Mojo Fun variations

Yesterday I had some second hand Mojo Fun figures arrive - all models I had already got, but variations of paintwork rather than exact duplicates.

The cob mare in piebald. Curiously, this horse belonged to the friend of mine who introduced me to the Mojo brand in the first place, with the words 'Have you seen the Mojo cob mare? You NEED her!', and I had to go and look it up! I have ordered my own brand new copy in the meantime, but it amuses me that the original one we were talking about has now come to live with me too.

Why both? Look at them together!

The markings had a redesign somewhere between the production of these two mares, and although I liked the one I got, I'd always thought I wouldn't mind collecting the older versions as well if I happened to see them come up for sale.

As well as the patches, their feet are different - the older version has hand-painted dark hooves, the new one has sprayed pale beige instead.

Different face markings, too. My first one is named Precious, the new girl will be Pippi after a cob mare my horse made friends with over the fence this summer!

Along with her came a pair of ponies...

The shetland pony mare in a new shade of slightly brighter flaxen chestnut, and her matching foal.

They make a very sweet pair! Compare to the mare and foal I bought a while ago, in the old colour paintwork...

The foals are nothing alike, and although there's not a huge difference between two mares, it's enough that I'll keep both - besides, I'd feel terrible painting over either of them, leaving one foal without it's real mum any more!

Shetland family portrait time!

Tales from the Body Box - my first Mojo repaint

This little pony didn't spend long in my box of bodies - he had his brand new coat by the evening of the very day he arrived!

Here's a 'before' shot :

While I love the mould, and like the idea of his design as a pale palomino with dapples and white socks, the execution of the paintjob left a lot to be desired - the dappling unfortunately came out as randomly applied distinct pale spots. If he hadn't had those, I would've kept him original finish for my herd, but I knew I couldn't just live with them when I could easily redo his paintjob in a much more flattering way.

I kept the pale palomino colour, and the same white markings of four white feet and a stripe, but here's how he looks now :

He turned out exactly as I hoped, the softer shade of palomino rather than the brassy 'new penny' colour we're told they should be. I think it suits the mould nicely, and hopefully matches my original idea of painting the pony the colour it was anyway but better!

Here's a few more angles, such a sweet pony with a nice alert pose for taking pictures...

Although I've done loads of customs before, this is my first ever Mojo one, and the mould was a lot of fun to work with - the hairy texture helps with brush painted acrylics cos any slight roughness is hidden in the textured finish, and his big deeply defined eyes were so much easier to paint than when you have to more or less draw the eye onto the face of a smoother sculpt.

He's got a lot of character, and I'm really glad I can have this mould in my herd now I've got past the problem of not liking the OF paintjob!

A boxful of Mojo Fun

I ticked some more Mojo Fun models off my wishlist this week, look in this exciting box!

They came from Mojo themselves via their ebay shop; this is the cheapest and best way to buy them for UK collectors, and the customer service is perfection so I'd really recommend buying direct if you're wondering where you can get these from over here!

Let's get them all out...

I've wanted the fjord for ages, yeeeears, but never managed to get round to ordering it for various reasons, so it was about time I added one to my herd, and it was really worth the wait! The colour's really subtle, a lot of model fjords are either very bright yellow or don't have much shading, but I love the paler dun here.

This is, amazingly, my first grazing model. I really like the casual off-duty kinds of poses for model horses, rare though they are - things like head-down dozing, or resting with one hind leg cocked, and this adds one more relaxed attitude to enjoy.

I think my favourite thing about the whole sculpt is the little 'break' in the mane where the spiky upright hair follows the bend in the neck!

The Dutch warmblood, another crisp and accurate sculpt with good slim legs and nice conformation. The colour's a bit plain (especially compared to my recent WIA warmblood, but maybe it's not fair to make him stand next to that one!), but I like how the white socks have crooked tops, when so many models are painted with less attention to realistic marking shapes; or worse, given airbrushed fuzzy ones!

The Suffolk Punch mare, a rare breed we don't really have that many representations of in model form, either. And this one's a really nice example, with her kind expression and good chunky build. They even managed a well toned chestnut, rather than overly orange or too brown, a colour which can be really hard to capture in plastic form.

And she HAD to bring her foal along too, look at this sweet little sculpt!

Here's how they look together; scaled just right to work as a pair, it wouldn't have been fair to split them!

The thoroughbred, like the dutch warmblood, is another model which really showcases how Mojo get long-legged athletic breeds right. So many TB or sport horse moulds in the toy-type brands like Schleich or Bullyland have such squat chunky legs they look like heavy warmbloods or draft crosses, even the previously wonderful CollectA are giving everything thick legs now. So even though the Mojo TB is a bit on the sturdy side (I'd imagine him as a chaser or eventer, rather than a flat-bred horse), it's just nice to see slim legs at all!

The Hanoverian came in two colour options, black with white socks, or this bay, which I decided to go for because colours show mould detail and contours better than black in photos. And because they used dark shading over a soft brown plastic, it looks plenty different enough to the other two bays in the parcel, which use a much redder base plastic.

Another angle - doesn't she have a kind face. I think she's quite a petite-looking horse, maybe because her plaits are quite big giving her the look of a pony rather than a huge dressage warmblood. Her sculptor says a lot of people allocate German Riding Pony as an alternative to the Hanoverian she was sold as, I think I'll go with that.

Another zebra for my collection! It's an adorable mould, which seems the ideal mix of realism and cuteness - the CollectA zebra looks very serious, this one's somehow happier and more relaxed. I picture her as a tame zebra in a safari park, who comes to the gate for snacks and likes a good scratch from a keeper.

And what's this?

I just couldn't resist adding the foal to my order too, they needed to arrive together!

The little one's all legs, and even has some baby fluff along the back.

Mojo Fun model horses

I've always been a great fan of collecting toy type brands, whether the handmade one-of-a-kind charm of Julip and Magpie, or the variety to be found in the realms of what I unofficially call 'toyplastics' - the likes of Schleich, CollectA, Safari, Bullyland, and Papo. They're all around about the same scale, so they mix and match well whether you want them for play or display in a collection, and over the years I've built up quite a herd.
For a long time, Schleich were the market leader and a hobby favourite, giving decent value if you wanted models which were easy to get hold of in toy shops, and not too expensive. But along with a lot of adult collectors, I've gone off them more and more in recent years, as their sculpting changed direction in favour of some kind of stylised cuteness, at the expense of looking much like horses any more. Meanwhile other brands like Safari and Collecta were putting out much, much more realistic moulds, for not a lot more money, and so my collecting shifted toward finding better toy models, not just what was easy to get hold of in local shops.

One brand I hadn't really taken much notice of in the past was Mojo Fun - I think I'd seen some of the earliest models years back, and nothing had caught my eye, so I'd never investigated further or kept up with what the brand was doing.
Recently, some Mojo horses came up in an ebay search, and I though 'Hang on, that's really nice...' and had a poke around the listings, gradually getting more impressed by what I found.
The more recent models are very nicely sculpted indeed, and I find it's always, always the mould which is the make or break for me - an ugly, badly proportioned model lacking detail and realism can be painted any kind of wonderful lifelike colour and I'll still think it's terrible, but a really nicely done mould can easily get away with a simple paintjob and remain impressive.

So I sorted through the Mojo listings, and narrowed down the wishlist into a few particular choices for my first order.

First up, the piebald cob, sold as a 'tinker' mare. She's really nicely sculpted, capturing the honest, willing face, chunky build, and smooth stride of this type of horse so well - she reminds me very much of one of the kind but sparky horses I learnt to ride on. Here's a couple more photos...

 

What's interesting about this model's markings is how much they've changed over the years, if you look her up on Google images, there's been three different designs - the first seems to be an airbrushed, soft-edged style, the second was a sharper, stencilled-looking pattern, and then this current design has a similar crisp-edged look but a different arrangement of patches. I like this one best, but all three have been decent, each a good attempt at a possible set of tobiano markings, not the highly unrealistic random black blobs some poor piebalds get lumbered with.

Next up, the shire stallion, another mould which stands out as nicely done and well proportioned. The plastic is quite sturdy and heavy in hand, adding to the feel of a chunky horse, they're not lightweight and flimsy plastic, but solid and feel like they'd stand up well to childrens' play if you're after models for a younger fan.

Another angle on the shire, showing his handsome profile better than the side shot (the only problem with photographing models posed with a turn on the head), and one with his absolutely adorable foal!

I mean, look at this! I think he's got to be one of the nicest heavy horse foal sculpts I've ever seen, particularly from the toy-type ranges.

Here you can see what I mean about a relatively simple paintjob lifted by the quality of the sculpting - black is one of the most basic colours to paint, but the effort taken really shows, his socks have a gently fuzzy edge to blend them in just enough, and there's a nice depth of dark brown in his coat rather than being plain black plastic.

Another must-have when I was making up my order was this irresistably sweet donkey! Just look at that little face, and the big ears pricked make her look so happy. And she didn't travel alone...

Yep, if there's one thing cuter than a happy little donkey, it's an even littler baby donkey!

 

I love how uncertain and shy this one looks, his hesitant pose and worried ears, like he's waiting for a reassuring touch from mum, or a gentle fuss from his owner to encourage him.

 

Now, I know one of the most helpful things in a blog or forum post about a lesser-known model is always a comparison with something more people know in person, so here's my donkey posing with some new 'friends', the various toy-type brand donkeys already in my herd...

With the newest Schleich donkey, they're more or less identical height at the shoulder, but the build and conformation are different enough that they actually feel different sizes in the hand, the Mojo being much more petite.

Left to right we have here : Bullyland, Collecta, older Schleich, Schleich mammoth donkey, newer Schleich, Mojo. (The Colleca example is actually the African Wild Ass standing in as a domestic donkey, because I realised I don't have theirs yet!)

And the Mojo baby meeting the Schleich one, the difference in proportions is even more pronounced here than in the adults, especially the length of leg and size of head.

Left to right : Bullyland, Schleich mammoth donkey, Collecta, older Schleich, newer Schleich, Mojo.

So there they are, my first parcel from Mojo Fun, but definitely not going to be my last, there's already four more I'm hoping to tick off my wishlist soon.
Oh, and if you're impressed and thinking of ordering any of your own, I know people always love a tip-off on a good place to buy the less readily available brands - I'd thoroughly recommend buying direct from the company (check the seller name on the ebay listings) - the prices are better than any others on there, with a money-off deal if you buy more than one, and the friendly customer service is absolutely second to none, you can tell they really care about the models and the hobbyists who buy them. And we all appreciate that!