Bonnie and The Foal

What's the most exciting kind of model horsey parcel? One which arrives with this sticker on!

Inside, there's two long-planned and much-anticipated little paper wrapped parcels, with the distinct smell of fresh latex and paint. One big and one small, whatever could they be?

It's them! Portrait models of my two real ponies.

I've handled lots of tempting brand new spares in their plastic bags over the years at shows, but somehow none of them quite come close to the sight of your very own horsey friends immortalised in Julip form. 

After a little bit of hairdressing to make their manes behave the same way the real ones do, and waiting til I had a day off work to catch the brief hour or so where the sun gets far enough in through the window above the front door to set up my scenery, they've had their photoshoot and are ready to be introduced.

First up, Bonnie. A purebred papered shetland pony of true island stock, I've owned her eight years, and she's currently thirteen. 

Bonnie was my impulse buy, my depression cure; something to focus on, to give me a reason to get up in the mornings, and to have a friend in my daily life, even if that friend was a pony. Every day, no matter how miserable and bitter-cold, is better if it starts with hugging a shetland.

We've since done a lot of harness long-reining and long walks round the country lanes, in-hand jumping, and many hours of just enjoying each other's company, as I cut weeds while she nibbles.

Bon is that rarest of things, the nice shetland, so the Julip pit pony's cheeky-but-sweet expression is perfect for her.

The real Bonnie's sooty palomino colour changes all the time, from pale golden cream with grey legs in winter, through warm gingery tan with deeper brown points in spring as she sheds not one but two successive winter coat layers, ending up a surprising dark chocolatey colour in mid summer which contrasts with her shock of blonde mane. Then in autumn her coat grows through the gingery shades again, before ending up back to light gold by midwinter.

This presented quite a dilemma - which Bonnie should I get a Julip of?

In the end, I decided her april-to-june and september-to-october 'in between' coat would be better than either extreme of her sleekest darkest summer coat, or her deep winter fluff - that way, the model would be accurate twice every year, not once!

 

Laura, the Julip artist, was very worried that she couldn't capture this ever-changing coat, but the mini Bonnie Bunny is a spot-on match for the colour I had in mind, and looks so much like the real thing!

These pictures were taken at the only show we ever went to, and doesn't she look like such a Julip Pit Pony here! When the older Shetland Pony mould was resurrected I remember having a couple of 'oh, you'll be having that for Bonnie then?' conversations at shows, but I've always imagined her in the Pit Pony mould, and still think it's by far a better match for her.

   

Her mane always flops partly to the near side of her neck, so I copied the messy style with the help of a little bit of hair mousse (I bought a can specially for Julips!)

Here she is in her headcollar, a copy of her real one, apart from one thing - there's no way I could embroider her name into the tiny grosgrain ribbon, so it's missing the word BONNIE on each side!

After I'd already owned Bonnie for a couple of years, she gained a field companion, in the shape of a really, really annoying foal. We just called it 'the foal', and put up with it being there cos it needed a friend and a place to stay, and the owner thought my shetland would provide the companionship, while I provided the early handling.
Of course, it's impossible not to fall in love with the most scatty, affectionate, protective, eccentric, and just plain weird foal you ever could imagine meeting, we bonded into a little trio, so when she was going to be sold on at two and a half, I bought her so she could stay. She already thought she was my horse - or perhaps I'm her human! - so it was inevitable.

I backed her to ride, and we had a really great year or two exploring together, but we're both retired now - she never really enjoyed it so much as walking in hand with me, and I've got old injuries causing new problems which made it increasingly uncomfortable to be in the saddle rather than on foot, so we stopped the riding pony idea and are just field companions.
She'll be turning nine this spring, but she's still called The Foal, because nothing else ever seemed to stick. 

At first, I thought the Julip CJP would be the best mould for her, but as she grew up and matured, her shape changed a great deal, and last year I finally decided that the Welsh Cob mould looked far more like the adult foal. Both ponies have a little bit of feather under their heels, so I asked for their Julip counterparts to have that little bit of customisation, too, just to make them even more alike.

Left, the day after I bought her, and right, how she looks now!

Foal is another who changes colour with her seasonal moults, not so dramatically as Bonnie but enough that I had to make the choice which I'd rather have for her Julip self - I went for her light, bright and shiny summer coat, cos in winter she's very shaggy with fluffy legs, which the mould isn't!

This is definitely the right mould choice, just look at that quirky face! The Welsh Cob mould always looks like it's up to something it shouldn't be and just got caught, which is perfect for a horse who's devoted so much of her life to stealing my hats; picking up anything that can be picked up and running around with it; obsessing over buttons, velcro, and toggles on every item of human clothing she can get into her mouth; stalking wildlife; pestering trees; biting/licking/turning-upside-down/climbing-in or otherwise molesting wheel barrows... the list is endless!

 

You can see clearly here how she hasn't got fully black legs like most bays, but is actually the variation known as wild bay. Most of her mane is on the right side, apart from the little chunk which always flips over her neck to hang the other way.

What do you mean? I didn't push the wheelbarrow over. Those aren't my hoofprints where I tried standing on it with both front feet, and they're not my teethmarks in the wheel. I wasn't even near it. I wasn't even looking at it. I wasn't even thinking about wheelbarrows. I don't even know what they ARE!

In an amazing co-incidence, Julip foal ended up with one stray white strand of hair in her forelock, which only came to light when I gave her a parting to make sure we can see her little star. Real foal has one too, though this wasn't visible in any of the pictures I sent to Julip, and I didn't mention it!

I tried to find a sensible forward-facing headshot of the foal to show you, only most of her closeups look like this...

Or this!

But this is a nice one :

As with Bon, I made a copy of the foal's real headcollar, complete with fluffy noseband (it's actually her old one I stopped using cos the buckle rusted and got difficult, but the new one is an impossible multicoloured-green-checkerboard pattern I can't make in miniature!)

And here they are together - it's so, so nice to have Julips of my girls at long last, I'd always thought I would, but it's taken a very long time to get round to actually ordering them. They're definitely worth the wait!

Tales from the Body Box - South American Special!

Ever since reading Tschiffely's Ride I've been a fan of the Argentine criollo horse, but shockingly my collection has been lacking any custom finish models of them! I've got a Julip Mancha and Gato, as well as the Breyerfest classic-scale set of that same pair, but it was about time I got round to creating a Stablemate criollo for my mini herd.

The mould which seemed the most likely candidate in my body box was the relatively recent standing warmblood. The main change was removing the unicorn horn mine came with, but I also filed the original loose mane away - criollos are frequently hogged, whether working or in the showring; not quite the same low tight clipper-cut as you'd see on a hogged show cob or polo pony, but often left with an inch or so of spiky mane upright along the crest.

Of course, the colour I most wanted to do was the fascinating manchado pinto pattern, despite the fact it also seemed one of the most difficult to recreate realistically with paint, but I decided to be brave and go for it...

...and phew, it worked out ok!

I based the rough idea of the colour and pattern on the stallion in these stunning photos on Shutterstock, but decided against copying the markings patch by patch because that would've made painting needlessly complicated when it's not a portrait custom, just inspired by a good colour!

Looking very alert, and quite at home in this bit of scenery (which is secretly Ireland not Argentina, because it came out of a Breyer Connemara box!)

I think this mould makes a pretty good basis for the criollo breed, despite being intended as a warmblood. Oddly, it's listed on Identify Your Breyer as the 'warmblood stallion', but all mine are mares so far (I have an OF from last year's horse & foal sets, and these clear bodies from the Paint Your Own Suncatcher Unicorn set), so unless there's two versions, I think that's just a mistake on the site.

Although she seems finished already, I had further plans for this custom, and did my first ever piece of Stablemate scale tack making! 

I don't think I'd have much success trying to work real or fake leather at such a tiny scale, buckles and keepers and all, but criollo halters and bridles are made with plaited rawhide, leather, or cord, and so I was able to do a tiny version with plaited embroidery thread, damped down with glue to prevent any fluffy edges.

I think this last shot will be her future show photo, whenever I've managed to give her a name.

Next up, and keeping in the same continent, this time it's my first ever Peruvian Paso custom! Yes, really - I've done quite a few of the G2 Paso Fino, but this is the first ever G3 Peruvian Paso to have found his way to my body box. It was a lovely little mould to work with, and I wish I'd got round to painting some years ago!

I went with the colour I've always had in mind for him, a rich golden-brown sooty/smutty palomino, based on some lovely reference pictures I saw ages ago but regrettably didn't save a copy or a link for. The closest I could find on the second time of hunting was this beautiful boy, so I based my paint mixing on him but used different markings, as again this is an 'inspired by' rather than a direct portrait paintjob.

I'm so pleased with how he turned out! I'll readily admit that these are the kinds of colours I find hardest to paint, something about the blending and shading of tans into richer browns or dark points is incredibly difficult to get looking smooth and natural, and it's taken me years to have any turn out in a convincing and tidy way.

At this point I thought I'd done enough South American breeds for a while, and ought to vary it a bit, but no, for some reason the creative whisper in the back of my mind kept on suggesting that the criollo needed a friend more than I needed more breeds ticked off my painted list, and so that's what happened - meet manchado criollo number two!

This one's a bit darker, based on the common dun colour of the breed, but mottled and mixed into the distinctive white markings, splodgy spotting, and roaning. 

  

Again, the mould had a little alteration, this time I had to add a little resculpted milliput mane along the crest, and for the tuft traditionally left long at the shoulders. I wonder if it's used for the rider to grip, a bit like jockeys and XC riders will rub out a few plaits so there's loose mane to grab in an emergency, or how I used to jump a particularly spring-loaded barrel of a pony when I was a teen, wrapping one hand into her big fluffy thelwell mane as an anchor for when she inevitably put in a cat-leap twice the height of the poles and would've launched me independently over them if I hadn't been holding on!

This poor SM body had also seen better days when it arrived with me, missing one ear & one leg entirely, and with another leg sellotaped to it's side. The repairs aren't perfect, and the reason the forelock and tail ended up a bit bulked up - to cover and strengthen the joins!

 

This one also has a little braided halter, and I think I'll use the final photo with it as her display and show picture.

Lots of very fiddly plaiting went into these, but I think they were worth the extra time they took, making the little models look finished, and helping to emphasise their breed, seeing as these two were sculpted as warmblood and stock horse originally.

Tales from the Body Box - Wee Wyakin

One of the things which must feel familiar to most people who paint model horses is the guilt that comes with having long-unpainted bodies. You know the ones. You really, really wanted them at the time - a fantastic example of your absolute favourite breed, or one you'd always wanted and never had chance to buy before? Maybe you took pity on a damaged horse, or fell for the real-life backstory behind a resin, and couldn't resist. Or perhaps they were in a charity sale and your heart was behind the cause. 

The International Blessed Broodmare Project was that worthy cause for a lot of collectors - over a decade ago now the hobby pulled together to help rehome hundreds of horses from the defunct PMU industry, by supporting the dedicated work of Animali Farm. Mostly mares, many pregnant, their plight struck home for our community of horse lovers, with money desperately needed to pay medical testing and shipping fees so the horses could be adopted into caring new homes before they were sold for slaughter.
Artists painted donation models, sculptors sold their own unpainted resins, there were live show raffles, online auctions, fundraiser shows, and all sorts. I remember running a photo show and when I sent in the total raised, told them simply 'put it toward whichever horse you think needs it most', and received a lovely email some time later telling me our money had gone toward homing the piebald draft stallion, King.

The other day, I picked out a half forgotten, wholly neglected horse from my hidden stash of resin bodies : Wee Wyakin, by Michelle Platt. But didn't remember the circumstances of buying her til I checked my notebook, where beside her name, I'd scribbled down 'TIBBP charity model'.
I think, and I'm not too sure after all this time, that she may have come over direct from America (I know my big Aalef resin, by the same sculptor, was also a TIBBP purchase), though it's possible from the vagueness of my note that someone here in the UK sold or auctioned her for the charity.

Either way, she'd come to join my herd, and raised a bit of money toward the PMU mares on her way here.
And here's where the guilt comes in.
Despite loving the resin, I'd tucked her away safely to paint 'later' because she was a little big when I only felt up to tackling Stablemates, and then for a long while, I didn't feel like painting any models at all.
So she gathered dust. A whole thick fuzzy coat of 10 years' worth of it all down one side. So many colourful Wee Wyakins out being enjoyed in the world, and one blank one being ignored, patiently waiting for her paint.

Well, she doesn't have to wait any longer, here at last I can introduce Mishawaka, the long lost copy of dear little Wee Wyakin!

She was always going to be spotted, as I remember her sculptor writing about the real appaloosa mare the original Trad scale Wyakin was based on, but I admit my early imaginings of her paintjob were much paler in colour, either a chestnut or the sandier shades of dun. Only, I've done some blanket spotted Stablemates lately, and found the pattern and roaning stood out in a far more distinct and effective way with a darker base colour, so decided to go for the one which had looked best of all in mini scale.

Her name has no profound and carefully chosen relevant literal meaning - this morning I had a parcel arrive from an American bookstore recycling and rehoming ex library books (the only place I could find an affordable copy of a slightly obscure book about the history of cormorants, which I've wanted for aaaages!), and it was sent from a place called Mishawaka, Indiana. It just seemed to suit her, and work well as a horse name - you can imagine it being shortened to Misha as her barn name, and a long sing-song Miiiiiii-shaaaaa when calling her from a dozing spot under her favourite tree!

Because this is definitely a horse for whom napping under shady trees is a high priority in life! I love the many models of horses at peak fitness in proud showring or athletic poses as much as anyone, but there's a special place in my heart for the ones which just look ordinary. That much-loved backyard pony, that broodmare aging gracefully, or that lazy happy hacker  - the horses which look laid-back and kind and like they've no ambitions of ever winning a rosette but maybe I could have an apple if I ask nicely?'

One of the nicest things about working a slightly bigger scale than usual is how much more detailing can be done, like all the pink speckling on Misha's face here

She did look rather nice before I added spotting, and I briefly considered leaving her as a snowcap appaloosa, but having had spots in mind for such a long time, I think I'd have regretted not including them after all.

I love how she turned out - there's a long delayed satisfaction in having wanted her so much at the time, and liking her so much now she's done. Welcome to the herd, Mishawaka!

Tales from the Body Box - Mustangs

One of the things I find most fascinating about the model horse hobby is how it can spark interest in real horse breeds from all over the world, which we might never have had any contact with in person, and never knew much about. I often find myself reading up on breeds to research possible colours to paint, or correct naming traditions, or even just to satisfy the curiosity to find out more about a breed I just bought a model of. 
Last week, I emptied all the Stablemate bodies from my box and laid them out to see what I'd got left - any multiples of the same mould in there? Hmm, yes, there's several of the G4 ('rivet') mustang, let's have a mustang for a change. Better check if there's any colours I mustn't put on these...

Five hours later, I'm still oohing and ahhing over photos of mustangs in all kinds of colours, having read page after page by owners and enthusiasts, learnt a lot about the history of the breed and the strains with their differing characteristics, and I feel like I can add the mustang to the list of breeds I've never met but know a decent amount about. 

Oh, and by the way, if you want a truly heartwarming horse story with a happy end (and who doesn't!), check out this Youtube video about Phoenix - and there's more about him, and all his herdmates, here.

So, feeling thoroughly primed by all these photos, I picked up the first mustang SM and started filing away the logo and seams, and considering colour options.
I've already done this mould in dark bay, wild bay, bay tobiano, and yellow dun; and while the blacks, greys & chestnuts are handsome, those are colours I've painted many times over on other moulds already, so the mustangs which stood out to try next were the roans, the more unusual pintos, and the various spotted patterns.
I mentioned in my last blog post that high on my little to-do list of coat colours I haven't painted before was a medicine hat pinto, so this seemed an ideal breed to carry that pattern, and I chose a grulla colour for the patches.

I'm quite pleased with the way his pattern came out; because I was painting small colour areas and a big expanse of white, I decided to go with painting the white on first to make sure it was smoothly applied, rather than the colour first then the white markings over the top.
It's much more fiddly this way round, and getting the shading applied while staying 'inside the lines' is incredibly tricky. I had to use diluted paint dabbled on in thin loose layers a bit like watercolours, which really goes against the grain when I'm more of a smudgey, dry-brushing, thick-paint-in-thin-layers painter, but for a one-off technique improvised to achieve this pattern, it kind of worked!
The dark patch on his off side hock there is just shadow, not a marking, you can see in the next photo it's not really there.

I've made him quite a grubby colour, with a stained-blonde mane and tail, and mud scuffed on in all the places my own outdoor ponies tend to pick it up when they roll : shoulders and hips, knees hocks and fetlocks (though fortunately neither of mine have white areas so they don't look so obviously mucky - having had a grey in the past, I'm so very glad for the dirt-hiding capacity of bay and palomino!)

This mould has really grown on me over the years, when I first saw it in the promo photos it looked very awkward and uncomfortable, almost a broken-backed pose, but real horses captured in motion do have some really gawky-looking phases in their gaits or movements, especially when bucking, squabbling, or larking about - and it's fine to have models which aren't doing perfect textbook poses!

Of course, while I was in a mustangy mood, I decided this boy needed a companion, so I went for another colour I'd admired in the real ones, a little like the now-famous Phoenix linked further up this post, but copied from this random Google Images photo I can't find an original source for - I liked the bigger blanket pattern, and the fact he's a slightly darker colour so my white paint would stand out more visibly.

He turned out far better than I even hoped for! I've finally figured out how to make my chocolate-brown paint work with the lighter sandy tones without making a difficult mess - the secret is to add black as well and use it as a dry brush top layer of shading to turn this buckskin slightly sooty.

Once the base coat colour was dry, I polished it with a bit of fleece to give a slight sealing effect so any mistakes could be wiped off with a licked thumb before the paint stuck down, and used a tiny fine brush to add in the white blanket pattern, and finally the spots.

I haven't managed to name either of these yet - I kind of feel they should have nature-based names as a nod to the wild outdoor life of their breed, but don't know anything about the native plants, trees, or wild birds of any home areas for the mustang herds, so that's more research to be done at some point!

There's one more G4 mustang in my body box, along with a G3 as well, so I can paint myself two more colours for this little herd in future - I'm thinking a high contrast mahogany bay roan with a lot of corn spots for one, and no idea for the other yet. Any suggestions? What's your favourite mustang colour?

Tales from the Body Box - New year, new colours!

A recent discussion with some Julip fans about what colours we'd got, and especially what colours were missing from our collections, made me wonder the same for the colours I'd painted. After last year's shock realisation that I'd never done red dun or cremello customs, were there other obvious gaps I really should have filled by now? So I dug the colours chart back out, and started ticking off the ones I've already painted at least once.
What's left stands out as a Never Painted list of colours I'd somehow never thought of, or avoided because I preferred other variations on the same theme, and this year I'm determined to fill some of those gaps.

The list contains four kinds of appaloosa, because surprisingly in all this time I've only ever painted blanket spotted, leopard or semi-leopard, or a sort of extended blanket varnish roan combination of spots on top of mottled colour. I decided to tackle snowflake first from my missing ones, a pretty colour which I'd deliberately never tried cos I feared it'd look too much like white paint spattered over a perfectly good paintjob!
So instead of risking the paint-spatter technique, I decided to go with a much more controlled application of white, got out one of my tiniest brushes, and applied the spots and roaning carefully by hand. It took ages, but I think the results are worth it!

The rather unexpected mould choice is because last year I found a photo in a 1970s horse book featuring a very incongruous looking snowflake appaloosa in an everyday Irish high-street horse market. He stood out so much I took a picture of the page for my 'horse colour ref' folder, and although I didn't go quite so heavily on the spotting for my model version, I wanted to paint one which could be an eye-catching Irish hunter, rather than an American stock horse type.

I might do another at some point, more heavily spotted or with larger snowflakes, but he just seemed to reach the point where he looked good enough, so I stopped here rather than risking spoiling him - I like this ratio of colour to white! I've named him Orion's Bow, a nod to his huntery inspiration, and his snowflakes could be taken as a lot of twinkling stars.

Of course, as usual when researching a colour, I was then in the middle of an appaloosa mood, and the very next custom ticked off another of the missing patterns - snowcap appaloosa, a blanket without the usual spots inside it. It's not that I don't like this colour on real horses, I just enjoy painting the spots on model ones, so I'd never done the appaloosa types which don't have any spotting!

As I've said before, I'm not the biggest fan of the reiner mould as such, but when it's in a really interesting colour my opinion flips and I love them, so I decided to put this good pattern on the final one in my body box, and it seems to suit him so well! The pink-speckled skin round the eyes and muzzle brings his face to life, and I had fun adding all the rough uneven roaning over the basic bay base colour.

Here's that blanket without spots - the temptation to add some was so strong cos I knew he'd look even more detailed and interesting with them than without, but then I wouldn't be ticking off that long-avoided snowcap after all, and would have to use up another body to get round to it!

 

A couple more angles, just because he's not quite the same on both sides, and the light helps bring out the detailing of his face. I've named him Snow Angel, to suit both the name of his colour, and the time of year (we had snow in December, my horse makes snow angels by rolling in multiple spots all over the field).

Another notable gap in my herd of customs was Pearl. A relatively recently identified dilution gene, which only really came to light many years after I'd already learnt about horse colours and started painting them, so I suppose I didn't see it as 'missing' cos it never was in my mind to start with!
Most famous in Iberian breeds, I dithered between using up one of the G2 Andalusians which've been in my body box for ages, or picking the much newer Spanish Walk Andalusian, in the end the more exciting choice won!

Pearl is one of those colours which looks made up - ten or fifteen years ago, this would've been written off as fictional pretty-horse painting, or at best a badly done dun by someone who didn't understand, or forgot, the dark points. 
The pearl dilution works by altering base colours, but it's more complicated than usual. One pearl gene, and the horse's colour isn't changed, it'll just look bay or chestnut or whatever. Two pearl genes, and you get the pearl colouration. But here's the thing - cream can also work as a 'second' pearl gene, so a horse carrying one cream gene and one pearl, will come out with paler variations of the pearl colour.
I went for one of the more basic options, bay plus two pearl genes, creating a colour known as brown pearl, and have named him Valenciano.

Here he is in different light, his dapples hide but his face looks nicer, I think! Double pearl horses have amber eyes and pale grey-brown skin visible on the muzzle and round the eyes, while pearl plus cream will show paler hazel-green or blue eyes, and their skin is much pinker.

This mould looks nice in hand, but is very frustrating to photograph anything but directly side-on, because the head is always either at an unappealing angle, or out of focus! I also spotted a bit of stray brown moss in the background, behind his raised hoof here, which looks like a little pile of horse poo in the other shots. Accidental realism!

The final one of this little batch of missing colours, and it's another unusual one to tick off.

Champagne, like pearl, is a gene which works over the top of other colours. A black horse with the champagne gene becomes classic champagne, bay becomes amber champagne, and chestnut becomes gold champagne (but it can also overlap other genes like cream or dun or silver, leaving multitudes of possible combinations!). I'd done an amber champagne pinto before, but none of the others, so classic champagne was top of the to-do list.

The classic champagne colour is a lovely lustrous brown, with darker points, and these ginger tips to the mane and tail in all the reference photos I collected before I started to paint. Like all champagnes, they also have distinctive mottled skin, peach with dark speckles rather than the pink-on-black seen in appaloosas, and pale hazel greenish eyes. The colour has the potential to look quite muddy and plain when painted, but the darker points do give it depth, the unusual colour skin and eye detailing add interest, and I gave mine some flashy white markings to stand out nicely, too, so I'm really pleased with how she looks.

The sun came out a little brighter between shots, and this photo makes her look much paler and with a warmer tone - it's interesting how some real life horses look such different shades in bright sun or a dull day, and I found it curious that this model version does the same.

Some different angles - this mould seems to 'pose' so nicely for the camera! Her mane braids are done with my usual technique of carving away the original oddly sausagey plastic ones and attaching plaited thread instead - by gluing the lower ends down as well you can be sure they lay just right to cover any rough marks left by removing the moulded-on braids.

That's it for now, I'm satisfied with four colours ticked off the Never Painted list, four nice new little customs for my shelves, and while there's still a few colours and patterns I definitely want to do in future (varnish/marble appaloosa and medicine hat pinto are now top of the to-do list!), I don't have any urge to complete the whole thing. There's loads of obscure modifier-gene combinations out there, so I'm not even going to consider ticking off every last one of the entire set of possibilities, I'll just be happy to have filled some gaps I didn't realise I had.