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!

Tales from the Body Box - Scarlett O'Hara

This week's custom model is my first Peter Stone Pebbles repaint. Pebbles are 1/16th scale, which puts them a little bit larger than CollectA horses, but not nearly as big as Breyer Classics - around 4- 5 inches to the ears, depending on the breed and pose.

Pebbles haven't been sold in my country for a really long time, but that's ok because some of the bodies in my box have been there a really long time, and the other day I found the Saddlebred mares I'd bought then set aside for being too big when I was only painting minis, then promptly forgot all about when I wasn't painting at all. I decided it was time to tackle at least one of them this weekend!

Yes, I do like painting everything bay pinto!
Click any of my photos to see them full size, I don't like to overwhelm the blog pages with huge images.

And here's the other side. I think this way round with the mane showing is generally the display side with this sculpt, but I prefer how her patches turned out on the 'wrong' side (I was making them up as I went along, as that's so much easier than copying a reference!), so I don't really know which is the best way round for this one!

I've named her Scarlett O'Hara, after the character in Gone With the Wind - I'm not actually a fan of the film and I've never read the book, but it seemed the perfect choice because it combines names from two existing Saddlebred models in my collection : my first ever buy in this mould I named Scarlet Charlotte, and one of my recent Stablemate customs I called Southern Belle, so this name kind of pulls together the red idea and the historical/regional theme.
Real-horse people often give successive generations names which draw from one parent's side or another, or ideally mix both, so I like to play with similar ideas when naming my model ones.

I didn't stop at the painting, though - you may have already spotted the coloured braids in her mane and forelock (traditional show turnout for these gaited American breeds), and being quite a bit bigger than my usual scale, I was able to make her a bridle, too!

Saddlebreds are often photographed being held by a handler off-camera, with the reins disappearing away to one side, so I thought I'd do the same - though there's not a little 16th-scale figure holding them, but my own hand carefully trying to avoid casting an unrealistically huge shadow across the horse!

The bridle here is a double one, copied from photos - they always seem to have enormously wide browbands, almost always of patent leather, and usually red, no matter what colour the horse or the mane braids. Red seems to be the fashion, rather than co-ordination or picking something to compliment the coat colour, so red it had to be!

The bridle took longer to make than the horse took to paint, it's all carefully skinned fake leather with the backing peeled off to achieve the fineness of the leather used in real life - anything thicker would look bulky and out of scale.

Although I couldn't say I'm a particular fan of gaited horses, having never even seen one in real life, I do like models of them, with their dramatic poses and showy presence. Saddlebreds are famously referred to as 'the peacocks of the show ring', and look particularly striking when they're one of the wide range of flashy colours, so they're always fun to paint, too!

Showing her face markings a little better, a quirky blaze and one eye partly blue - this also captures her proud and showy attitude really well!

Tales from the Body Box - hairy heavy horses

Over the last week, I picked up a few different horses from my box of blank, duplicate, or damaged bodies, and it was only as I went to photograph them that I realised I've done three heavy horse types in a row!

First, another from the selection of unpainted resins gathering dust. And yet another I bought a long time ago, as part of the International Blessed Broodmares Project. 

'Crusher' was a large Traditional scale resin by Kitty Cantrell, sculpted as a Norman cob he was given a hogged mane and docked tail, with relatively clean limbs. After his initial release came a mini version, at Pebbles/Littlebit scale, and then the original sculptor reworked the mini to add a lot more hair, naming this new-look edition the 'Miss Cheryl Lee' resin, and releasing it specially for TIBBP. 

I got my copy as part of the charity fundraiser, and set her aside til I felt ready to paint something bigger than Stablemate scale - she'd done her bit to help with money for the horse rescue, it didn't matter how long it took me to get her painted, right? At the time, I thought it might be a few weeks, a couple of months, perhaps.

But creativity is fragile and flighty, and my painting deserted me. 

A couple of years went by. I put the resins somewhere safe so they wouldn't get damaged while they waited. For a few more years.

When eventually I dabbled in painting Stablemates again, I didn't approach anything bigger.

Time passed, dust settled, I forgot what horses I'd even got there, waiting for their paintwork.

It wasn't til last year that I finally plucked up the courage to start painting larger resins again, and started rummaging through the selection I'd got set safely aside, meeting these old familiar unpainted faces again, and some welcome surprises - Oh, I'd forgotten buying you!, and I didn't even know I ever had you!

I picked up the blank white Cheryl, and remembered her being a TIBBP charity edition. I remembered all those poor but lucky PMU horses the model community raised money to save and rehome. I remembered the colour I'd had in mind for my mare. And finally I'm ready to make it happen.

Here she is, all done! This is the colour I'd had planned for her all along, a dark chestnut tobiano pinto, with a two-tone mane, white face, and 'eyeliner' eye. She's turned out exactly as I'd imagined, which perhaps means I waited til exactly the right time to tackle her, when my painting's going well enough to control the results reasonably well, to be able to match my mental image!

The feathering on her legs has a lot of action, swinging in sync with her movement. I love the way her mane and forelock curl loosely without being ringlets, and the way a big wave of hair folds back on itself down her neck; I gave her an extra streak of chestnut in there to have the colours cross. 

 

I haven't thought of a name for her yet, but I'll be showing her as a traditional cob - nothing to do with the word Traditional in model scales, but simply the British (real horse!) show-ring term for what Americans call 'vanners'. She looks a very confident and forward-going character, and suits her flashy colour - if I did performance she'd look great in a cart!

The next body I picked up was a G2 Clydesdale, one which I'd already given an extended tail and slightly more roman nose - some leftover mixed milliput from another custom, I had to use it up on something!

His colour and markings are based on a shire I saw at a show a long time ago, way back when I had a film camera not digital so my reference was a print from my own 1990s photo album. I didn't quite get the coat colour the right shade, but it still looks fine, like it went this way on purpose! I always enjoy how this mould can be carefully balanced on two feet for photos, although I tip them down onto three toes for extra stability on my shelf display afterwards.

You can see the markings better in this shot, the shine on the previous picture hides the three little detached spots of sabino white on the flank and quarters. This one's going to be called Olympus, I wanted to give that name to a custom which was painted during the Tokyo Olympic Games and it suits him best out of the relevant batch!

The final heavy horse is another body I've had a very long time, one of the Stone Chips from way back when they were being produced as regular runs by Schylling. I ordered five at the time - one to keep for my OF collection, and the rest to paint. But only two got their new coats of colour, while the second pair got lost, tucked with a few Stablemates into a box of craft supplies, until they resurfaced earlier this year. Another Oh, I'd forgotten I had these! moment of pleasant surprise.

I hadn't any particular colour plans for the Chips Drafters, so for this first boy I just went with an old favourite coat colour, a shaded dark bay. I know it's a bit predictable, but why not pick a colour I know I can do a decent job of, always enjoy painting, and really suits the mould! 

His markings are deliberately very similar to the OF colour underneath - I find it oddly amusing to do these 'this is how I'd have painted it' interpretations of original paintjobs, taking the time to add more shading and detailing than factory production allows.

The four long socks look very bright white, and for a while I thought about toning them down with a bit of cream and beige, but real shires have their legs shampooed and treated with chalk and white sawdust for a dazzling bright look in the show ring, so I left them as they were.

This is such a great little mould, very alert and proud looking, though I do always show mine as 2-year-old colts rather than adults, as they're rather too leggy and lacking in weight and bulk for a mature stallion. I also added a bit more foot on each back leg, as they have unfeasibly upright pasterns without altering that angle to the ground! 

And here's one confession : I had added a full-length tail dock below his little braided bun, as horses over here are never surgically docked, but it crumbled while I was painting and I couldn't reassemble the bits neatly enough to glue it back on. So I owe him the bottom half of his tail back at some point - luckily it doesn't touch or overlap his body colour, I can easily replace the extension later without spoiling his paintwork.

Two Peter Stones and a Breyer SR

This is a bit of a catch-up post as time runs out at the end of the year, because I want these horses to file into the 2019 archives for the blog! None of them have names yet, which is why I've hung back in posting them, even though one's been here since summer and the other two arrived earlier this month.

Here we have the Peter Stone Niveous, one of 250, from the 2005 Signature Series. 

It seems a really long time ago, another era of collecting OFs, when Stone still did cheaper regular runs in basic colours, but also offered more detailed models at a higher price in limited numbers. They're almost a forerunner of the current situation where all Stone releases are an expensive and exclusive luxury - looking back it seems as if they tested the waters with the Signature Series and Show Line, then decided there was enough of a market for a better grade of model, they could drop mass production and make regular runs a thing of the past. 

The only Stones I buy now are second-hand, so it's always exciting to be the winning bidder on an ebay listing, and particularly in this case, as I remember admiring Niveous all that time ago when he was new!

Though his colour might not look spectacular, not in this day and age where we're used to seeing special runs with mapping and dappling and every possible detail, back in 2005 these were the paintjobs which stood out in a crowd, and the horses so many of us OF collectors coveted most of all. It may only be 15 years, but there's a sweetly retro appeal to buying a model I wanted all that time ago; it brings back memories of happy times discussing catalogue pictures and new arrivals on internet forums, and friends I didn't manage to keep in contact with when everything gradually slipped over to Facebook instead.

One of the nicest things about the ISH mould is the friendly, happy face, don't they do great 'looking at the camera' poses! 

And here's that emphasising-the-quarters angle so beloved of the stock horse breeders, although funnily enough Niveous wouldn't be a favoured colour in the real-horse world, as I've heard Paint breeders dislike greys as the colour patches fade out as the horse ages, and the visual impact is lost. I've seen some great hunters and eventers in greyed-out 'white' skewbald and as a coat colours fan I think they're really interesting and always try to get some pictures which capture the colouring, but I can see why people want something that stays flashy forever if they're more into showing than sport!

The next buy was a horse who almost didn't come here - at first sight I resisted cos I'd spent a bit too much lately, then I got tempted I put him on my watch list as a maybe... and promptly forgot to be online to bid before he ended. Luckily, no-one else bid either, so he came round again and I promised him I'd try harder this time... and managed to get him, for less than regular run price!

Introducing Marsh Tacky Two Step, who was a Breyerfest special run in 2013. Only my second on the Desatado mould (after Picasso), he's a nice unusual colour for my herd, too; primitive dun with leg barring, and the prominent barring on his shoulders and to a lesser extent on his rump. 

I'd never even heard of the Carolina Marsh Tacky breed until he was on the way and I googled what his name meant (I thought he just had a really long name of four words!), so it's been interesting reading about them and their history, watching a few videos of their unique 'swamp fox trot' gait, and I'm sure that bit of research has made me appreciate the model more. I always think it's brilliant how model horse collecting can spark these little moments of curiosity and broaden our knowledge of the real horse world too.

Another mould which photographs well from the front, I like how his heavy tail lets him hold a rearing pose without being the slightest bit tippy.

The Marsh Tacky didn't travel alone, either - while I was bidding on him, I left a small bid on another horse from the same seller,  not expecting to be anywhere near the finishing price but worth a shot just on the off chance... and imagine my delight when I flicked tabs after winning one auction, to find I'd won this handsome chap as well!

This is the Santa Fe Morgan mould from Stone, the first edition release called Santa Fe Renegade (a portrait of a real horse), from 2012. I was never a fan of their original morgan mould, but this one is a huge improvement, and the gorgeous deep glowing colour with a hint of dappling really brings it to life. It's a model I can't stop having one more look at, maybe because the mould is new to me - I'd never even seen one in person - or maybe just because he's so pretty!

Doing the 'OH, WHAT'S THAT?!' face of horses who've spotted something they're not sure whether to find scary or exciting!

Not the best of photographs, but this shows his beautifully detailed eye, and how the little white half-star on his forehead is actually a marking etched in with hair-by-hair rough edges, not masked as a blob to be peeled off after painting.

Much like with his Tacky travelling companion, I did a little bit of extra reading about the morgan breed while waiting for his arrival here - I'd heard the story about Justin Morgan the foundation sire, and have seen a lot of photos of them being coat colour examples over the years, but realised didn't know the breed standard in terms of looks and conformation. Having read about it now, I think maybe I did know this all along, but didn't know I knew it : I just pictured them as the pretty-faced, curvy, compact horses, deep in the neck and chest but rounded all through the back and rump too - not sharply upright and exaggerated like the gaited breeds, or heavy-quartered and muscly like the stock breeds, but something in between. They have a presence all of their own, and this model seems to capture that specific Morganishness far better than I can in words!