Tales from the Body Box - Portrait of the Pony

A very special introduction today, she deserves a post all to herself! Out of all existing Stablemate moulds, I think the Mini Connemara Pony is the best match for my own horse, so I'd set one aside from my recent parcel, and now I've painted her up.

Here's a couple of pictures of the real one, first - her colour changes from reddish in winter, then darker brown while she sheds, and ends up quite sandy gingery in the summer, so I've had to pick out a selection of older shots which match the colour variation I painted!

This horse is my best mate, not just an animal but a great friend too. She arrived at the yard as a foal, was put in with my shetland pony for company, and I was asked to provide a bit of care and education while she grew up - the owner's intention was to sell her a couple of years later, when she was ready to start bringing on. But by then she'd clearly decided she was my horse, we'd palled up and she trusted me, played with me, and followed me everywhere like a pet, so I bought her so she could stay.

As many of you will already know, her name is Foal, even though she's ten soon and 'foal' is the term for a horse under the age of one year - it dates back to when she was new and we all just referred to her as 'The Foal', and it stuck.

From when I was training her to ride, looking actually tame and reasonably sensible for once! We're both retired from that now, and I just hang out with her in the field for a couple of hours in winter, much longer in summer.

Fluffy creature! She's a cross between two British native breeds, with a New Forest Pony father and a Welsh Cob mother - in looks and build she very much resembles her New Forest half, but her mind is very 'Welshie' : opinionated, highly strung, playful, clever, protective, and stubborn.

And here's the mini version...

Because she's such a playful, bouncy horse, this mould suits her surprisingly well. I tend to like it most as feral breeds (like the Sable Island Horse Breyer released on the large version), but I've seen her doing this sort of dramatic flailing on a regular basis, often when she's just got up from a particularly good wriggly roll!

She's the wild-type bay, which means her legs aren't fully black - her knees and hocks are chocolatey brown, her fetlocks are black, and the front legs have patches of creamy blonde between the two. She's also got gingery highlights in her mane and tail, so I didn't paint in the mane strands like I would usually on a mould where the hair's sculpted flat against the neck and shoulder, but let it fade out as if the hair's browner toward the tips.

She's got a little thumb-smudge of white on her forehead in real life, which I added in with a tiny brush for her miniature self.

The mould isn't strictly supposed to stand up in a half-rearing pose like this (you can tell from the awkward angle of the foot furthest from the camera), but it looks fun to vary the photos a little bit.

This shot, angled to obscure the fact that far-side foot isn't flat on the floor, looks more convincing!

I really like how she turned out, not purely cos it's satisfying to finish a custom neatly and nicely and match a colour accurately, but it's just lovely to have an adult portrait of her for my Stablemates collection! Last time I painted one, I used the scratching foal mould, but she hasn't been that size for a very long time now, so she deserved a grown up model as well. I'll find the foal picture....

There! The two models haven't 'met' yet, I'll have to take a picture of her Stablemate selves standing together. I told the real one this morning I'd been painting her again, but she was more interested in trying to get my pocket buttons in her mouth!

Finally, something I noticed while setting up my pictures...

Laying down, the mould looks like it's having a roll!

Here's the real one - she really does love rolling on her back and both sides, one of her nicknames is 'Rolly-Foaly' (and the farmer who brings her hay bales thinks her name is actually 'Rolly' and never calls her anything else!)

Good job I painted the underneath pretty well, I admit I don't usually do much detailing or referencing with the underside of models, but because this one was a portrait I made sure I copied her shading all over, so she even looks accurate in this roll pose!

Tales from the Body Box - A tour of Europe

I've already got on with the next batch of projects from my wishlist - to paint some breeds I've never done before.

First off, a Haflinger, a very pretty Austrian breed which I've always known about and liked, but somehow never got round to painting myself - though I did have a few original finish examples in my herd.

In real life they're quite a small breed, either a large pony or a small horse depending which side of 14.2hh they happen to be, so I chose the Highland Pony mould as the closest match for scale, build, and looks. They both have that cute, friendly, alert little face! I did carve away some of the leg feathering, and filled the profile a little, but other than that it's a pretty good resemblance already.

And here she is! It was quite an odd colour to paint, I'm used to doing mostly darker coats with various shades of orange, red, brown, and black, so this time it was all the paint colours I usually only use for highlights and blonde hair!

Their shade of chestnut does vary, with some being quite tan-coloured while others are nearly cream - I went toward the lighter end this time thinking that if I ever paint another, I could go darker, and that would give the maximum variation, rather than if I went for the exact middle average shade first time.

I haven't picked a name for her yet, my usual tactic with horses from countries I know little about is to look up some real pedigrees of the right breed and choose a name from there, that way I'm sure to get one which is the right language and an appropriate kind of thing people would call a horse there!

Her background is a little bit of genuine Austria, a souvenir calendar from the 1970s which my grandparents found when they were clearing out to move home about 10 years ago - I remember saving it from the bin incase the landscapey pictures ever came in handy as photo backgrounds, and now eventually have a horse to suit it!

I gave her a little face stripe and pink nose, most Haflingers seem to have some white on the head, and it can be anything from a small star to a wide blaze.

I'm really pleased to have painted this appealing and popular breed at long last, without meaning to avoid it I somehow took a really long time to notice it was even a gap in my collection. So I scribbled a little list of the other most famous breeds I'd never done a custom of, and the next one is another horse to cross off!

This is CollectA's mini Thoroughbred mould, but I just didn't like it as a TB, too chunky in the leg and sloping at the rump, with kind of awkward conformation, so I allocated it a breed which is known for it's rather unconventional looks, proportions and features which in any other horse would be regarded as flaws - the Nonius from Hungary.

They only come in black, so it didn't take many seconds to decide how to paint her, and with black being easily the simplest colour to paint, it wasn't many minutes from start to finish, either.

The final breed in this tour of Europe is from Norway, the Døle Gudbrandsdal. The Døle is the commonest of the native Norwegian breeds, though you'd never know that from the model horse world, which seems intently focused on the Fjord to the exclusion of all other breeds from the country! They're a small draft-type horse, kind of the equivalent to a welsh cob or traditional cob over here - stocky and strong, with feathered legs and a fairly high knee action, used for riding, driving, showing, and occasionally working draft duty like logging.

There's two kinds, the original Døle Gudbrandsdal, and the Døle Trotter, a flashier spin-off breed with longer slimmer legs and neck. I have my G3 Friesians in non-friesian colours as Døle Trotters instead, so in theory I could've just painted that mould unadjusted and counted it as a Døle custom to tick off the breed list. But I really wanted to go for the original heavier version of the breed, which meant thickening up the legs, and in every picture I could find for a Døle Gudbrandsdal in action, no matter how fast they trot their head seems to be held lower, on an arched neck. So it was time to get out the hacksaw as well as the filler...

Here's how the mould looks in the original black :

(Don't worry, this perfect-condition horse is unharmed, I customised a scuffed second-hand duplicate from my body box!)

Here he is through two progress stages. 

On the left; with the thicker legs, the head removed, and the altered neck roughed in with milliput. You can see I re-used a chunk of the original neck and mane to save having to make the whole thing from scratch, that's how much I hate resculpting!

On the right; with the head glued back on, the set-hard milliput sanded and carved down to shape, and some more added to fill the throat, extend the mane, and smooth over any unwanted gaps or grooves.

Now ready to paint!

Even though this was my favourite reference photo example, it's very similar to other bays I've painted recently, so I went with a slightly different shade instead, and copied this one.

And here he is! I'm so pleased with how he turned out, especially as I really, really dislike resculpting anything more than simple tweaks like mane braids or hooves or adjusting a head shape, and would normally avoid it to the point of just not doing any custom idea which needed repositioning work.

I think the colour came out pretty close to the reference I was using; not how I usually paint a bay, having higher black on the legs and more variation between the darkest brown on the shoulder and the lightest creamy shading inside the elbows and thighs. I find copying a picture, either for a portrait model or just a breed example, can often push me to venture outside my usual paint palette, and abandon the mental 'pattern' for where shading goes - if I'm trying to duplicate a real horse, I'm having to paint what I see, not what I imagine is 'normal'!

This isn't going to convince me to do any more drastic customs, or even any others with this much repositioning, but I'm glad to have managed it once!

Now, what breeds can I tick off that painting list next..?

Breyer 2021 Chocolatey

Another fairly new release to introduce today, one of 2021's regular runs - Chocolatey the Appaloosa stallion. I bought him second-hand but he's in perfect as-new condition, not a mark on him except all the spots and freckles that are meant to be there.

The same mould as the liver chestnut mare I posted a few months ago, only this time the mould's been adapted to a stallion, and the mane and tail are different, too - hers were the windswept longer version, his mane is neatly banded and trimmed, and his tail's straight rather than flicking/flowing.

He's a portrait model of a real horse, and I think they've done a really good job of matching him - just look at this shot and you'll see what I mean. 

The only difference is that you can see some spotting of darker brown on his gingery colour, most noticeable on the shoulder, which hasn't been copied onto the model - but it's probably quite hard for the company to do masked spots over a base colour rather than on the plain white plastic, and I can see why they wouldn't want to spend the time and expense of having somebody hand paint those one-by-one!

He's a very handsome boy, I remember writing in my 2021 review that I'd probably get him because he's a good colour on a sculpt I didn't have yet, and although he didn't get to be the first in that mould for my collection after all (unless you count the mane/tail/stallion 'edits'), he's still very welcome!

I like the way his entire blanket marking has nice crisp and intricate edges; years ago Breyer would do their blanket appaloosas using an airbrushed coat colour but leaving the rump unpainted, and the overall effect was a bit blurry and unfinished-looking. This more modern masked style means they can have a lot more detail and shape which follows the hair pattern, and is a really good match for the real horse.

There is an unfortunate seam mark where the mane and neck meet, this is probably due to the interchangeable mane styles this mould's got, slightly neater prepping before painting would've helped smooth the join. I suspect some individuals are better than others, as with most of these moulds with more than one hairstyle option. 

But he looks fine from the other side, which is his 'good' side for photography and display anyway, and because I won't be taking my Breyers out to shows, it's looking good on the shelf and in photos which matter most for me.

And look, eye colour again! I still haven't worked out what qualifies some horses for this added detail when the majority of regular runs have plain black glossy eyes with no iris painted in.

Lucky Dip!

Last week I placed an order for 10 blind bag Stablemates, the Anniversary ones which are miniature versions of bigger sculpts. I've already got one of each to keep, and there's none in the selection which I really hate or have painted too many times before, so I didn't care which arrived - I thought it'd be a fun way to shake things up, and make myself paint whatever I happened to get by pot-luck from random packets.

They got here today, and I had to laugh - rather than a mixture of all eight moulds, I got two 'fours' that match - what're the odds of that happening!

I haven't painted the Connemara mould at all yet, so it's great to have four in one go and not have to narrow it down to just one colour I'd like to do most. It's also the nicest match out of any Stablemate for my real-life pony who's a mix of two native breeds, so one may have to be set aside as her (I already painted her on a foal mould, but she grew up!)

I'll always happily paint more fluffy-footed cobs, so four of those gives me plenty of options for different colour/marking combinations.

The pinto pony will be another first, and I'd been hoping to get one to customise at some point. I have my original finish example as a Chocktaw horse and they come in a wide range of base colours as well as pinto patterns, so I can have fun designing something really eye-catching and detailed.

The only one I'm wary about is the rearing stallion as it's glossy, so I'm not sure how well my paint will go over the varnish - even if I scuff the surface a bit with super fine sandpaper to help it stick, the layer of gloss might mean some of the detail of the sculpt is blurred over. But we'll see, and at least there's only one, so if I do struggle to paint him in a flattering way, I haven't got to do any more afterwards!

Tales from the Body Box - Native River and Might Bite

First customs of 2022! 

A few days ago one of my favourite racehorses, Native River, was retired after a long and successful career. A gorgeous bright chestnut with a lot of white markings, and a very likeable character, I always thought he'd make a nice model horse, but Breyer being a US company almost always make portraits of the racing stars on their side of the world, so when I want a British or Irish one - the horses I actually see racing over here - I make my own.

His biggest win was the Cheltenham Gold Cup a few years ago (the best of all long races over jumps in this country, for those who don't follow racing), where he had a brilliant finish just in front of one of my other favourites, Might Bite, a truly quirky individual with a mind of his own, who I'd always thought would make a very handsome model, and had long had a blank Stablemate set aside for in my body box as I liked him so much, but hadn't ever got round to painting. 

So with both of them now retired from the racecourse, I decided it was time to finally get on with making their mini portraits.

I only have the older of Breyer's Thoroughbred moulds in my body box (the newer walking TB is a fraction nicer, but hard to buy cos it's only been sold in sets or as blind bag unicorns), but there was a little resculpting to do on each. Firstly, it's a mare, where both my racehorses to copy are geldings. I also gave them bigger hooves, as the mould's got very tiny narrow feet. Finally, there were the hairstyles to match, because the original mould has no forelock, and a clipped patch at the top of the neck - mostly seen on US racehorses - so for mine I added in a bit of extra hair at the front for the one who always ran with his mane loose, while the other was always plaited up to race, so I cut off the plastic mane and resculpted the top line of his neck with tiny rolled-in-a-ball braids.

Here's a couple of Racing Post photos of the real horses together, over the final jump and on the run to the line.

And here they are in miniature...

Native River first, his really bright colour was fun to match - I re-used some of the orange and ginger paints I bought for my fox custom here! 

He was always a great one to watch in action, his colour made him stand out in the field and he was a tough and sparky racehorse, hard to beat when he got in front. And he sounds like such a nice personality, too, his jockeys and yard staff are always full of praise for how lovely and gentlemanly and friendly he's been at home, and those are always the horses I connect with most, not just famous winners but ones with a stand-out character to match their talent.

I also had fun with his white markings, using photos from different angles, and a couple of head shots to get a better view of the pink shape on his nose. His legs and feet are a bit muddy in the racing shots, but I found a nice clean one taken on his yard at home where I could see the stripes on his hooves!

And now his rival Might Bite - they came from different yards so they didn't know each other apart from when they met on the course, so they were neither friends nor enemies, but I'll think of them as a pair because I painted their models together.

Another one who was a fun colour to paint - getting the shading just right is always challenging on a horse which has been clipped, since the colour's different when the hairs have all been trimmed short, but because this race was run in march, the coat's had time to grow back quite a bit, so the contrast isn't as noticeable. You can see the join most clearly on the back leg where the clipped body meets the unclipped coat colour.

Although he has a lot less white on, there's still enough to make him unique and interesting, and careful copying makes him look like who he's meant to be.

Might Bite was rather infamous for running off in the wrong direction, veering across the track and almost losing his races, and being generally quirky and unpredictable - he was very fast and talented, and an amazing jumper, and did win some very high class prestigious races, but he had moods and if he didn't have his sensible head on the day, you'd know about it. They tried him over different types of jump, even cross-country, to see if finding him a slightly different kind of race would get him concentrating, but nothing worked and eventually he was retired to a more casual home life where his weirdness wouldn't matter!

And here they are together, although I can't set up racing scenes cos I don't have riders or make tack at this scale, I thought it'd be nice to photograph them side by side!

Breyer Marc of Charm, Mid-Year 2021

My first new model to introduce this year, and oh it's a lovely one! 

Although I must admit he actually got here in early december, but cos of a combination of my garden's shade problems when the sun is low, and the non-stop wet and cloudy weather lately, I've only just been able to catch a patch of sunlight big enough to get his pictures done!

This is Breyer's portrait model of Marc Of Charm, a multiple showing champion who went on to become a famous stallion at stud. Isn't he just beautiful - even though I'm not a fan of gaited breeds in real life, I just love the elegance, balance, and alert showy sharpness, of this mould!

He's a mid-year release on a fairly new and very sought-after mould, the Racking Saddlebred Stallion, or 'Hamilton', and I'm so glad they decided to let regular-run buyers have one we can more easily get our hands on! 

The previous release on the mould was a palomino for the 70th Anniversary, but turned out to be very difficult to get hold of over here. Of course with eager collectors waiting to grab them, plus the added demand of customisers wanting them as bodies to repaint, the models sold out in minutes of going up on websites - in fact, any retailers who offered pre-orders here sold out of those months in advance, and had no leftover stock to just sell once they arrived. And with it being a 2021-only limited edition to mark the company's anniversary, there was no chance for the UK retailers to restock with another batch later on, so while some people were quick and lucky, anyone who didn't get one of that first shipment, missed out.

I'd have liked one, but wasn't crazy about the pearly mane and tail, so I chose to pre-order the dappled grey Andalusian as my must-have from the 70th anniversary batch instead, and was just glad to eventually get that after nine months of waiting, no news, and having all my polite-but-worried emails ignored by the company I'd ordered him with.

So when I saw we were getting a chestnut one as a mid-year release, I was surprised they'd gone with the same mould so soon, but very happy!

Much like the palomino before him, this model also sold out rather fast on a lot of websites, but this time it won't be a one-shipment-and-that's-it thing - he'll be part of the standard range til whenever Breyer decide to retire him, so even if people missed out on the first batch, there shouldn't be any difficulty getting him at some point in the future.

Still, the way this mould gets collectors hitting that Buy button, I decided a name related to his elusive nature and quick disappearances seemed fitting - I've named him Catch Me If You Can!

Here he is with a bit brighter light on him, trying to capture his rich, deep chestnut colouring. It was still tricky getting these shots as the low angle of the sun cast his shadow onto the background, unless I got the alignment just right that it went away behind him, and then the shadows created on his body were overly strong - for once I can see the appeal of those lightboxes people use!

Apparently, this real horse was the artist's inspiration and model for sculpting the mould, even though it made it's debut in another colour. This is unusual - possibly even a first?

Looking back to years ago, portrait sculpts were introduced in the regular run range, in the colour of their real horse, then would be re-used in different colours over the years.

Breyer now release new Traditional moulds to Premier Club members as exclusive special runs in expensive, detailed colours first - so whenever they want to make a regular run portrait model, it's usually on a mould which was sculpted as a different horse.

Doing it this novel way round, where the first regular run is the portrait, but they've already had access to the mould for special runs beforehand, works well for Breyer's profits, but also for collectors, cos it means we can buy specially sculpted portrait models again.

He's got great face markings, neatly masked and accurately copied from the real horse, and I always like when they remember to add a faint hint of pink for the nose.

As you can see here, it's a very narrow, upright pose, with the feet very close together, and I was a bit worried about stability (the similar Peter Stone Saddlebred is a wobbly wobbly beast!) , but he's actually very steady on his feet, with no tendency to tip one way or the other; he'd take quite a push to topple over!

The other side; it was even harder to get a photo this way as his face was in deep shade unless I tweaked the angle toward the sun, so you don't get to see a fully side-on view. But I think his other side is the best side for photos and display, anyway!