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!
I'm also a member of the 'paint everything bay pinto club, ahaha!
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of gaited breeds either, but this one's an absolute beaut!
I'm going to try flaxen liver chestnut next, that should have enough contrast between body colour, white marking, and blonde mane/tail, so it'll work in a similar way to the good old bay pinto favourite
DeleteFunny how we can like models of a breed while not being fond of the real thing, somehow they look fine in plastic form - I do avoid the big-lick style TWHs and only buy the moulds which look flat shod, though!