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.