WIA's new release - Marwari in two colours

I thought you might like to see some photos of this year's new WIA horse! Another sculpt by Horraw Studios, this time a Marwari stallion, and like all the WIA plastic editions so far, he's available in a choice of two colours. Or, if you're anything like me, not a choice at all cos you end up wanting both.

Let's have a look at them - you can see their item listings on MPV here and here, for the official pictures, and prices (log in to the site from another country and the prices may drop substantially lower for some sort of international tax reasons, it knocks over €2 off when I'm logged in with my UK address!)

But I always find real, in-hand photos from collectors to be more helpful in deciding how much I like a model, so I had a little photoshoot with my new arrivals on a sunny day!

We'll start with the lighter colour first, cos I always think these show the mould details and contours better than a dark colour.

A really nice sculpting style, with an intricate level of detailing, as with the Arabian by the same artist they're distinctly different to both the original Brigitte Eberl WIAs and the later Morgen Kilbourn addition to the range, but not in a way which stands out and makes them clash or jar with the existing horses. They still have the same basic WIA horse traits : smooth bodies (no over-exaggerated grooved 'fur' texture here, no bows in the hair I'm looking at you Schleich!), well-proportioned slender limbs rather than chunky legs (sorry CollectA but you just won't do a light hot-blood sculpt any more!), and expressive faces with great detailing.

Now, let's have one of those conversations about horse colour. This one's going to be difficult, haha!

The model is marketed as a Dominant White, at which I thought 'hurrah!' cos I only have one other with this rare colour pattern in my collection, CollectA's Camarillo White Horse.

To put it in the most basic terms, you know how some horses have white 'sabino' markings on their faces, legs, and bellies? Now imagine those white markings getting bigger and bigger til they cover the entire horse. A really extensive Dominant White IS one big white marking, with none of the original colour left at all, or maybe just a tiny little bit which isn't very noticeable - often on the ears, the top of the head, or in the eye sockets. Although in the past Dominant Whites have been described as Albino horses, it's not a red-eyed albino like you see in other species, born without pigment - it's just got white marking all over, mane and tail and all. Pink skin shows through wherever the hair is very fine, most of all on the face and especially the nose.

Now, take another look at the model. It's not pure white, but not pinkish either. The body colour has been given a definite creamy yellow tone. The nose is pinker, but that's not the colour paint which has been used on the rest of the horse, so they're not trying to show skin visible through fur - they're saying the hair itself is cream coloured? And by contrast, the mane and tail are white. Look along the neck, you can see the line where the mane paint is applied.

Could it just be an effort to make the horse look less dayglo-white and more realistic cos real life horses are rarely spotlessly clean? 

Hmmm. Here's a lovely long-maned example of an actual Dominant White horse (he's from a website about genetic testing for this colour, they'd have a correct example!), and you can see the natural long-term picking up of environmental dirt all horses get if they're not kept shampooed for the showring, has darkened his mane to a blonde-ish cream. So, if anything, a realistically low-level-grubby Dominant White horse would have a fractionally darker mane and tail than the body colour, never the reverse. I don't buy that they'd paint the horse's body yellowish then give it a contrasting pure white mane, IF they really were designing this paintwork from dominant white reference photos.

So, what colour is it?

The only real contender would be cremello. This is perfect for a body colour which is cream all over, showing pink skin on the nose and round the eyes. And the mane and tail being pure white also fits, some cremellos are a bit more on the blonde side but the majority do have the contrasting white, just like this model stallion.

But wait a minute, back a bit.. I mentioned the word 'eyes', and that's where we come unstuck. A cremello will always have blue eyes. It's a part of the dilution gene, there aren't any with the standard dark brown eye colour, it can't happen.

While waiting for this parcel to arrive, I was doing a bit of reading on the All India Marwari Horse Society's very comprehensive website, and there they have one crucial fact which is relevant to this debate. In the breed description, 'Albino colour is a disqualification for this breed'. Since true albinism doesn't occur in horses, they must be referring to what's now better known in other countries as Dominant White.

So if the paintwork says it can't be Dominant White cos it's painted yellow, and the breed society says they're not allowed anyway, but the eyes say it isn't Cremello... that's kind of two against one and I'm siding with writing this one up as 'cremello' on my collection website despite the release info!
I've given him the name Badali, meaning 'cloud', for his pale colour whatever it may be.

Enough of the colour debate, it's still a glorious little model of a very old and interesting breed I've liked for the whole time I've been into horses, and I'm extremely happy to have him in my collection! My only other Marwari models are Breyer's big Traditional scale mould, CollectA's mildly depressed-looking stallion, and one mini custom, so it's great to have another on the market, and in this affordable and popular scale, too.

One thing which has been a bit criticised over the years is WIA's decision to use some separate parts in the manufacturing process, to allow for easier moulding of complex poses and awkward deep detailing. Sharif had his mane attached with a visible seam at the neck, Vincenzo had one ear cast separately and stuck on afterwards. I've never found the joins to be too intrusive in the finished models, but just for anyone who's disappointed or put off by them, the Marwari does have his ears moulded as individual pieces then attached to his head. You can see it most clearly in this back view, though the strong sun shadow's not doing him any favours here by making the groove more noticeable than it is in real life!

Now, on to the next one! Described as dark chestnut sabino, this colour's much less tricky to get my head round. Even though he looks dark enough to be a bay, chestnut is a massively varied colour, and some do look almost black. He doesn't have any true black shading on his knees or hocks, so I'm happy to accept this colour as a very very dark liver chestnut, and his sabino markings are nicely designed too.

With his face marking incorporating both eyes, they've been painted blue, with a little hint of pink in the corner.

Although I said the paler colour shows the mould off better, I do think he looks just as good in a nice dark colour with eye-catching flashy markings, I'm not sure which would be my favourite of the two. I've named this one Gadadi, which means 'fox'.

Looking a bit wild and dramatic from this angle! I'd quite like to do some tinier-than-usual tack making and give these two some of the beautifully decorated traditional tack Marwari horses are decked out with for special events. Even something simple like the colourful braided halter with an upright tassel on the headpiece, would be an intricate challenge to make at a smaller scale - here's one I made for a Traditional (1:9) scale Marwari.

The ear seam looks much less visible on this colour, I think if I hadn't pointed it out you wouldn't even notice it was there!

For anyone unfamiliar with WIA horses, the plastic is notably more firm than Schleich, Collecta, Mojo etc, it's got a very slight give in it which reassures me that they'd probably flex rather than snap like resin if I was to knock any over, but they don't feel like they'd stand up to play. The paint's also a lot more prone to scuffing and marking (I had some duplicates in my body box for a while, they came out covered in a multitude of small shiny marks just from touching other models!), so I'd recommend them as shelf models for the teen/adult collector, rather than suitable for adding to an active play herd.