Tales from the Body Box - Peter Stone Trotting Drafter

This episode of 'Tales from the Body Box' features a horse who's been in that not-quite-literally-a-box storage space for a very, very long time!

My Stablemate bodies are kept in an actual cardboard box, but the few big models I bought while under the impression I'd ever dare handle painting something massive, are hidden behind the tv. Not quite as strange as it sounds - my tv isn't one of those modern ones which hang on a wall, it has to stand on a little unit of it's own, and cos I've got it pushed diagonally into the corner of the room, there's a triangular bit of dead space back there, for the wires, and the daddylonglegs spiders, and the dust, and the horses I'm putting off even THINKING about maybe painting one day!

Most of them have been in there for over a decade, that's how much I procrastinate when it comes to painting big models. I'm not quite sure which year I bought the horse in question, but he was released in 2002, and I checked out old photos and I definitely already had him in 2006.

He was a duplicate in my collection, a Peter Stone mid year release called Romi-o, bought extremely cheap as a damaged 'second' in the sale with a snapped-off bow from his mane, some serious paint scuffing on his rump and shoulder, as well as rubs to his ears and nostrils : one very beaten-up looking horse, who had been a lovely colour but wasn't nice enough to keep Original Finish any more.

And because I already had one of him (and the matching mare Juliet), I had a plan in mind for this boy - rather than just attempting invisible fixes to fill in the paint loss and replace the broken bow. Instead, I'd give him new white markings, extended and elaborated from the original shapes to cover every little scuff and scratch, and take off all the rest of the plastic bows to give him more realistic little ribbon ones instead. With a new sculpted tail, he could even return to his breeds' roots and become a Scottish Clydesdale rather than an American one (tail docking has been illegal in Britain since the 1920s).

Only it never happened.

All that time passed, and the poor horse sat behind the tv, gathering a coating of dust, mostly forgotten apart from the occasional times I'd remember I used to buy big horses and then not feel up to painting them.

Last week, I happened to lean over the tv to wriggle a wire cos the signal was being weird, and saw this horse again. Ok, he was still as big as I remembered, and I'm still not any good at painting wide expanses of smooth plastic with my little brushes and sticky paint and shaky hands, but... that one doesn't need much painting? Just the white, right? So I picked him up, wiped off all the dust and bits of dead fly, and had a look at him. Sure, I'd forgotten about the ear rubs, but those were even easier than the markings, cos it's just running a line of black along the edges. And it wouldn't take too long to cut off the old bows, and give him that new tail I'd thought of at the time. Then, at least, there'd be ONE less horse in waiting behind the tv, and I'd feel like I'd worked a little bit on this ongoing problem of not being able to deal with the big models back there.

Stupidly, I forgot all about taking a 'before' photo, but here's one from the internet!

And here he is, after his partial makeover!

All the body colour paint is original, I didn't even try to alter or restore it - every bit of damage on him is hidden with the white markings, the the hair-by-hair ticking, the new pink and grey skin of the muzzle, and the little bit of black on the edges of his ears. It as that lovely rich and dappled bay colour which made me buy him in the first place, knowing I'd be keeping that no matter what else I did around it.

He looked a bit weird with his mane and tail all plaited up, trotting along, but with no halter or bridle on - a horse would only have the braid and flights done for showing, and he'd always have tack on at the same time, so I decided I just HAD to make him a bridle too. I had a look back through some pictures of the Clydesdale classes at a local heavy horse show I went to last month, to make sure I was getting it correct and within the turnout rules. Geldings all wear a bridle with a bit, it doesn't always have a noseband but often does just cos that's a good place to put more decoration in the form of metal bosses, studs, or coloured patent leather to match the owner's colours seen in the mane bows and tail braid. The cheeks also have this little inset of co-ordinated colour, and many of the browbands too. So I got out my fake leather and some glossy red card from a biscuit box, and then he was all dressed up for the show ring, and not looking like he'd somehow got loose and run away without his halter on!

The bridle in closeup - I might replace the gold paint on the buckle keepers with actual gold foil strips, once I've got hold of some stickier superglue - the one I was using was awful and everything fell apart and had to be re-stuck multiple times!

And here's a full view, all finished!

The back view, showing the new tail. It might look odd, but this is how their tails are treated for showing (which is itself linked back to the working days, when a flowing loose tail would be a risk for getting caught up in harness or machinery). The lower two thirds are clipped to remove the long hair, leaving just the fleshy tail with a spiky stubble, while the upper third is left to grow long, braided, rolled back on itself, then secured with ribbons, like a little bun. When the horse isn't in the show ring, the tail then has enough hair to hang down, working naturally as a fly whisk and to be used in normal body language when interacting with other horses. Much better than docking!

Another angle, I'm really happy with how his new face marking came out, especially the pinking of the nose with little uneven patches of dark colour to give him some individuality.

I haven't named him yet but I'm really pleased to have finally got him completed, after all this time leaving him waiting. I did think 'Patience' would be a good name for that reason, but it sounds more like a mare, so I need to have a rethink. Just mustn't make him wait quite so long for his name as for his paint!