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.