YouTube and Me

Although I am not, as I have said, an artist of any kind, I have dabbled with painting model horses now and then.  My earliest efforts were very rough and I could never really understand the advice I was given to "paint many coats."  As far as I could see, many coats of paint would only result in a thicker mess.

What I failed to grasp was the idea of layering paint by painting a number of very thin coats until, by happenstance, I found Honeyhearts C's old blog which led me in turn to her YouTube videos.

Now, I am not really the target audience for these videos.  I am, shall we say, a bit of a technophobe and I don't really understand social media.  Also, most of model horse-related videos I've found are both hosted by and aimed at considerably younger people than myself.  But I love Honeyhearts' energy and positive enthusiasm, and her DIY videos are just right for my skill level.

I am now aware that there are also YouTube tutorials aimed at people with more talent for and, frankly, more interest in the art of painting model horses than myself.  I'm not itching to learn to paint with oils, pastels, or an airbrush.  I'd much prefer to use the tiny acrylic paint pots and brushes supplied by Breyer in the painting kits.  That's what Honeyhearts uses, and having watched a few of her videos, I'm quite impressed with her results.

I don't subscribe to any YouTube feeds, but I've certainly found them useful from time to time.  I enjoy Honeyhearts C, Stormy Strike, and MyFroggyStuff and really admire the work they're doing to reach out to young people in the hobby.  I also like watching the videos that young people post of their model horse collections, and am amazed how easily they seem to remember the release name of each model on their shelves.  When I'm undecided as to whether or not to make a certain purchase, I also like to watch "unboxing" videos as they give me a chance to shop vicariously without spending any money.

 

Of course there's lots of other stuff on YouTube that collectors can turn to their advantage -- real horse performance videos, clips from old horse movies, TV shows, and horse toy advertising.  Most of the "collectibles" videos I've seen have revolved around Breyers, Schleich, and Stone Horses, but I feel confident that there are videos about other brands of model horse collectibles out there somewhere in the YouTube-iverse, and finding them is half the fun.