Tales from the Body Box - Wait, what, HOW many?

I'm aware I've perhaps been doing too much painting. Eighteen models in the first two months of 2021!

There's such a fine line between making the most of a creative high, and burning through the body box at an unsustainable speed, building up to an abrupt end of this phase for another however many years.

And it's cyclical - you know the burn-out is coming. Sure, at the moment I can pick up a horse and feel enthusiastic about a breed, a colour, I can sit and smudge away with my brushes and tiny paint pots and an hour or so later, have a little full colour horse just how I wanted him. But eventually, I won't be able to do that any more. There's been gaps of five years before I felt like picking up a brush again.

So all the ideas I've got, all the bodies I'm currently excited about getting painted?
Half of me says 'slow down, make them last, take your time', while the other half is screaming 'hurry, hurry, paint them now while you can!'

There's a frantic fragility to it which will resonate with a lot of artists, painters, writers : creating is both a compulsion which takes over, and a spark which can go out in an instant. I do as much as I can while I still can.

Here's a round-up of february's models (let's pretend I got this post up in the same month rather than leaving it into march!)

This is Harecroft Napoleon, who came about because I realised I'd somehow never done the G2 warmblood mould in my favourite/signature colour, bay skewbald. I don't know how this oversight could've happened, considering I've painted just about everything else in bay tobiano at least once!

He's also the recipient of a new tail, the original swishing sculpted one being very short and flimsy-looking as well as out of sight on the non-display side of the mould.

I had the dubious benefit of a brand new pack of Milliput recently, and while it's much, much easier to mix, it's also disturbingly soft compared to my old pack (I'd been buying it from a tiny old fashioned shop in town where they sold maybe one packet every three or four years, the stock was so dusty, fly-spotted, and aged to the point of being very firm when I got it!). The sculpted tail was so bendy I had to support it with a quickly formed tinfoil tail-rest so it didn't just flop down to his hocks like a greenish dead slug. Nice mental image.

Another Milliput victim, this G3 belgian gained a full tail (actually, this was my first attempt at the WB's tail, but I didn't like it for him, snapped it off, and gave it to someone else!) and a loose mane. I was trying to think of which draft breeds would suit both the mould and the full tailed look, and came up with the American Cream Draft. 

They're not actually a genetically cream colour, but rather gold champagne (chestnut plus a champagne gene), so she's got a mottled pink muzzle, and eyes more olive-greenish than blue. I brushed on a tiny tiny amount of gold paint over the top of her coat colour, to give a faint sheen, not all champagne horses have a metallic shine on their coat, but enough do that it was worth adding the little extra detail. I've named her Mississippi Queen, as the origins of the breed are in midwestern states run through by that famous river.

When I painted my other two mustangs, I mentioned roan as a possibility for the third one in my body box, and this is exactly what happened. I've named all three after mountains in Wyoming, so this is Eagle Rock, the spotted one's Dunraven Hill, and the pinto got Wolf Mountain (some peaks on the list were just wildly inappropriate for a horse name... Katie's Nipple or Gobbler's Knob, anyone?!)

I went for bay roan as I find they turn out better than black (blue) roan. The biggest trick is making sure adding white to a reddish colour doesn't result in a pink horse! The best way I've found is never to let the bay and the white meet as wet paint. I start off with a base coat of warm light brown, then richer colour to the head & legs, followed by the white over the top on the palest parts, with some brushstroke hairiness and healed-scar corn spots for this one, to emphasise he's a hardy wild horse, not anyone's pampered pet. 

A little while ago, a hobby friend of mine included some horsey postcards in a parcel, and one of them featured John Whitaker on the gorgeous grey Everest Milton, one of the celebrities of the equine world in the late 1980's and into the early 90's. The first showjumping horse to reach over a million pounds in prize money, he obviously had talent but also a huge personality, and was a great favourite for horse fans at the time, with magazine articles, books and videos, posters adorning hundreds of bedroom walls, and Milton himself making guest appearances at big horse shows and events after his retirement. I was lucky enough to meet him in person at one of these, and after telling the sender of my postcard about the experience, decided I should really paint a custom of him!

I only had one jumping horse in my body box, so I'd been saving it for something special, and although grey isn't my favourite colour to paint, Milton was certainly worth using up the mould on!

As well as slightly resculpting the face to make a better likeness, I tried to give his colour plenty of interest with grey skin, creases and hair patterns, an off-white mane and tail (because although he was always turned out immaculately, this was before the days of artificially glowing-white horse shampoo!), topped off with fleabites copied directly from the real one so the biggest specks are in just the right places.

I tried some pictures with a bit of a jump in, but still don't like this pair any better than the first shots. It's the old problem : jumping model needs a jump, but wouldn't be jumping without tack, so looks wrong anyway. The only way round this would be to make a mini indoor school set-up with a single jump, and have just a bridle, cavesson or headcollar on the horse and say he's loose-schooling. And I can't make tack that tiny without gluing it to the horse, and don't want to risk ruining customs, so it never happens, and I'm left with photos I don't like even when I'm perfectly happy with the model itself!

Looking through my horse breed books to see if there were any major, well-known breeds I'd somehow never painted, I happened to notice the hackney was a glaring gap in my herd, with neither OF nor CM models in my collection. The build and pose in the books' photos seemed closest to the G2 saddlebred mould (not surprising, as hackneys played part of the founding of the breed), tweaked with a new mane and reshaped face. I've named her Harecroft High And Mighty. Her paintwork looks a lot darker in person than in these photos, I tried so many times to get a more true to life shot but my camera insisted on making her brighter.

Another angle, showing the little row of plaits. One of them broke off and bounced away while I was painting, never to be found again, but luckily it was the braid nearest her withers, rather than leaving a gap further up, so you can't really tell there's one missing! I'm kind of regretting not resculpting the tail a bit too, cos her original one just shouts that she's the ASB mould, but UK hackneys are shown with full tails, never docked or bobbed like in the US, held high and gently tapering out, so this existing tail is pretty much exactly right, even if my mind won't stop reading it as saddlebred!

Breyer Stablemates, old and new

A little batch of new OF arrivals in my mini scale herd! 

First off we have the Deluxe Horse Collection set of eight - another from the boxful I ordered earlier in the year before lockdown, I'm really glad I've had this spread-out opening of models as it's made several little parcel days to look forward to, just like a normal year, and the more normality we can try to recreate in such a difficult year, the better!

Let's have a look at the horses...

The good old G2 TB mould; the third time it's been released in chestnut pinto, but the first one of those I've actually ended up owning! I like the contrast of a really bright, vivid colour against plain white, it's a nice design. Breyer call this one a Paint on the packaging, but I'll be going for a partbred sporthorse type to allow for the light build, it just doesn't say stock breed to me. 

This one might be my favourite of the whole set, they've absolutely nailed the shaded, peachy colouring, with subtle grey to the face and a big wide snip marking. I didn't know I needed a palomino

on this mould til I saw it, but such a nice little model. I've named mine Harecroft Summergold. 

I still never know what to do with jumping models in pictures, I don't do performance classes (only Julip ones!) so I don't have any jumps this scale to use, but then you've got the problem that a horse wouldn't be going over a jump with no tack, anyway - even loose schooling they have a bridle or cavesson or headcollar on. So I just use a little chunk of wood as a 'log', or cover the base with some lichen, so there's something under them and they're not just leaping empty air!

Another 'hey wait a minute Breyer, didn't we have this already?' colour/mould combo! There was a regular run in a brighter bay, but also a JCP special run with four socks and a blaze which is pretty much this exact shade. If she'd been a single release I'd probably have skipped buying this one as she's so similar to the one I've got already, but never mind, still a nice model. I've named her Harecroft Adalheida, just picked from a list of popular Belgian human names!

The G2 morgan is a mould which's grown on me gradually, I didn't like them early on but once I'd ended up with a couple I got rather fond of them after all. They hold up well among all the newer moulds, and this colour's very nicely done, using thinner/thicker application of paint to give the sandy golden dun some depth, and a sort of deliberate overspray from the mane to shade the neck and shoulders a little bit sooty. He's called Harecroft Tiger Moth.

I still think of this mould as 'Driving', after those original World Equestrian Games tie-in releases, but I think it's known as the Trotting Warmblood now. It definitely looks like the heavier kind of warmblood, with those chunky legs, so the name makes sense. Much more sense than the packaging calling this one a thoroughbred! The colour's nice, better in-hand than in the promo photos I think. I've named her Thunder Moon, the name for the full moon in the month I unwrapped her, and also appropriate because there was a huge thunderstorm the day I took her photo.

Here's my first in the Mirado mould, and I like it more in person than in pictures. I think the head's much better than the pictures of the very first Mirado release made it look, with his white blaze hiding a chunk of his face against the plain background. The mould does seem a little bit lightweight, though, not deep through the chest and neck like you'd expect for an Iberian type, it seems to be more legs than anything else!

The other side, just cos it's a new mould to me and might be for any regular run buyers reading this, too. I've named him Coronel AR, because I'm showing mine as an Alter Real - the Portuguese strains of Iberian horse can tend to being a little lighter and leggier than the Andalusian.

Another new mould to me, this is Darley. A really detailed mould, more finely built and with a neat, sharp sculpting style, brought out nicely by the rich, dark paintjob. Here's the other side...

He's sculpted as such a very American type of arab, elongated and snakey with a high snappy action rather than the short, deep, rounded arabian of the original desert (and Polish and British) type. In fact, yet again, I'm going to be having mine as a different breed - I just can't see this as the type of arab we have outside the States, so I'll be showing him, and all my subsequent Darleys, as National Show Horses instead. The NSH is a mixture of arabian and saddlebred blood, in varying proportions, so some favour the arabian side while others look more saddlebred; I think this breed allows for the conformation and pose of the Darley mould quite nicely!

The last in the Deluxe set, the little black lipizzaner. My first time seeing this mould in person, and it's much less chunky and ponylike than it looked as Darwin, the first release - it's amazing what a change of colour can do! I love the pose; the controlled, balanced levade manouver so different to the fast, flaily rear a horse will do when misbehaving or playing, and you can see that in the way he's standing steady and strong with his weight held in balance.

I don't know why Breyer picked the very rare black lipizzaner instead of the white-grey they're known for - perhaps they're hanging on to release a grey one as the first single regular run, rather than using it up in a set. I've named him Siglavy Toscana, just because all my grey lipizzaner models are named for the Neapolitano line, and I thought he was the ideal chance to pick another name for a change!

And what about the 'old' in the title? I had a little ebay bid on a lot of three second hand G3 warmbloods.

This one I've named Artemis, and I'd wanted to find her for a few years now - there were mystery foal sets released during the year my old job was coming to an end, and I had to stop spending because I didn't know how quickly I'd find a new place to work. I did manage to pick up one of them the following year on a trade stand, but never saw the set containing this lovely roan, so I thought I'd missed her. She's why I put the bid on in the first place, and I'm really glad to have her at long last.

And this one I've named Dazzling, a JCP Parade of Breeds special run. I didn't spend a long time coveting her because I didn't actually know she existed (I don't keep up with what JCP are selling, we don't have that shop over here), but as soon as I saw her, I knew I'd like having her in my herd - what a lovely colour!

And this is the third horse in the lot, which I thought would be a duplicate and end up in my body box. But when I compared her to the one I'd already got, she's not quite the same!

Well ok, they do kind of look the same, but to obsessive OF collectors, there's a definite difference - the body colour is paler and a bit less speckled, the mane and tail have a lot more highlight and less red, and the face markings are distinctly different, too. This chestnut roan was sold as both a horse and rider set (which I bought), and also in the Show Stoppers 4-piece set, which it's possible the new horse may have come from.

Here's one showing the blaze is much wider on the left-hand horse, including a lot more of the muzzle and not narrowing in the middle at all. 

And the same on the off side, my first horse having a white face (I've checked out several of them on Google images, most have this jagged, chunky blaze), while the second sports a stripe and pink chin.

I know SMs can vary from horse to horse as the masking is so small and easy to put on a bit wonky, and each person on the production line might handle the painting a little differently, but this is more than the usual expected variation, and makes it worth keeping both models - my original one was named Sergeant Pepper, so I've called the new not-quite-identical twin sister Red Pepper.