Painted in 2022

Time for my annual recap of custom repaints!

2022 sees less horses than the last couple of years, there were a few longer pauses while I didn't paint any at all, but I've still managed to end up with an impressive total - 55! Let's have a look at them all together...

There's 35 solid colours, 12 pinto, and 7 spotted.

Bay is, just like last year, my commonest colour to paint. I've done two colours for the first time, silver buckskin and dunalino, 

And my first customs of a LOT of different breeds, too, these read like a flick through random pages of a breed book : Haflinger, Nonius, Dole Gudbrandsdal, Sable Island Pony, Connemara, Pottok, Boulonnais, Falabella, Gotland Russ, Black Forest Horse, Cleveland Bay, Friesian, Pony of the Americas, Missouri Fox Trotter, Altér Real, Sorraia, Lokai, Budyonny, Yakut horse, and Sugarbush Draft.

9 of the customs this year are portraits; one pony I own, one character from my writing/drawing, one racecourse 'pony', and six racehorses (one from the flat, five chasers).

Four are Breyer Stablemate moulds I'd never painted before, as well as my first customs on quite a few CollectA sculpts and the WIA criollo, and one large artist resin.

Plenty more left in the body box for next year!

Tales from the Body Box - Two Stablemates, two CollectAs

I'm trying to catch up on posting, so that all my 2022 customs have a '22 date on their blog posts! Here's the last few customs I did a while ago - as you can tell from the background being open country, they had their photoshoot the same day as Red Queen.

First, two racehorse portraits. I don't always paint the winners of the biggest races, but rather my favourites - the horses I like for their character, their looks, their performances - any where I've especially enjoyed following their careers.

This is Frodon, a tough and sparky little horse (his regular jockey describes him as 'such a dude' cos she loves his cool fun attitude so much) who's defied his size and been the underdog who out-performed all predictions, winning some of the most prestigious races in the country with his front-running speed and stamina.

His name is apparently the name for Frodo in the French translation of The Lord of the Rings, though I've no idea why it needed alteration as it's already not a real name in the author's native English either!

He's a good colour to paint, with just enough white markings to make it easy to capture the likeness - when they're plain bay or chestnut it can be harder to make the model look like the real horse, but a few socks and a face marking or two and it's much better! He varies in colour through the year and depending on how recently his coat has been clipped, but here's a fairly similar picture to how I've painted mine.

Potters Corner is another long distance steeplechase horse, another tough stayer who relishes the winter mud conditions and did great things for a small yard, for a trainer with not many horses he was the first stand-out star. He won the Welsh National, but never made the big one - he won the 'virtual' Grand National the year it didn't happen due to Covid lockdown, when a computer programme worked out the most likely winner based on form, stamina, suitability for the track, and previous jumping ability. He's retired now, so he never will get a real run in the race, but he's been given to the stable hand who looked after him and promised a home for life with 'lots of attention and cuddles', which is pretty adorable in a world where horses can easily be passed on and forgotten when they stop winning.

Another interesting colour to paint, he's officially a bay but with a lot of light brown shades in his coat, including the mane and tail which would usually be pure black. You can see a nice picture of him here. And again, I like that he's got plenty of white on, so it's given me plenty to match to the reference photos.

The next two are CollectA customs, but the first also has a racing link. You might recognise him if you're a Breyer collector, as they've also made a portrait of the same horse.

Harley is a spotted draft horse who works on the racetrack where this year's Breeders Cup racing was held. His role is 'ponying', which is accompanying racehorses down to the start, and back again afterwards - we don't have horses doing this job at all in the UK (it's legally allowed in our rules, but you only ever see it in practise when US horses have been flown over for the big meetings - none of our British or European trainers seem to bother!)

For the last couple of years, the Breeders Cup race meeting has been covered by British tv, so we've got the chance to see Harley in action for the first time. He really is a striking-looking animal, huge and sturdy and with such an eye-catching colour, I started wondering if I should buy his official Breyer portrait release after all.

But I'm not keen on the mould - I love the pose, but not the sculpt style - and no matter how good the colour was, or how much I liked the real horse, I didn't think I'd take to the model. So I decided to paint my own, and with no Stablemate mould really looking like him, I went up a scale and looked through the CollectA moulds to choose the one which was the best match.

This is the 'American Cream Draft', but no longer cream coloured! He was a fun one to paint, with plenty of references out there from all angles cos he spends so much time in the public eye. There's plenty of pictures and a full biography of him here.

A couple more pictures, including the other side, cos I often neglect the 'wrong' side when a mould looks better from a certain direction.

His black bits aren't quite jet black, which made him much more interesting to paint - his nose is especially shaded. And he has a big spotted bottom!

And finally, one more CollectA custom, the Yakut horse.

When this model was first announced, I remember saying it's a shame he's not dun, as that's such a distinctive colour for the breed as well as being a bit more interesting than plain grey - and I've seen several other collectors saying the same thing since. Rather than wait for them to re-release it in dun (now they are reissuing moulds in alternate colours, that's at least a possibility to hope for!), I decided to buy a duplicate and make my own dun one.

He's bay dun, with leg barring to help make it clear that he's intended as a dun not a light bay. I'd love to do some different shades as well, maybe a paler bay or buckskin dun, a black dun, and a greying-out dun which would be even paler, I'd happily have a whole herd of these little things!

He looks nice against the blue sky! I've named him Ärčimnǟx, which means strong and energetic in the Yakut language - most of their horses are named with descriptive terms about their colours or characters, and the word for 'dun' was too hard for me to read or say so I picked something else!

Weirdly the other side of him looks more orange in photos, but it must just be the angle of the light cos I used the same pots of paint throughout! I love the attitude of this sculpt, and I think he looks even more expressive with his features painted in more detail. And he does look good in dun, so we were right!

One last shot, it seemed a shame not to make the most of the frosty ground for this horse breed from a very cold climate, here's a bit of local icy road standing in for Siberia.

Breyerfest special runs Mamacita y Chico

I have another Breyerfest release to introduce, and this one's a matching pair!

In 2016 the theme was 'carnival', so all the special run models were Latin American or Iberian breeds. The Andalusian Mare and Foal were sculpted by Brigitte Eberl, we've talked about her work on here before, and I'm a real fan of the style - the horses have a lot of life and character, and there's a rougher texture to the finish on muscles and skin creases, they're not crisp and smooth and stylised like some sculpts. Eberl horses seem to be handsome and naturalistic rather than pretty and idealised, and I rate that highly when picking my favourite moulds!

The mare Mamacita was described as a sooty buckskin, but I think she looks more like a bay. And I'm going to have her as a bay - so she can be an Altér Real rather than an Andalusian! I'm always up for adding a rarer breed to my collection, and it's nice to have another Portuguese breed rather than adding to the loads of Spanish ones I've got already.

Altér Real horses are always bay, but lots of different shades - here's a good picture of a herd where you can see some lighter, some darker, but all very similar looking.
Even though the mould was sculpted as an Andalusian, Altér Real are said to be generally a bit more solid and chunky than the main Portuguese Lusitano bloodlines, and that's because old Andalusian blood was crossed in to undo the influence of some bad cross breeding in the Napoleonic era, which diluted the classic Iberian type toward being a lighter cavalry horse - using the unaltered pure Andalusian helped revert them to their older style. So a model which was sculpted as an Andalusian makes a perfectly good example of an Altér Real, too, as long as it's bay!

I was struggling to catch the light before the sun went too far down (these were taken with the fake grass mat resting on the roof of my mum's car to get high enough, I'd used up too much time on the jumping horse in my previous post, and only had minutes left!) so only got two pictures rather than the usual full photoshoot, but I did at least remember to take one of the 'wrong' side this time!

Here's her matching foal Chico, again described as buckskin in the release text but I think he works fine as a bay - a lot of foals are very much lighter than their adult colour, including having pale points on the legs instead of the jet black they'll grow in as they shed into adult coats. Again, here's a herd photo, of some Altér Real mares and foals this time - those babies at the front look just as pale as my mini one!

He's an alert-looking little chap, and I also feel it's nice to have a foal sculpted as a distinctive breed type, with his Iberian head. Most of the foal moulds are rather generic light riding horse TB/sport-type or stock horses, so they can be paired with lots of different adults, so it's good to see the expense and attention being spent on creating a good Spanish/Portuguese foal, even though they only have one mare he could go with.

I've given them matching pair names, which are also seasonal! They were posted to me on the 21st of December, the winter solstice, so I looked up the Portuguese term for that and it's 'Solstício de inverno' - so I've named the mum Harecroft Solstício, and her baby is Harecroft Inverno.

Breyer Traditional mid-year 2022 - Get Rowdy

Let me start with my apologies for posting several blog updates all at once, but I'm trying to make sure all my arrivals have the right year on their posts, even though I'm days or even weeks behind on getting them uploaded here.

A very beautiful and exciting arrival to introduce, first - one of the 2022 'mid year' releases, although that term is a little bit laughable when they arrive right at the end of the year (or sometimes into the following year) in my country! But this is one I've been looking forward to ever since I first saw it!

His official name is Get Rowdy, and he's a portrait model of a horse who started out as an eventer then switched to hunter classes (which are nothing to do with actual hunting, although we don't have it over here I gather it's more like a combination of showing and showjumping, with judging as well as jumping score counting toward who wins)

The sculpt is a really beautiful and technically impressive one, with really great anatomical correctness in a tricky but dynamic pose, and a realistic art style. I especially like the flick of the tail, and the way the whole thing looks so harmonious and balanced. He was sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn, who did the recent 'Erren' criollo for WIA, although that wasn't a factor in deciding to buy him - I either didn't know at all, or knew once but had completely forgotten, cos I only just now went to find out so I could write the artist in this post.

I don't celebrate christmas but still wanted to give him some sort of seasonal themed name cos of when he arrived, then had an inspired moment during the photoshoot, and realised I already had the perfect name in mind!

There's a big annual horse show in London which is always dressed up all festive, with themed decorations around the jumps, and riders plaiting tinsel into horses manes, and fake snow sprinkled around the arena, and it's always televised - the only time we ever see showjumping competition on a normal free tv channel outside the Olympics.

One of the classes is Puissance, a high-jump contest, and one of the horses who always does well in it is a big pale nearly-white grey with darker grey legs, named Mr Blue Sky. He won again this year (well, it was a draw between the top two who both cleared the same height, but that counts as a win too!), and at the time I'd thought to myself 'It would be nice to name a model after him', cos the name is cool, reminds me of a fun song, and I've always enjoyed watching the real horse.

So now I'm standing in a field and I have in my hand a pale grey horse, in a jumping pose, arriving round christmas time just after this competition, being photographed against a bright blue sky...and yeah, he's got to be my Mr Blue Sky!

I wasn't sure if I preferred the photos with a bit of landscape behind him, or against only sky, so I took a few of each. Of course in real life a horse would only be jumping like this with tack and a rider on, so no photo is ever going to be realistic as such, but from an aesthetic point of view, does he look better with open sky, or a bit of the horizon and field too? I'm still undecided.

One fun thing I could do with a plain-sky picture, though, was edit out the stand so he looks like he's really floating in mid air...

Tales from the Body Box - Harpley Red Queen

Back after nearly a month break from painting - with something very big and precious to share!

Normally, I don't paint many resin models, they're a bit beyond my budget. And I don't paint anything larger than CollectA, as they're too big for me. So a large scale resin? Not something I've ever tackled before!

But recently, one of my long-time friends contacted me with a wonderfully generous offer I couldn't refuse - would I like one of his resin sculptures to paint? No charge, just that he'd really like to see one in colour, and thought my painting style and area of interest would suit the horse in question so well - a historical hunter.

Years ago, we got to know each other not only though the model horse world where we collected the same brand and met at the company's live show, but also a shared interest in horsey art and writing online - we often drew things for the same community events, and got to know each other's fictional horse and rider characters. So with the resin in question being a portrayal of a hunter from 'my' era, and me being known for drawing historical hunters, it was a perfect match.

I just had to be brave and scale up my painting by quite a lot, as this mare is the size of a small Traditional scale Breyer (those are 1:9 scale, she'd be a little less) You can see her on the official shop page here.

I waited til Tomas had seen and had chance to talk about the photos of the finished horse before posting her here, as it seemed a bit rude to go showing other people before her creator got 'first look'. And then I wanted to hang on til I'd got some sunnier photos cos I wasn't too happy with the first batch. And then I just ran out of mental energy and couldn't make myself catch up on blogging, so what with one thing and another she's waited a little longer than she should've. But now it's time to introduce her : meet Red Queen!

Red Queen is one of the fictional horses I made up a few years ago - there used to be regular community art events where lots of people drew their horses doing the same thing, for sharing together on a certain deadline - maybe showing, or jumping, or in this case, hunting. The other artists taking part drew modern scenes, so a lot of events I couldn't take part in. But I could get away with virtually sending my historical characters along to hunt meets, as hunting hasn't changed very much over the generations (no foxes now, but I never did put foxes or hounds in my pictures anyway), so they didn't look out of place at all.

The drawn version was a rather chunkier horse than the resin, which is very long and lean-legged, but it doesn't matter too much - it's more the colour, the markings, and the personality of the horse which I'm translating across to 3D form.

Here she is the first time I drew her, making on her first appearance on the hunting field - Aubrey is a hopelessly ineffective rider, but doesn't like to admit weakness, and will insist on hiring a horse which is far too much for him to handle, for the sake of trying to look good on something impressive. Usually they sneak along slowly at the back for a bit, then take a detour to the pub, where he'll tie the horse up outside and spend the rest of the day seeing how much he can drink. Sometimes he doesn't even remember to return the horse, and most of the dealers hiring them out have started to refuse him.

Red Queen is far too keen on bombing along toward the front of the field to go steady or wander off part way through - she's really going for it, and Aubrey's hanging on for dear life - but for how long can he stay in the saddle?

Not for long, it turns out!
Red Queen's still jumping with enthusiasm, but she's lost her passenger somewhere along the way. Val, in the green coat, is hunt staff and planning on catching the loose horse he's spotted as soon as they move onto level ground. Iris, on the chestnut horse, is thinking it looks quite the powerful jumper, with attitude and bravery, and might go and try it out another day, if the dealer's open to selling rather than hiring.

And here she is with Iris on their first hunt after the sale went through. With a more effective rider and a change of tack, Red Queen is much more under control and enjoying her job.

Now, on to the creation of her model counterpart. I took some progress stages to show Tomas the way the paintjob developed, and thought they might be of interest here too.

And then a photoshoot all finished -

But I was never happy with these pictures, cos the light in my garden is so terrible at this time of year, with the sun low near the horizon it barely clears the roof and wall, what does reach in is streaked with tree shadows, and the models themselves cast a shadow on the backdrop if it's held at anything but this awkward angle, which doesn't flatter the horse well.

So, finally fed up with not being able to take pictures of any of my other recent arrivals or repaints, I convinced my mum to drive me and a box of towel-wrapped model horses into the open landscape outside the village, so I could take photos without the problem of catching small patches of light, or shadows on backgrounds!
Red Queen went along too, to see if I could get some nicer pictures than first time round.

And here she is, looking a lot brighter against a beautiful blue sky! It was -4 so the ground was icy under foot (you can see the frozen stripes in the ditch water), I held her up with one hand and the camera in the other and tried not to blur the shots by shivering, or breathe condensation into the scene like fog!

The winter scenery is a bit bleak and grim round here, I don't live in a pretty landscape, but it does look quite like some of the backgrounds I used to draw for my hunting scenes, I even had a few ditches to play with. Imagine how good this would look with tack and rider as a performance photo!

In the end, painting a much bigger horse wasn't too scary, but I think it helped that I was so grateful for the gift, and determined to do justice to the sculptor's trust in my ability, which made me motivated to hurry along and get her painted up. I couldn't have left this one gathering dust for ten years like the others! I love her already.

CollectA 2022 and some older models

I'm still trying to catch up on recent arrivals, I've got very behind on blogging arrivals and reviews - I've had not one but two parcels of CollectA since I last shared photos of my arrivals, so I'm combining them into one big post. 

Let's start with the newest releases....

Oryol mare

Much better known as the Orlov Trotter, named after their developer Count Alexei Orlov, this is a famous breed but not a common one outside its native homeland, and it's fairly rare to see in model form, too. With nothing yet from Breyer, the market leader in the model horse world, we have to turn to the more toy-type brands : Mojo Fun have released their Orlov Trotter sculpt in two different shades of grey, and now CollectA bring us a brand new one.

Sculpted in, quite logically, a trotting pose - but it's a rather relaxed-looking jog, rather than the high speed trot which the breed is capable of. This could be for stability reasons - a pose at full extension can cause the dreaded issues with model horses : wobbling, or warping of the limbs, both of which often end with tipping over entirely. This trot has enough movement to look energetic, without causing actual movement on your shelves!

The dapples on this model aren't quite so successful as those on the beautiful Hanoverian released earlier in the year, I think they come across more like messy paint-brush stipples compared to his neatly shaped and carefully arranged blobs of paler grey. But although they look hand-painted, they are definitely an applied transfer print, it hasn't been left up to the factory artists to dot the speckles on individually.

The mane and tail are given a bit of depth with a graduated fade to grey down the tail, and a blondeness sprayed on both so they don't look starkly white but more realistic, like the horse is carrying a little bit of natural dirt in the hair.

The other side, where perhaps the dapples are a bit better, being more spread out and with less obvious gaps around them!

All in all, it's a nice enough model, of a breed I'm glad to see, slightly let down by the dappling design.

American Saddlebred stallion

The American Saddlebred is a breed which we already have abundance of in the model world. Multiple brands, with multiple moulds each, often in more than one scale already. But they've been a notable gap in CollectA's catalogue for all this time - it's rather baffling that they've taken so long to get round to adding one to their range!

And here he is! A stallion in liver chestnut (the mane and tail are a very dark brown, not black), with nicely done crisp-edged markings, he's quite handsome and has the right showring stance and attitude to suit his breed.

But he's sadly let down by CollectA's tendancy to very chunky legs these days. Saddlebreds in real life are very fine-boned and light; an impression of elegance and height with their long slender limbs. Giving him such solid thickness, lacking definition between the joints and what should be narrow shins and pasterns, makes it look like he's wearing legs from a much fatter horse or much heavier breed!

As with the Hackney and Marwari from previous batches, which should have been spindly-legged lightweights but ended up heavy-legged, it really does detract from the overall accuracy of the model when they don't have the 'typey' conformation model collectors are looking for.

Despite the legs, the general proportions of the horse are ok - the shoulders and quarters are where they should be, the neck is the right length and the right angle, the head is very nicely put together and has a nice expression. This is where CollectA do excel when compared to the more widely available Schleich horses, and why they're still the best of these toy-type brands : even when the fat legs are taken into consideration, they're still more accurate and visually appealing than their main competitor.

I'm not sure why they went for a fairly bland coat colour, when Saddlebreds are one of the most colourful breeds in the world; with so, so many dilutes and pinto patterns to choose from, who really thought a dark-maned chestnut was the most exciting option?

But still, it's satisfying to tick such a popular breed off the list. Although some collectors don't like it when a common breed is made again, I think of it in a different way, and like to see each brand expanding their catalogue and compiling a comprehensive range, regardless of whether anyone else 'got there first'.

Noriker mare

Just one draft horse breed from CollectA this year, the Noriker from Austria - but we get two, cos they've released a mare and her matching foal. Frustratingly, the foal wasn't in stock the day I ordered my adult horses, then the very next day it popped up as in stock after all, so it had to follow separately in a little parcel all alone, poor thing!

CollectA's draft horses are blessed indeed, as the chunky legs which are such an issue with light breeds blend perfectly into the sculpt - they're meant to be this thick! The faces, too, are a delight, and it's remarkable how many times the same person can form a handsome roman nosed heavy horse head without it becoming repetitive and formulaic : every single one looks unique and this gives the models their individuality and a whole lot of character. Where one is stern, another looks kind; where one is alert and sharp, another is so placid she's almost ready for a nap. This Noriker has a bright and cheerful look, and will pair well for posing with her foal.

A breed which comes in several coat colours, it's a bit of a pity they didn't go for the famous leopard-spotted pattern, as there's not many chances for a big spotty draft horse, and this would've been ideal. Perhaps something to hope for as a future release - now we've had extra colour options on the Icelandic, Appaloosa, Arabian, and Hanoverian it's seeming a little more likely that any one mould may return with a second (or third, or fourth!) colour some time.

But chestnut is perfectly ok, and I like that they went for a very different version than their Belgian mare, using a spray-shaded coat and much blonder mane this time.

Noriker Foal

I'm not sure how CollectA decide which breeds should be issued with matching foals - it's not just automatic when they've chosen to make the adult example a mare, as many of them aren't given foals, while some of the breeds which do have a foal available are represented by a stallion. But it's always nice when they bring out a new matching baby, and even more so when it's a draft breed for a change!

Much like the matching mum, this chunky little one is just right for the breed, with stocky legs and a solid draft build, even at this early age. The colouring's done well, too, remembering that foals' first fluffy coats are often much paler shades than their adult colour will be.

Of course, the best thing about buying family groups or pairs is posing them together for cute pictures - here's a little selection from their photoshoot (as with all images on my blog, click them to see a larger copy)

Paint Horse stallion

I've saved my favourite in this batch for last, the stunning Paint Horse stallion!

As with the Arabian Mare in liver chestnut (see my other CollectA 2022 review here), I had my doubts about the honesty of the catalogue image for this one. It just seemed too good to be true, like they'd photographed a one-of-a-kind artist's proof model with a high-quality finish but then the production models would turn out to be a simplified let-down lacking the added level of detail. But, just like the Arabian, I was pleasantly surprised to find I'd got a model in my hand which was every bit as good as the unspoken 'promise' of the promotional picture!

With his bay colour nicely shaded and a super-realistic fiddly-outlined pinto pattern, this has got to be one of the best renditions of this two-tone coat ever done in the world of toy-type small plastic models. Where stencilled or airbrushed markings often leave a smudged or blurry edge (and peel-off masking is only used on harder plastic like Breyer models) this application by decal/transfer of a white layer over the top of the sprayed base colour leaves a perfect crisp edge, and means every model will have an identical realistic outline to the patches.

He also has a spectacular level of detail for a mass produced regular run toy : eye colour and pupils, grey skin smudged carefully around the mouth and nostril, and within the pinking where his marking reaches his muzzle, a couple of dark spots on the upper lip. This is the sort of effort you expect to see on custom repaints, not factory finish figures!

Here's the reverse of his pinto pattern, just as well designed as the display side.

Another nice touch is the fact the socks are crisp markings too, when it's easier and cheaper to do a fade-out that's often what happens, so it's great to see CollectA stepping up the majority of their paintwork decisions this year.

Although he's another re-used mould, it isn't quite a repeated breed in a new colour, as this stallion was originally sculpted as an Appaloosa and now represents a Paint Horse. So that's one more to tick off the list of breeds available from the brand, and one I can wholeheartedly recommend!

And now, the second boxful : some older models I ordered when there was a discount offer on BigJigs Toys, the site I always buy my CollectA from now - colours I'd missed out the first time round.

The pinto Friesian cross, variously spelt as Barok or Baroque Pinto depending on how the name's translated. I didn't get him at the time cos I'd already decided to go for the plain black purebred, and thought there was no need to get the one with a bit of white painted on as well! And while it still does look like the Friesian with a bit of white on, he's quite a handsome model in his own right, and I'm glad I've gone back through to fill in some of the gaps in my CollectA collection. I've given him the name Hadriaan.

Several years after the stallion, a matching foal was released, and of course not owning the father I didn't get the colt either. But I couldn't resist any longer, he looks so smart and proud of himself! I've named this one Hendrikus.

Of course, the best thing to do with matching pairs, is family photos...

The next addition was done a bit inside out! BigJigs do free postage if you spend over £40 - the only thing is, four adult-horse sized models comes to just under that limit, by a few pennies - but a foal-sized model doesn't cost much more than the shipping fee would be, so my logic is always may as well have a foal rather than pay postage, and I add one on to my order, Only last time, there weren't any foals left which I already owned the matching mums or dads for, so I had to buy a random one without anyone to adopt her when she got here, poor thing!

This is Spider, the grulla Mustang filly, and you can tell she was from the earlier batch of my additions cos she's got a whole different photo set up here - and I forgot to take her out on the trip to find a bit of sunny open country, oops!

So when I was making up my most recent order, of course what I had to do was make sure I ordered the matching mare in grulla to re-unite the family.

I've named her Scorpion, so they share a theme, but as I said I forgot to take the foal along for this winter expedition to get some sunshine outside of my shaded garden, so there's no pictures of them together, either. But they're standing side by side on a pile of books here, while they await some shelf space.