CollectA customs little & large

This week I had two new custom CollectA arrivals, co-incidentally both painted by the same hobby friend of mine - Chloe at Henhafod. One was a newly finished piece straight from the artist's studio, the other second hand from Ebay, having lived with someone else for a few years in between.

This mould is intended as a pure arabian, but the legs are rather chunky for that, so I think I'll be having him as a Tersk instead. The Tersk (or Tersky) is a Russian breed, based on European arab stallions but with a mix of thoroughbred and hunter-type blood. They do vary, from what I've read, with some lines looking almost purebred arabian, while many would make a good hunter, jumper or eventer type - an all-round riding horse with more height and bone.

He's my first of the small scale Mini CollectA models, shrunk-down versions of their Standard 20th and Deluxe 12th scale moulds. They're a bit bigger than Breyer Mini Whinnies, so I took a picture to show the size (for any international readers, a UK penny is the same as a US one, the Euro cent, and matches the penny/cent coin in a lot of other places, too!)

 

I think I'll call him Pascha, another of those names I've had on my list for ages but never had a horse to suit it - apparently it means 'small' and is of Russian origin, so it's ideal for this tiny little chap!

Although I like the photos with my smallest-scale trees in, he does stand out really nicely against the open sky, and I'm undecided which to use as his show and website image. Note the extra small white paddock fence, hastily made from sliced up packaging box last time I had some micro-mini scale models to photograph!

And here's his wrong side : I always try to find the 'right' angle to show off a horse to the most flattering advantage, and like many, this mould's posed on a slight bend, with his head turned, making this the non-display side.

The second of Chloe's customs was painted a few years ago, when he popped up on Ebay my first reaction was just 'ooh, pretty!' cos I liked his colour. I clicked for a closer look at the photos, because I do love my CollectA models and this is such a friendly-looking mould I'd decided I might have to try for him. But once I saw I knew his painter (and we've been friends for well over a decade now), I was even more determined to get him for my herd, and was delighted to be the winning bidder by the end.

He's a lovely toned-down smoky palomino colour, a really soft and pleasant variation on the usual copper-penny bright tones. Even though I paint lots of models myself, I always think it's well worth adding other artists' work when they've done something I know I couldn't just do for myself. And these gentle pale dilutes are the ones I've always struggled with, to the point of avoiding cos I know how rarely they go well for me. So I buy other people's instead!

I love the expression on so many of the Debra McDermott CollectA sculpt's faces - that head-turn with an alert prick of the ears, like you've just made a click of the tongue or jingle of keys to get the horse's attention for a photograph.

More Magpies - a donkey and a shetland pony

In my previous post on Magpie Models, I mentioned that I'd been for a rummage through another area of body box, and found not only the shells I knew were in there, but an extra donkey shell I didn't even remember buying!
Any model collectors reading this without being an enthusiast of Magpie might not know just how sought after these rare donkeys are - I've seen an OF sell on ebay for over £130, and even blank shells making upwards of £50 each on a good day, so to say I was pleased to find I owned one more than I remembered is an understatement!
It's possible the extra one was a lucky find on a sales table at a live show some time before the prices started to rocket up (I wouldn't have paid more than about a fiver per body), and tucked away with the other shells to do something with later - then I promptly forgot about them entirely for however long, heh

With my Magpie collecting enjoying something of a renaissance with the photo show re-igniting my old love of my existing herd, and my new welshie customs turning out so nicely, I was on a roll and just couldn't resist getting to work on the first donkey. 

As I've already got Julips of the two donkeys I used to look after for their owner, I decided to go with the colour of a different donkey I'm only vaguely acquainted with - I cycle past his corner paddock every time I go to work or to my own ponies. I started to call out 'hello, donkey' so I didn't make him jump by suddenly appearing on my bike, now it's become a habit to always greet him, and he always stops what he's doing to watch me go by.

I really like the way he turned out, the textured hairy-coat sculpting had me worried that with my brush-smudging painting technique the shading would catch on all the raised areas, leaving a rough patchy look, but he's just smooth enough that it wasn't an issue. I've named him Harecroft Tholomas (pronounced 'toller-muss').

Making his tail was the hardest part of the whole customisation process. I admit I hate working with the combination of glue and mohair at the best of times, so my usual tactic is to sew it into a sandwich of paper for a mane, and make a tight ponytail with a bit of wire wrapping for a tail, and slot them in without gluing just to avoid the ruining mess! 

Adapting to a donkey mane was fine, as it's the same construction as a horse's mane, just trimmed to stand upright, and coloured with a bit of diluted black paint to dye it streaky. But for a donkey's distinctive tail anatomy, where the dock has the same short smooth coat as the body, I had to use glue to bundle the top half tight together, leaving just the fluffy tuft at the end. Once the PVA had dried completely, I attached it to his bum with a dot of gel superglue to make sure it's extra firm and can't drop off, and used a bit of paint to match the colour.

You'd think one new Magpie for my herd would be enough, but no, it seems now I've started I can't leave them alone ...I'll go back to have another look in the body box.

Magpie bodies come in matching halves to join together yourself, that's why we call them shells, and in here there's four pieces - enough to make two ponies.

Well, I have an actual shetland pony. So, even though I got my Julip of her only last month, I suppose it's somehow inevitable and only right that my first shetland shell should be used as a portrait of my own shetland, and the second shell can become a made-up one in a colour I just fancy painting.

And here she is!

Bonnie has a notoriously difficult colour to paint, but I managed it using some golden beige shades, with a hint of 'chestnut' paint mixed in to deepen the colour without losing the warmth, then a little black and stoney grey-brown added for her legs, with the colour fading up into her hindquarters.

Exactly as with her Julip self, I chose her in-between coat colour - not the darkest chocolatey brown of her midsummer coat, or the much blonder winter fluff, but the golden shaded tones she goes twice every year. One of these days I'll have to do a winter Bonnie SM, but I'll need to resculpt the entire surface with rough thick fur first!

 

I'm really happy with how she turned out - I did think maybe it was a bit silly to paint myself a Bonnie so soon after getting her done as a Julip portrait, especially as shetland shells haven't been in production since the early 90s so they're almost as scarce as the donkeys. But Magpies are very different models and I'm sure I'll enjoy owning both of them - it's not a waste of the precious shell at all, but the best way I could possibly have used one up.

Here's a little before-and-after comparison, you can see that I did a little Milliputting work to reshape the face before painting.

It has incredibly tiny ears, which would just be lost amongst Bonnie's blonde forelock, so I made them about twice the size. Then I decided I may as well make it look even more like Bon and tweak some of the less pretty aspects of the face, so I enlarged the eyes, which weren't bad but were on the small side, and redid the muzzle chunkier, with larger nostrils and a closed mouth.

The original mouth is sculpted in a rather odd open-lips, gritted-teeth expression - I wonder if they were intended to be cut open to take a bit, like the Magpie arab and hunter can.

Bonnie's mane presented a challenge - I only have black, white or mixed black'n'white mohair, so I made up a plain white mane by sewing to avoid glue as usual, then used paint to colour it blonde with a hint of chestnut and some grey at the shoulder. It's still a tiny bit damp from styling mouse in this photo, but I forgot to take a better shot of her wrong side the next day when the sun came out!

Bonnie with her real self!

I've had to name this one Bonnie Surprise, her passport name which we never actually use, because I already used just plain Bonnie for the CollectA custom which was my first model of her, Little Bonnie for her Stablemate self, then chose Bonnie Bunny for the Julip after the real one's nickname (as well as having a Bonnie Scotland who was a lookalike Julip of a totally different Bonnie I used to ride, and had to have her name adjusted after my Bonnie arrived!)

I just have to remember who got which name variation if I'm entering this herd of Bonnies in any photo shows.

Breyer Mini Whinnies - saddlebreds

Until the Mini Whinnies selection was expanded with scaled-down versions of popular Trad and Classic moulds, one of my favourites from the older range was the standing saddlebred - yet he was the one mould I'd somehow never managed to get! When someone on Ebay listed a set of four different colours as a job lot, I just couldn't resist, and this morning I had a little parcel of extra tiny horses through the door.

The original Mini Whinnies might be a bit basic and clunky, with less accurate anatomy than the new generation made from shrunk-down larger scales, but they're sweet in their own way - and because I'd always wanted this particular mould, I'm really pleased with them, even though in general I'd favour the more recent releases for realism and accuracy.

The first three all come from the 2019 blind bags, series 3. Their release names were Muffin, Hunter, and Louie, but I'll be changing those to better suit my herd and my taste in horse names! 

And the final one was part of a packaged 'Six Stallions' set, 2005-6, he didn't come with a name.

I thought that once I finally had some of this mould, I'd be satisfied - but actually I'd like even more of them now I've started!

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!

Recreating the Harecroft Horses logo

One of my favourite wild animals is our native brown hare.
I'd always liked them, but one almost magical experience nearly twenty years ago made me see them as something truly special. Mid winter, alone in a bitter-cold frozen paddock made sparkling by a low sun just reaching above the hedge line, and some little movement made me glance up; a hare, running steadily in a straight line across the field. For no apparent reason, quiet and unstartled, he veered off his line and ran a full circle around me, about fifteen feet from where I stood, turning to watch him as he went. When he'd rejoined his original line, he ran on away through the frost and was gone. A breathtaking encounter, and unforgettable.

Some time shortly after starting to show my Julips, back in 2001, I chose the name Harecroft Farm for my model horse herd. A couple of years later, I drew up a logo based on the fascinating and ancient three hares symbol, and used it in my website graphics, forum signatures, and as a watermark on any photos submitted to online resources like Stonehorseref. There's even a fictional pub named The Three Hares in my written work.
Unfortunately, over time, and in transferring files from one failing computer to another, and my website from old hosting to the current one, I'd lost my master copy of the logo, and no longer used it.

The other day, realising how long it had been missing from my Harecroft branding, I was thinking of recreating the original logo from a poor quality copy, as simple pixel art the way it used to be.
But then I thought, no, I can do better than that.
Graphics have moved on - whereas in 2002 a two-tone pixel art jpeg made with mouse clicks in Microsoft Paint was a decent enough stab at making something, these days I've got a Wacom tablet with a very clever pen, surely I can create a much better version now!

First of all, I drew up a rough of a running hare. He didn't need to be too large or too detailed, after all he'd soon become just a part of the bigger project. 
If you look up 'three hares logo' on google images you'll see all kinds of different artists' interpretations of the same logo, from beautifully realistic and detailed paintings, through to sleek and simplified digital outlines. Some of them look cute, some veer toward dramatic and slightly creepy. I wanted mine to be naturalistic and appealing but not overly stylised. Click to see him full size.

Once I'd made one hare, it was time to duplicate him round into the carefully aligned triangular trio, sharing just three ears between them. Getting the angles exactly right so the special redrawn ears matched up was very tricky, and because my mind's not mathematical in the slightest, I had to just judge it by eye and guesswork - in fact there was a tiny bit of scribbling and adjusting done to make them fit!

Here they are! Some illustrators draw from extra nature-based motifs for decorating their three hare pieces, like leaves or flowers, while others emphasise the symmetry with an elaborate border. But because mine is intended as a logo, I wanted it have a very simple open outline. 

On a plain white page, which I can change to any colour linework and overlay onto any background for making my website graphics.

Here's a couple of small bold-outlined copies, which will work as a light or dark watermark over photos, should I ever need to use one.

And finally, I couldn't resist putting some colour into the original hare rough and finishing him off nicely.

Magpie Models - two new customs

Last week, I started sorting out some photographs to enter in Magpie Models' first ever official photo show.
My little herd is rather retro, as I've got left behind by new releases - all my OF Magpies are getting well toward vintage status, from the 1990s to early 2000s. And so there's a strange charm to looking through their photos again after all this time - a nostalgia for the hobby the way it used to be, the friends who used to collect alongside me, and the excitement of finding a new pony to tick off the list, or sharing newly painted customs with our little community of fans. 
I never stopped liking my Magpies, the whole herd still kept carefully on display to this day, I just stopped having an awful lot to do with them when I wasn't actively collecting, I lost my place in that discussion between collectors as the various model forums fizzled out in favour of the modern social media connections, and they never got show outings as I focused on trying to make it to just the Julip-specific events.

In short, without ever really having decided to, I'd dropped out of the Magpie community, and my herd had been, if not forgotten, then at least neglected. The closest I'd come to revisiting them had been making up a welsh shell as a portrait of my own pony, a couple of years ago.

Going through my photos again had brought back all those memories, of who I'd bought different models from, and of shows I'd taken them to in the past. The happiness of finding that rare Personality model for sale, or unwrapping an obscure one-of-a-kind and standing him among new welshie friends. For a little while, sorting out pictures, deciding who to enter in each class, remembering some names they'd come with and others I'd chosen myself, thinking 'oh, you ARE nice!' about old favourites...I was back in Magpie collector mode, enjoying them as much as ever.

And it inspired me, to go to the Miscellaneous Dusty Stuff section of my body box (which, let's face it, has never been just one box, but an assortment of different crates, boxes, piles and shelves where I keep unpainted or bargain broken/worn-out horses in need of a new coat of colour). I knew there were Magpies in there; at least two Welsh ponies and about three halves of a shetland, right? Turns out there's three welshies, less shetland pony than I thought, and a donkey in two pieces that I don't even remember buying!
I'd set them aside as needing too much prep work for now, and...abandoned them for a decade. I stopped painting at all, even the easy Stablemate bodies, so the awkward ones stood no chance. I do that kind of thing, if my inspiration or creativity crumples, I just hide from it and do nothing for unseemly amounts of time, heh.

But lately, I've been painting again. SO MUCH PAINTING. 

So, I thought, I'd embrace this little renaissance of Magpie love, and customise myself a couple of welshies. I'd love some new faces for my herd, invented little characters wearing coat colours how I paint them now, rather than how I painted fifteen years ago.
It was about time.

And here they are!

I chose two patterns I've had successful attempts with lately, as the whole point here was to do paintjobs I knew I was confident with and the Magpies deserved, rather than using up my extremely limited selection of bodies on haphazard or tentative experimental paintjobs which might not really work.

Here's a little in-progress shot - you can see I'm economical with my stupidly expensive paint by not putting any on the bits I'll be going over as white markings!

And here he is all finished, meet Harecroft North Star, who may well be my new favourite from my whole long conga of Magpie welshies.

 

I love the way he turned out, almost exactly what I had in mind when I planned him - except for the mane and tail. I didn't have any mohair long enough to make him a loose tail as I'd originally been imagining, just offcuts from my newest Julip's mane, so I used a little bunch of that for the bottom of his tail, making up the plaited top with half a cotton bud wrapped in black embroidery thread, and finished with a thread braid. The 'bud' end is still there, pushed in through the tail hole to hold it in place without even needing to risk the usual messy glue tactics. The mane is more thread, a long thick strand knotted to form the braids and glued down in one piece.

A couple more shots showing all of his markings, and then on to the next introduction...

Harecroft Thorn of Camorr (a name I've had on my ideas list for a very long time without any pony to fit it!), a British Spotted Pony.

Why an appaloosa pattern? Because I've never painted one on a Magpie before, this colour has been going well for me lately, and he could then be a breed which suits being shown plaited up. Because again, I wanted to do the braided cotton bud tail and thread mane - although I had a long enough hank of this mixed grey mohair to make a loose mane and tail, I hate handling it with glue, making a right mess of myself, the mohair, and the paintwork on the horse I'm trying to hair. Avoiding the model-spoiling, and general stressy horror of glue based hairing, was a major deciding factor in picking this breed over a British native which need to be loose and natural!

I seem to have lost his front-angle shot, but here's one of his other side so you can see all the spots, anyway.

There's one more welsh pony in the body box. I've re-glued his split seams, filed and smoothed them, and he's waiting for a colour idea to strike. And then there's the pieces of shetland, once I've found a pair of both sides rather than two matching lefts. And I'm sure I can do something with this halved donkey...

Breyer 2021 regular runs reviewed

I realise this post might seem really late, when any possible readers will already have seen the photos on retailer blogs and social media, but I admit it - I'm having a hard time getting excited about Breyer releases when the UK's supply of them is so patchy these days.
Let me make it very clear : it's not the British retailers at fault in the slightest - our online shops are doing the best they can to get their stock in throughout the year, they want to sell what we want to buy, and I'm sure they're as upset as their customers with how slow and frustrating things have got.
It's the distributor's lack of speed or willingness to get all the models imported into the UK in the first place (and, importantly, Breyer being ok with this) which leaves us feeling like second class customers, who don't matter and don't deserve a ready supply of nice things.
It's just kind of disheartening wanting to be an avid collector, but not knowing when or if we'll actually be able to buy the models we've taken a liking to. Some are only a couple of months behind the US. Other main releases aren't imported til summer, or autumn, and the retailers aren't promised up front whether the missing items will ever be added to the list at all. Some mid-years don't arrive til the following year - we don't have Peptoboonsmal yet, for example.
If you have your heart set on a certain model, maybe you can order it fairly soon, but maybe you just have to wait and wait til someone else decides if you're allowed that one.
So what's the point of getting excited over the 2021 pictures, when we don't know which are coming? Not worth being quick off the mark with my review post, when we don't know which will be available to buy quickly in spring, or later, or never.

Right, having got my apathy out of the way early, may as well have a look at the horses and record my thoughts on them - I find it interesting to go back to these 'first impression' posts much later on and see whether my opinions changed on seeing the models in real photos or in person, and which of my selections I did end up owning after all.
Each model name links to the item page on Breyer's official website, and opens in a new tab if you want to click it. I don't ever hotlink photos on the blog (cos I'm not a retailer allowed the pictures for promo purposes), so this seems the best way to show which horse I'm talking about.
If anyone's reading this post from the far distant future when these releases have been and gone and the links are no longer valid, I leave my honest apologies here in Feb 2021 and hope you're doing well in whatever year you're reading from!

Traditional scale

The Ideal Series - American Paint Horse
I wrote last year that maybe I'd like this mould (which I forever think of as The One Like The Stone ISH But Not Quite) more in a more interesting colour than the plain chestnut quarter horse we were given for 2020.
And I think I was right. I do like it more. But still not enough for him to jump onto any theoretical wishlist - there's still something about the head I find a bit off, I think the muzzle is too small leaving the head very pointed, and the eyes are either too small or to low, making him look a little bit less friendly and alert than the dear old ISH he reminds me of.
His pattern is taken exactly from the painting, and I've a feeling that may not have been based on any one real life horse - the front half looks frame overo while the back half looks tobiano, and yes I've seen enough pinto horses to realise this muddle can happen, but perhaps it's just that I'd kind of like models to be a good example of one thing or another?
But he's better than the plain chestnut, and I don't hate him, I just find I can't overlook two things in the same way I could overlook one - put a funny patch arrangement on a horse with a gorgeous, happy head, I'd still buy it; this one, I probably won't.

Sporður Frá Bergi
Now this is one which will hurt if it turns out to be missing from the UK shipment!
I've got two trad Icelandics already, the Svali regular run and the Elska dapple grey, and it would round up the little trio so nicely to add a skewbald friend for them. Sporður (I have to paste the Eth letter every time I type this name, my keyboard doesn't have one even in the alt key shortcuts) has great patches, well copied from the real horse, with just enough jagged-edge detailing and a nice ratio of colour to white. And it's a good small but chunky mould, authentic to breed type and with Moody's typical big-haired, accurate, and characterful sculpting style. He'd be a lovely addition to any OF collection but especially for Icelandic enthusiasts and general native-type pony fans. 

Theo
A mould I've been looking forward to ever since it was first revealed, he reminds me of the sort of imposing, hefty, muscular draft sculpt you only ever used to see in artist resins, it's great that he's made it into the regular run range so quickly, and in a very decent colour, too. I'm not 100% convinced on the breed choice, Ardennes are usually more massive through the leg and often more heavily curly-feathered too, but there's nothing stopping me picking one of the more athletic-built continental heavy breeds for showing my own one. Because Theo is also on the wishlist I'd be making if it wasn't for the ever-present doubt over whether we'll be getting him here, heh.

Cloud's Encore and Tor
Oddly enough, I was reading about the real horses not too long ago, when researching mustangs for my custom painting, and these two were on a list of mares and their foals born in a certain year. As with the Paint Horse, there's two reasons I don't like the Encore model enough to buy the set - the mould's long neck & lack of chest/belly depth, and the pearly paint. Yup, still hating pearlised colour on anything but the few breed & colour combinations which realistically have it - especially when it includes pearl hooves - I'm never changing my stance on that!

Chocolatey
Oh no, another one I'd like! What's that, three so far? 
I haven't got all that many of Breyer's trad appaloosas, quite a few have gone onto moulds I don't much like, so it's good to see a mould I not only don't mind, but don't have yet - Chocolatey may well be the first for my shelf, it's always fun getting a new one even if they don't tesselate so nicely as conga lines for space-saving display! Breyer's designer seems to have done a good job of his colour, not so detailed or flashy as some paintjobs with a lot of varnish roaning and colour shift and darker-coloured spots, but enough that it looks realistic version of a simple blanket pattern, and not a bad match for the real horse.

Obsidian
I don't do decorator models, but I thought Obsidian deserved a hugely positive mention because thank goodness Breyer have finally stepped out of the endless pearly pastel aesthetic for their regular run unicorns and done something very different! Sadly I don't think he'll sell as well as his sparkly rainbow counterparts, meaning he won't be around as long and they probably won't do anything else dark and subtle, and all the awesome goth kids won't have a unicorn collection to rival that of the pearly girlies, but hey, at least there's one. And a big chunky hairy horse, too. Hurrah!

By the way, the Trads have had a major box redesign this year, and...I just don't get the appeal. If they were aiming for cheap and boring, they hit the nail on the head. The new look with a washed out background image and loads of open blank space is like some low-budget brand trying to cut costs with plain basic packaging, and they're all the same. The old boxes had a sharp, colourful, quality look, individually themed by photo, colours, and font to suit each horse's breed, country, or discipline, which set Breyer apart as not like all the cheap kiddie toys, somehow more grown up and intelligent/educational, and therefore worth the high price.
And I'll really miss cutting up the box to salvage the background photos, because they were excellent for photographing smaller scale models against something which suited their nationality!

Classic scale

We have a new batch of regular runs this year (apparently we're supposed to be calling them Freedom Series now, but as a scale name that's hopeless cos they're packaging Mini Whinnies and some of the random aimed-at-younger-kids toy type models under the same branding, so all the collectors I know are determinedly still calling the Classics Classics anyway, heh)

Coppery chestnut thoroughbred
Very nice, but also too similar to the original chestnut Ariat release for me to need both.

Silver bay morab
Not liking the pearly mane or the mould, one to miss for me.

Bright bay morgan
This one is growing on me, I really like the mould and pose, especially his happy little face - I avoided the initial release because of, yes you guessed it, the bloomin' pearl painted mane and tail, so I could see myself ending up with one of these bays instead.

Black pinto rearing mustang
It seems there aren't many piebald models compared to skewbald, cos brighter shaded colours look more interesting as a paintjob, but I think a black and white looks really striking and I don't have this mould yet, so he's on my maybe list.

Pearly grey trakehner
I don't even have to say it, do I. My entire review is right there in the first word of his release name.

Buckskin blanket appaloosa
I'm surprised how much I like this one, the darker shading along the topline really makes the paintjob work, and I think if the production runs are as nice as this promo pic, I'll be very tempted. 

Spanish mustang family
Generally not a fan of sets, because there's usually one you like, one you don't, and one you're indifferent to - and this is no exception. The foal is brilliant, the black horse is nice enough, but the morgan mould I just don't rate much (although I do have one in the middle of severe resculpting, but his surface area will be more Milliput than plastic by the time he's done with, heh)

Stablemates

We still don't get a full set of Stablemate singles this year, but there are some single carded releases on offer - gemstone themed decorator colours on the unicorn versions of several moulds. I usually skip reviewing the decorators as that's best left for their fans, but these are worth a mention cos it's a good way to buy that elusive Alborozo body without having to shell out on a mixed set, or risk a blind bag with no chance to squeeze it first.

Pintos and Palominos
This is a really nice set, and another which I hope we'll be allowed to buy over here cos I'd be so disappointed if it's deemed not necessary for the UK collectors. We get a lovely pale creamy palomino quarter horse, a frame overo on that mould which I still think of as 'driving' from it's World Equestrian Games introduction, the brilliant levade lipizzaner in pinto (which is fun, for historical horse fans with a fondness for obsolete colours not found in the modern breeds), and the Darley mould in a dark golden palomino which will be ideal for my 'They're all National Show Horses' theory of that not being a proper old-world typey arabian, heh. 

In the Paint and Play department, we get single carded clearware unicorns (the same as in the boxed set last year : magnolia, alborozo, new warmblood and walking TB), blind bag blank white unicorns (G2 morgan, G2 warmblood, prince charming, mini connemara), and two different trio sets, the Horse family and the Unicorn family.
These are all intended for creative children and come with the obligatory chunky brush and plastic-potted bad paints, but would provide a handy way for adult customisers to get hold of bodies; the horns are easy enough to remove, but I do wish they'd do some non-unicorns of the fun new moulds just so I didn't have to do so much prep work to paint a horse!
The other Paint and Play sets listed as new, aren't - the moulds and even the paint colours in there are the same as last year - did they really discontinue and relaunch those just to add some logo blob marketing deal in the corner about something/someone called Froggy Stuff, which, I assume, young people care about and I'm too old to understand the point of.

On Identifyyourbreyer, but not on Breyer's own site, there's some 'Horse Foal Surprise' sets, which are an odd mix of last year's Mystery Foal adults (palomino walking TB, dun WB stallion, pinto loping QH), plus three new adults, and an as-yet unknown foal in each box.
Will it be the same foal, or a different one?
Why didn't they do two new horses?
Why aren't they on Breyer's site anywhere?
All as mysterious as a secret foal in a barn box, heh.

That's it, for now. How's my theoretical wishlist looking this year?

Three trads; Sporður, Theo, Chocolatey
Possibly three classics; pinto mustang, bay morgan, buckskin appaloosa
Definitely the palomino & paint SM set
Some more paint-kit walking TBs and alborozos for my body box

This might change. I've certainly got models now which I thought looked boring in the catalogue, or was sure I'd never like til I saw one in person. There's others I thought looked great but turned out disappointing in person and I never did buy them. And of course, what I can buy is dictated by whether the distributor chooses to import it all.
How about yours? Do any of the 2021 releases call out an irresistible 'buy me!' to you?
One thing I always find entertaining about this hobby is how one person's what are they thinking that's horrible horse is another collector's gorgeous must-have, how the ones I overlook entirely might be top of someone else's wishlist, while I'm sitting here raving about a totally different model, and none of my hobby friends get what's so good about it.
And does anyone like the new boxes better?