun at all!)

This sculpt is from the 1990s, a little rough round the edges compared to more recent Breyer models, but somehow on a mule it looks part of his charm, rather than a disappointing lack of polish as it would on a horse model. I have the previous spotted mule they made, too, but he's a very different colour and paintwork style, so they'll look great together on the shelf, rather than too similar to need both.

Look at those lonnnng ears! I've only ever met mules in passing, it's donkeys I've worked with, so I'm not really up on breeds or types, and have no idea about the genetics of their colouring when they're getting colours from two different species, so I need to read up a bit about that!

His masked markings are really nicely done, sometimes spots or intricate pinto patterns end up coming out flawed or smudged, but that's another advantage of buying second hand - you can be sure you're getting a really nice one with no quality control issues!

I don't have many mules in my collection, so he makes a very welcome addition to the Harecroft herd.

Tales from the Body Box - WIA and CollectA

Some ideas for painting models roll around my mind for a lot longer than others. Back when I painted my first two WIA Gustav customs, I mentioned that I'd managed to get my hands on a couple more duplicate copies to plot new colours for. This week, about a year later, I got round to making one of these plans happen!

Meet Harecroft Rasmus, my first ever Jutland custom! 

I've always thought this mould would look good in a flaxen chestnut, and had a couple of nice reference photos picked out from my horse breed books. Although my dash of black in the mix - just to dull the paint less gingery - sent him far darker than I intended, I kind of liked the way his colour was going, and carried on with the more liver chestnut tones. Chestnut Jutlands vary in shade, some very sandy and pale, others even darker than mine turned out, so the accidental wandering off plan was fine, really!

 

Gustav never was released as any one particular breed, but a lot of the continental European drafters share a similar type, and he makes a perfectly respectable example of the Jutland breed : a compact broad build, deep chest and neck, convex profile, short stocky legs, and medium feathering - more there than the lightly tufted heels of, say, a Percheron or Belgian, but nowhere near the length of hair for a Shire or Clydesdale.

Of course, this excellent sculpt by Brigitte Eberl has so much personality and presence, you get the impression of a noble stallion in his proud pose, but with a calm attitude and gentle eye - the kind of horse who'd be easy to handle.

My reference photo was a little more dappled, but as always I got to a point where it looked ok, and thought I better stop before I ruined it! He certainly looks content with his new coat of colour, after a year spent in the body box.

There's still one more of this plastic mini Gustav in my body box, and I do have a colour in mind, but it's a much more daunting one than Rasmus ended up with, so who knows how much longer it'll take me to work myself up toward tackling him!

Having ticked one long-considered custom idea off my mental to-paint list, it was time to be brave and do another, one I've been putting off for almost as many months!

Another from a small bargain bundle of scuffed and dusty CollectA models I got on ebay, this time the mustang foal. Although I chose a spotted paintjob, I'll keep her as a mustang, rather than changing breed to appaloosa - her colour reminds me of one of my Stablemate customs, here.

You can't really see, but I went for a dun rather than a sooty buckskin this time. She does have a dorsal stripe, and a little bit of leg barring, but like most baby colours her points haven't fully developed yet - her dark legs would fade in gradually as she got older. I might go back and edit the tail colour a little bit more, though; I'd given it brown edges, but they don't stand out much at all in the pictures, so I think there needs to be a highlight of paler brown to bring out the contrast a bit more.

This is one of my favourite CollectA foal moulds, so I'm really glad that was the one I happened to get in my second hand batch - the pose is just so sweet and full of energy despite the standing pose, with the tucked head and flippy little short tail.

I'm definitely starting to feel more comfortable with these larger scale models, though confident would be pushing it - every paintjob still feels like a bit of a panicky rush to get past the possible disaster without ruining it entirely!

Tales from the Body Box - hairy heavy horses

Over the last week, I picked up a few different horses from my box of blank, duplicate, or damaged bodies, and it was only as I went to photograph them that I realised I've done three heavy horse types in a row!

First, another from the selection of unpainted resins gathering dust. And yet another I bought a long time ago, as part of the International Blessed Broodmares Project. 

'Crusher' was a large Traditional scale resin by Kitty Cantrell, sculpted as a Norman cob he was given a hogged mane and docked tail, with relatively clean limbs. After his initial release came a mini version, at Pebbles/Littlebit scale, and then the original sculptor reworked the mini to add a lot more hair, naming this new-look edition the 'Miss Cheryl Lee' resin, and releasing it specially for TIBBP. 

I got my copy as part of the charity fundraiser, and set her aside til I felt ready to paint something bigger than Stablemate scale - she'd done her bit to help with money for the horse rescue, it didn't matter how long it took me to get her painted, right? At the time, I thought it might be a few weeks, a couple of months, perhaps.

But creativity is fragile and flighty, and my painting deserted me. 

A couple of years went by. I put the resins somewhere safe so they wouldn't get damaged while they waited. For a few more years.

When eventually I dabbled in painting Stablemates again, I didn't approach anything bigger.

Time passed, dust settled, I forgot what horses I'd even got there, waiting for their paintwork.

It wasn't til last year that I finally plucked up the courage to start painting larger resins again, and started rummaging through the selection I'd got set safely aside, meeting these old familiar unpainted faces again, and some welcome surprises - Oh, I'd forgotten buying you!, and I didn't even know I ever had you!

I picked up the blank white Cheryl, and remembered her being a TIBBP charity edition. I remembered all those poor but lucky PMU horses the model community raised money to save and rehome. I remembered the colour I'd had in mind for my mare. And finally I'm ready to make it happen.

Here she is, all done! This is the colour I'd had planned for her all along, a dark chestnut tobiano pinto, with a two-tone mane, white face, and 'eyeliner' eye. She's turned out exactly as I'd imagined, which perhaps means I waited til exactly the right time to tackle her, when my painting's going well enough to control the results reasonably well, to be able to match my mental image!

The feathering on her legs has a lot of action, swinging in sync with her movement. I love the way her mane and forelock curl loosely without being ringlets, and the way a big wave of hair folds back on itself down her neck; I gave her an extra streak of chestnut in there to have the colours cross. 

 

I haven't thought of a name for her yet, but I'll be showing her as a traditional cob - nothing to do with the word Traditional in model scales, but simply the British (real horse!) show-ring term for what Americans call 'vanners'. She looks a very confident and forward-going character, and suits her flashy colour - if I did performance she'd look great in a cart!

The next body I picked up was a G2 Clydesdale, one which I'd already given an extended tail and slightly more roman nose - some leftover mixed milliput from another custom, I had to use it up on something!

His colour and markings are based on a shire I saw at a show a long time ago, way back when I had a film camera not digital so my reference was a print from my own 1990s photo album. I didn't quite get the coat colour the right shade, but it still looks fine, like it went this way on purpose! I always enjoy how this mould can be carefully balanced on two feet for photos, although I tip them down onto three toes for extra stability on my shelf display afterwards.

You can see the markings better in this shot, the shine on the previous picture hides the three little detached spots of sabino white on the flank and quarters. This one's going to be called Olympus, I wanted to give that name to a custom which was painted during the Tokyo Olympic Games and it suits him best out of the relevant batch!

The final heavy horse is another body I've had a very long time, one of the Stone Chips from way back when they were being produced as regular runs by Schylling. I ordered five at the time - one to keep for my OF collection, and the rest to paint. But only two got their new coats of colour, while the second pair got lost, tucked with a few Stablemates into a box of craft supplies, until they resurfaced earlier this year. Another Oh, I'd forgotten I had these! moment of pleasant surprise.

I hadn't any particular colour plans for the Chips Drafters, so for this first boy I just went with an old favourite coat colour, a shaded dark bay. I know it's a bit predictable, but why not pick a colour I know I can do a decent job of, always enjoy painting, and really suits the mould! 

His markings are deliberately very similar to the OF colour underneath - I find it oddly amusing to do these 'this is how I'd have painted it' interpretations of original paintjobs, taking the time to add more shading and detailing than factory production allows.

The four long socks look very bright white, and for a while I thought about toning them down with a bit of cream and beige, but real shires have their legs shampooed and treated with chalk and white sawdust for a dazzling bright look in the show ring, so I left them as they were.

This is such a great little mould, very alert and proud looking, though I do always show mine as 2-year-old colts rather than adults, as they're rather too leggy and lacking in weight and bulk for a mature stallion. I also added a bit more foot on each back leg, as they have unfeasibly upright pasterns without altering that angle to the ground! 

And here's one confession : I had added a full-length tail dock below his little braided bun, as horses over here are never surgically docked, but it crumbled while I was painting and I couldn't reassemble the bits neatly enough to glue it back on. So I owe him the bottom half of his tail back at some point - luckily it doesn't touch or overlap his body colour, I can easily replace the extension later without spoiling his paintwork.

Tales from the Body Box - At the Olympics

Over the last few days, I've been having a lot of late nights to catch as much of the Tokyo Olympic eventing as possible.

This is the one horsey sport I follow in person, before Covid I was going to watch about six or seven national or international competitions each year. So last week, I dug back through my photo folders, to see if I have any shots of the British team members and their selected horses in action. 

These pairs will go down in history, part of the long line of Olympians who represented their country, and I feel lucky to have been there at so many events, to have seen and photographed each of them.

Click any picture to see it full size, I've shrunk them here to suit the blog page layout.

Here's Tom McEwen and Toledo de Kerser, taking a drop fence down toward the water at Burghley 2017.

Unfortunately this is the only time I've seen them - I sat here with each horse's FEI record on screen and scrolled through to pick out every event I knew I was at, and most of the time I just missed this pair, either by being there on the wrong day for their class, or they withdrew before XC. So although I know I've seen Tom compete many times with other horses, this is the only time I've seen Toledo.

Another horse and rider combination who I've seen just the once - Laura Collett and London 52, on course to come second in Burnham Market's 4* section. By pure co-incidence, I seem to go to plenty of events Laura doesn't ever enter, and she competes at a lot of courses which are far too far for me to travel to. Thank goodness for this one (very long, very cold!) day in 2019, otherwise I wouldn't have the full team set!

The final team member is Oliver Townend, with Ballaghmor Class - a horse I've seen rather more of over the years. I've picked out one or two of the best pictures from each time I've watched him compete.
 

Here's the earliest photo I've got, a bit of a 'before they were famous' appearance at a 2* in 2016 - he had a lot less fleabite-speckles, and a darker mane.

The day they came 3rd in Rockingham's Open Intermediate section 2017, and on their way to winning the 4* at Burnham Market 2019.

Winners of Burghley Horse Trials, 2017 - including one of the luckiest shots I got, catching the pair in close-up as they came galloping back past me after the leaf pit!

On their way toward second place at Burghley the following year. Getting anywhere near the front of the crowd around the water jump takes a lot of effort, but the results are worth it - look at that splash!

And a couple of shots from their Burghley third place in 2019. I hadn't intended to find the same pair at the Trout Hatchery water complex two years in a row, oops!

Of course, all this eventing on tv got me inspired to paint a custom model.

The logical thing to do would be wait til the final round's jumping gave us the individual gold medallist, and then paint whoever that turned out to be. Or, if you prefer a bit of national bias, then go for the highest placed British horse. But because I've seen Ballaghmor Class so many more times than the others in the team, or even any competing at these games for another nation, he was the one which I was the most keen to paint in miniature. And I'd got the ideal Stablemate scale body in the box...

Here he is with the base coat of grey, before the speckles went in. I've trimmed the mane shorter and a bit thinned-down by filing chunks out of the long solid curve, and took away some length and thickness from the tail, too.

And here he is all finished! 

His lovely bay speckling was quite nerve-wracking to flick on with a thumb across a toothbrush, as you have to dilute the paint to make it spray finely enough, but thin watery wet paint will blob together making the flecks look big and too 'painty'. So I layered it on thinly and with plenty of drying time in between, til I'd got to the point where it looked dark enough to give the right impression of heavy speckling, but without overdoing it so he ended up more pink than grey!

I think this mould is probably the best choice for him, the dressage-style warmblood moulds would be fine as eventers are necessarily great all-rounders, but I've never watched his dressage in person - I catch him in action as he comes flying by on the XC!

It's a shame he didn't go on and take individual gold to further justify painting him rather than the eventual winner, but being part of that team gold (as well as winning Burghley and Kentucky) is more than good enough to thoroughly deserve a portrait in my collection, especially after following his career for so long!