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 This is the Andalusian from the set as he was originally made - his sculpt will be very familiar to Stablemate fans, as it was shrunk down and re-used as a new release in plastic form a few years later!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.