Tales from the Body Box - A big batch of little horses

I've been painting a lot of Stablemates over the last few weeks, and haven't kept up with posting them, so I thought I'd make them share one big post rather than introduce them one or two at a time like usual - my apologies for the sheer amount of photo to scroll past here!

This is Harecroft Talisman, a fell pony. The miniaturised Fell mould was released in those anniversary blind bags, as a chestnut - a colour so rare in the breed that the books don't even bother to list it as a colour they come in, and I've only managed to find a picture of one single individual online.

I can only assume Breyer are saving the typical black colour for the first regular run release on a blister-pack card, but I wanted a black Fell Pony now rather than waiting however many years it takes for that to happen, hahah!

I think mine's a little bit different than the eventual Breyer paintwork will be, though, I've given him sun-fading on the ends of his mane and tail, and a hint of brown round the face, as most of the real Fells do have this, rather than being pure jet black from nose to tail tip.

Another angle with the bright sun bringing out his highlights, and the other side, with that lovely long mane! It's a lovely little mould, which as a rare breed we probably wouldn't have got if it hadn't existed as a Traditional mould first.

This is Johnny Cash, based on a lovely big gentle gelding who used to live in the field next door to my own horse. She's very picky about who she trusts and who she either hates or is afraid of, and this boy was on her 'perfectly safe to have around' list, they weren't quite friends but she wasn't stressed out by him, which is always nice!

He was another of the blind bag Mini moulds, this time the vintage Clydesdale Stallion. I never though the build of the large mould made a very true-to-type Clyde, and the tiny one was no better, so he had a makeover to be a chunky cob instead! I gave him a new full loose mane and tail, plus thicker hairy feathering on his legs.

His small mottled markings are copied from the real one, I even found a picture I took of him having a nap so I could get the pink and black speckles in the right place on his underneath!

Now, did anyone else here read the Silver Brumby books? I loved them as a teen, cos they were about horses but not riders - the feral horse herds in the south of Australia, living and behaving as wild horses would. Not 100% accurate in terms of what we know now about horse herd hierarchy and colour genetics, but pretty close, and a huge refreshing change from all those 'girl at posh yard with epic-backstory-horse wins things' horsey novels which flood the market. I could relate more to wild horses just being horses than I could to Horse Girls, hahah!

This is a portrait of Thowra, the main character in the first book and whose family we follow through others. From the story itself, we're told he's palomino (not a grey, as some of the book covers show him - publishing company misled by the 'silver' in the title, maybe!), but that it's a very very pale shade of palomino, a bit like the famous mustang Cloud, possibly even lighter.

I see there's more books than I ever read when I was getting them from the town library, but according to reviews the later ones are not well written, and have disappointingly poor or downright depressing plots, so if I do ever buy and re-read any more (I only own the first), I'll stop at the 4th book and count that as the end, just like I did years ago when I didn't know the series had carried on!

This is my first repaint on this mould, the Endurance Arabian. I tweaked the sculpting of the cheek and nose a bit, as it had such a shallow jaw and undefined muzzle before, but the rest is unaltered.

Usually for fleabitten greys, I rely on speckles flicked on with a toothbrush, but for this one I added a layer of hand-painted hair over the top of the speckling, it takes a very steady hand to keep the tiny strokes fairly short and fine, but looked effective enough in the end to be worth it!

I'll admit something - this isn't how she originally looked when I thought I'd finished her, and stood her on the mantelpiece. Her mane was pale grey with just a hint of darker shading at the roots, and the more I looked the more I couldn't ignore how much I hated it. It wasn't awful or badly painted, it just wasn't RIGHT on her, so I got up and fetched her back, and gave her the dark mane and tail you see here. I think it was the right decision, now she looks fine even though this isn't the colour I had in mind when planning her paintwork!

This little appaloosa was a paintjob I didn't set out to do, what I wanted to paint was the kind of appaloosa with a crisply defined white blanket pattern - sharp edges and no mottled roaning - but working white on top of colour is something I find hideously difficult, and I gave up halfway and rescued the mess by roaning him after all. So he's just another example of the kind of appaloosa I usually paint anyway, on a slightly different base coat colour, and I have to try again if I still want to get that blanket pattern after all!

He's fine for what he is, I'm not disappointed with how he actually looks, only frustrated that I keep painting the same kind of appaloosa almost every time I try a different one! I've named him Harecroft Galaxy Of Light.

Back to the blind bag horses, and the mini Smart Chic Olena mould - the same as I painted as a chestnut Quarter Horse last week, but equally good for a Paint Horse, I think. 

I usually do tobiano patterns, so I decided to go overo first for a change! His markings were made up, for the simple reason that inventing them is so, so much easier than trying to copy photos onto a 3D surface, and I only put myself through that difficulty if it's a portrait of a real horse I want to create - when it's a made up one just cos I fancy owning a certain colour pinto, then the pattern can be fictional!

I'm enjoying painting these new moulds, even though I really like a lot of older Stablemates it's a refreshing change and new challenge to have different sculpts in-hand and plot what to do with them, especially as I only have one or two of each, so there's a feeling of not wanting to 'waste' them on a colour which doesn't work well!

His colour inspiration was this horse I happened to see when browsing Spanish horses for sale (definitely not to buy, I have my native ponies and don't ride any more - but sales sites are wonderful for naming and painting ideas!) I thought that was such a stand-out colour with his unusual liver chestnut base coat and appaloosa detailing, he just had to become a model for my mini herd!

I'll be filing him as a Spanish Jennet on my website, a historical breed with evidence for spotted patterns in art from the era. I don't mind a bit having extinct breeds in my collection, most of them are horses I've copied from centuries-old paintings so he'll have plenty of company.

But there is a current breeding project aiming to recreate the Spanish Jennet, by crossing Peruvian Paso and Paso Fino horses with Appaloosas, to combine the gaits, the body type, and the spotting - so it's a bit of a matter of debate whether I ought to make them a page as an existing breed, or carry on putting them on my 'historical breeds' page?! Either way, I had fun painting him!

The sun in this final shot might make his colouring stand out a bit more, he's faintly roaned outside of his blanket markings, with a couple of stray white spots, too.

This next one was an experimental horse - I remembered reading ages ago that dappled patterns can be done using pencils, and while I think they meant artists' colouring pencils, I haven't got any of those, so I thought I'd try using a normal grey writing pencil, and see what happened...

Dapples happened!

I was surprised how effective it was, in very little time the pattern started to come up pretty clearly, and with each repeat covering of scribble they got darker and better defined. I finished her off with paint for the mane and tail cos I wouldn't have been able to get the pencil into all the little grooves of the hair texture, and for the shading and markings on the limbs and face.

She's really quite pretty, a colour I wouldn't have been able to get quite the same with painting, and something I'll definitely try again, maybe in combination with more paint shading over the top to get darker, or a more rose-grey effect.

I've included this picture of her laying down, cos I think you can see the scribble work a bit more clearly like this!

Then it was back to paint...

This was a colour idea I'd had in mind for this little chunky pony mould ever since I first saw it - a pony cob.

Quite a few traditional cob breeders in the UK are aiming to make a smaller type now, about 12-13hh instead of the usual 15-16hh traditional cob type, while keeping the true chunky type and heavy feathering on the legs. Before, if you wanted a pony sized cob either for driving or children to ride, it was usually a cross with a native welsh or partbred pony, so it'd be a lot lighter in build and more pony proportions, where these look just like scaled down large cobs.

There's no real breed name for them yet, they're locally known as 'pony cobs' but could be known by different terms elsewhere, just like the big ones are a cob to me and a vanner to an American and a tinker to a German, and so on!

Pony cob doesn't have a name yet, but I really like how he turned out - as usual he's got made up markings because copying from a picture stresses me out and rarely goes right, so I only make myself do it when it's for a portrait model of a horse I know. This one's just a general example of his type, who exists purely because I wanted to do the pretty colour on the cute sculpt!

It's a much smaller mould than most Breyer Stablemates, his head only reaches the shoulder of the Arabian posted up above him there - which makes it fun to paint, and gives a bit of variety when he's standing among mostly horse-sized breeds!

This will be my last batch of customs for a little while - I'm taking time off, injured!

At work last week I tweaked something in my lower arm while pruning a too-thick branch at a very funny angle - first my index finger went into cramp and wouldn't move, then after a few minutes it was twitching all on it's own, then eventually I got control and feeling back, and was able to carry on. 

But the following day it felt tingly, my arm was very strained and sore, and I'd lost all grip strength in that hand. It's gradually coming back and hurting less, day by day, but I can't hold models or paintbrushes to carry on with my repaints til it's properly healed. 

But with the amount I've been getting through lately, taking a break is probably a good thing!

Tales from the Body Box - seeing spots

Three little appaloosa patterned horses to introduce today, starting with one who was actually painted last year but I somehow forgot to ever get a picture of, so he's been delayed a bit!

He came about as a result of me thinking 'I have loads of this rearing mould, what could I do with it?', and also musing that I've hardly ever painted leopard appaloosas, most of mine have been blanket spotted, or roany semi-leopard. So it was a logical combination to put the appy paintjob on one of the rearing arabian bodies! He's buckskin, under his spotting pattern, so the spots on his body are a different colour to those on his legs.

Another colourful appaloosa, this time a flaxen chestnut with four long socks and a blaze, with my usual roany blanket type pattern. I'm getting much better at blonde manes and tails since I found the right creamy beige colour pre-mixed! 

I also found a really good method for getting the distinct sclera (eyewhites) that come with the appaloosa coat pattern : some very diluted pink paint touched against the eyeball while the horse is held on his side - the fluidity of the paint draws it right down into the crease between eye and lid all the way around, then once it's dried you can paint in the eye as usual.

And the final spotted horse is something of an oddity, being not quite an art portrait recreated with heavy resculpting of an existing mould (as I did for Whistlejacket and Cerbero), but inspired by an oil painting, anyway.

This is Landscape with Two Horses, by Nicolaes Berchem, dated to the second half of the 17th century. It's very often used as a perfect example of historic spotted Iberian horses, whether in the context of them existing in Europe (and oh, what a shame it is that they no longer do!) or as the source for the spotted genes which went to the Americas and carried on into new breeds developed there. Though there's several other good examples of spotted horses in artworks from that era, I've always had a fondness for the main horse in this painting, both for his lovely soft brown colour and detailed spots, and the way he turns just enough to look us in the eye, ears pricked and curious - he just leaps out at you as a real little character.
With no standing Iberian-type SM mould to work from, and being increasingly averse to major resculpting projects, I decided the only way I'd ever make a model version of him was to pick from what I'd got and go with it while I was in an enthusiastically painty mood, and so at last he's happened!

I'm extremely happy with how he turned out, roany smudgey mottled colours I find very stressful as there's so much opportunity to just make a blotchy mess when brush-painting by hand, it can go all wrong in one application of ever so slightly too much paint, or the wrong consistancy cos the air's drying it too much or you've tried to counteract that with a little too much licking of the brush...it's kind of scary, but super satisfying to relax when it's over. Maybe being glad it's over isn't really the same as enjoying painting and I'm in the wrong hobby, hahah.

Another angle, as well as attempting to get the spots in the same places I tried my hardest to get the shading just the same, with some more blended and some more speckled, and the deepest colour on the face, the front of the shoulders, and the legs.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this colour, in technical specifics - my best guess is that his base colour is seal or sooty bay, or possibly a dark bay dun, with the leopard complex lightening and mottling it up, and also causing the pale mane and tail through roaning rather than any kind of additional silver gene on top. 

But the stand-out contradiction to this is that his spots are black, not bay/dun. Usually, an appaloosa's spots are whatever his solid base colour would've been. Sometimes they do look much darker, so you can see spots on the 'bay' front half of a bay blanket appaloosa, for example, but that's cos the appaloosa lightens the body colour with what can be subtle roaning of the coat even outside of the distinct white blanket area, and the true base colour is always what you're seeing in the spots. So really, this horse's spots should be painted in shades of brown, but to be true to the original oil painting, I stuck with black. 

This side is a mirror image of the other! Usually, if using a single photo reference for inspiration, I'd just make something up for the side I couldn't see, but this time it's complicated - I really wanted the clear side of his neck and shoulder to carry an exact copy of the pattern - his mane covers so much of this side I'd have lost the chance to recreate all that roaning and some of the spots, but of course the painting is of the left side, so if I invented some similar-but-different pattern, he wouldn't actually match the portrait when facing the same way. So he gets to be the only appaloosa in my herd who has the same spots on both sides!

Special run Stablemates

Not new new arrivals, but a little selection of recentish OF horses who got left out when I posted Trad scale parcels and customs on here - they actually arrived from various different sellers toward the end of last year, or earlier this year.

First, Harecroft Northern Lights, a G2 warmblood in pale grey. No fleabites, which tell him apart from the Target and TJ Maxx special runs, this one was made for the World Equestrian Games in 2014 (a run of 750), and sold as a Selle Francais. I've wanted to get one ever since I first found out they'd existed, so I'm pleased to have added him to my collection.

Next, a Horse Crazy set of four, exclusive to Walmart in the USA. 

Now, I genuinely have no idea what the Horse Crazy title is about, they seem to assign it randomly to some models and not others. Some blind bags are Horse Crazy and some aren't. Some re-releases of regular runs become Horse Crazy on their second time around. Some of it's Walmart SRs, but some of it is the paint-your-own kit stuff which is sold everywhere. If anyone knows the logic to it and could explain, do leave me a comment!

For the longest time I dithered over whether to risk buying from overseas, having been hit with customs fees in the past I was put off because that would double the cost of the horses, but luckily one seller had them priced just below the cut-off value (cheap items don't incur any import and handling fees when they reach the UK), so I was able to buy them for no more than a normal 4-pack set, phew!

A gorgeous bay on the Django mould, really deep and rich in his shading. I think these ones do vary, if you look at sellers' real photos on ebay, some are very dark with no pale parts, others seem to have got a very thin coat of the brown colour and look far more golden. I think mine's just right! I've named him Harecroft Duststorm, because he reminds me of my old loan horse Dusty.

Harecroft Marshwood, the most annoying of the four purely cos of the pearly basecoat paint including his socks! If they'd just used it under his body colour, it would've looked much better and more realistic, but I do love having another example of the mould, and his beautifully shaded coat colour, so I just have to ignore disliking his feet!

Harecroft Scalloway, a bright fiesty little shetland pony stallion. Another mould I'm really fond of, it's a shame they haven't used it more for regular runs because shetlands are so popular in real life so they're bound to be loved in model form too, and there's so many brilliant colours they could've released him in.

Harecroft Souvenir, this darker grey is nice to see, I can't think of any other SMs that've been smooth mid-grey with darker points, they mostly dapple them or go paler!

Having realised I could get SMs sent safely over from the States without extra fees, I had a little browse around and found another model I really liked the look of, only to discover the postage on all of them was too expensive (at least £17, up to £30, for one SM on a card!). So the one I had my eye on went on my wishlist, and was sadly abandoned there as a 'probably never will get'. Only to pop up on UK ebay about a month later!

So here she is, the G3 highland in a really lovely softly shaded appaloosa pattern. The G2 Warmblood in this colour was one of my favourite SMs, so I was really happy to see them re-using it, and even happier to get my hands on one! Rather oddly, Breyer label this one as 'Shetland', despite it being neither the shetland mould or a colour purebred shetlands come in, so, uh... yeah. I'll show mine as a British Spotted Pony as it's a very varied breed and some of them are quite chunky with feathered heels - she's definitely a better one of those than she is a shetland pony!

She came with a little travelling companion, one of the newest blind bag Mini Whinnies, the shrunk down version of the Classic scale 'Mariah' morgan mould. I don't actively collect these (they're not much cheaper than an SM for the blind bag ones, and the rest all seem to be in playsets with buildings and stuff I don't want), but they are really nice in that inexplicable oh-it's-so-tiny-how-cute! way, so any time one happens to come my way I'm pleased to have it, anyway!