Foxes and Boxes

Today I thought I'd write a bit about some interesting offers I've come across recently in the world of model horses.

If you subscribe to the Copperfox Models' newsletter or follow their Facebook page, then you already know that they're putting out a clearware edition of the new Scamp pony sculpture, miniaturized, of course.  For some reason they seem to be finding it easier to issue clearware plastic models as opposed to painted plastic ones, probably due to the fact that they don't have to engage any painters when doing clearware.  

I'm sorely tempted by the bevy of blue-toned Scamps as I really love that pony mold and am waiting impatiently for a full size plastic version to become available.  Blue and white are also my stable colours, so any one of these little guys would make a great stable mascot.  However, like the Christmas Winstons I'm predicting they will sell out quickly and they'll probably be gone by the time this post is published. 

(For the record: they sold out within 10 minutes yesterday and no, I was not able to snag one.)

Image from the Copperfox Model Horses Newsletter

However, coming in March, Copperfox is going to be running a contest to name their little fox mascot, who is also coming out in plastic, I believe.  I hope to enter that one, but my head is so full of traditional fox names that I'm going to have to struggle to come up with something original.  I like the challenge, though.  And now you have some time to dream up some names too.

The other interesting offer is for Schleich aficionados.  I know Scheichs and such are not as popular with collectors in North America as they are in Europe, but they're still good starter horses for pony-mad kids.

Anyway, MiniZoo, an Australian on-line toy store, has recently come out with subscription boxes for their figurines, which include not only Schleich, but also Papo, Mojo, Safari, and CollectA.  They ship anywhere in the world (I've bought a few figurines from them myself) and they offer two choices for their monthly Horse Box -- a small box containing 3-5 figures and a large box containing 6-10 figures.  

The main drawback, as far as I can tell, is that the boxes are pretty pricey, especially if you're shelling out that amount each month (if you're checking them out don't forget to click on the flag in the upper right to see the cost in your currency).  But I have to admit that I haven't done the math to see if the boxes are really a bargain, given the average cost of the horses and accessories that may also be in the box.

Image from the minizoo.com.au website

I'm pretty sure they're only for the serious fan of solid plastic ponies, but still, I think the idea of monthly horse figurine subscription box is a pretty cool idea.  Just imagine the delight of receiving a box full of mystery horses each and every month!  Okay, I know some people don't like surprises so they're definitely not for everyone.  Me, I love surprises, but I'm pretty picky about the Schleichs I like, so the boxes are not for me.

Of course, Copperfox clearware ponies aren't for everyone either.  Once upon a time I would have given them short shrift too, but the times they are a-changin'.

I Did It (Or Did I?)

Well, I've finally got my NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month) unicorn looking more or less the way I envisaged her.  After many layers of paint and numerous small touch-ups, she's reached to point where I may be able to stop fiddling with her and leave her alone.

Here she is:

I'm calling her "Lucky Charm" of course.

My idea was to paint a Breyer unicorn in the colours of the Lucky Charms cereal unicorn -- at least the first Lucky Charms cereal unicorn; I understand they come in four different colours now.  I wrestled with the idea of giving mine big cartoon eyes and trying for the animated look, but decided that would only be really effective if I resculpted the unicorn as well, and I wasn't prepared to do that.  Anyway, I'm pleased with what resemblance there is.

Image courtesy of iSpot.tv

The main thing keeping me from calling her finished at the moment is the fact that I don't have any matte finishing spray.  However, I could possibly gloss her.  I hadn't really thought about that until a visitor remarked that she liked the way the unicorn's coat sort of gleamed.  I hadn't noticed that, but once it was pointed out to me I could see it.  I think it's an effect of the purple shading since the purple paint I used kind of glitters.

The only problem is, if I gloss the unicorn I might wipe out this rather attractive quality.  I've thought of just glossing the horn, eyes, and hooves, but I just don't know.  That's why I don't know whether I'm prepared to call her done.

If I want to accomplish my second NaMoPaiMo goal, which was to paint more than one horse this year, I really should let her go.  I have less than a week to paint another horse, so it's becoming less and less likely that I'm going to accomplish goal #2.  Perhaps I should just call a "done it" on the unicorn and call it a day.

Whatever I decide to do, I've really enjoyed participating in NaMoPaiMo this year.  The "minis painting minis" subsection, which features rider dolls, action figures, and others painting teeny tiny horses in Mini Whinny scale or smaller, has been delightfully creative.  I've also learned a lot just from reading advice doled out to others, and admiring the things that some people have accomplished.  On the whole, NaMoPaiMo is a very supportive activity that seems to bring out the best of model horse fanciers every February, just when we could all use a lift.

I'm already looking forward to next year!

NaMoPaiMo After Dark

So I actually am making some progress on my NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month) horse/unicorn, although it's a little hard to see it.

The unicorn is basically white, so after basecoating I painted on several layers of white until I was satisfied with the smoothness of the coat.  Then I started to "mess up" the white by adding a very diluted purple shading.  This did not actually mess up the unicorn, and actually went on pretty easily, probably because I'd diluted it so much.  There were a few places where I'd shaded a bit over-enthusiastically that I had to tone down with white again, but basically that step went really, really well and I was starting to look forward to finishing my NaMoPaiMo project after all.

A blank slate

However, life got in the way. as it always does, and the result was that I didn't find time to work on my unicorn again until late last night.  I did manage to get a good bit of work done then, but you're going to have to take my word for it since I can't show it to you.  Turns out that when you work on your project after dark it's next to impossible (for me, at least) to get a good picture of it as your camera flash may, like mine, be working so hard to hold back the night that the details of any painting you may have done are lost in its glare.  

With purple shading (you're going to have to trust me on this)

Lesson #1 for me:  Save the picture-taking for daytime when the ambient light is better.  This will also encourage me to finish the unicorn well before the actual midnight deadline as I'll never be able to prove I painted it if I have to take its picture in the dark.

The next step I had planned to take was to lay in the blue details in the horn, mane and tail.  However, when I looked last night I could not find the blue paint I thought I had.  I know I had it last year as I mixed it with black to paint my horse's mane and tail.  I don't remember whether or not I finished it, though, and where I might have put if I still had any left.

This may necessitate a change in plans.  Today is going to be another "life gets in the way" day, but tomorrow I'm going to do one last search for my blue and if I can't find it I'll have to start modifying my design.  I'm already considering grey or silver (which I do happen to have) as an alternative to blue.

Lesson #2 for me:  In addition to prepping the model, use the month before NaMoPaiMo to make certain you actually have all the supplies you think you'll need.

I've learned other lessons this NaMoPaiMo from others on the Facebook page, and have received a few reassuring tips myself.  But while sharing is an essential and fun component of the NaMoPaiMo experience, I think you actually learn the most by trying to overcome the unexpected and mundane difficulties you personally face along the way to the deadline.  

Just imagine -- professional artists must go through the same thing from time to time, and still they soldier on.  One hobby artist (I'm sorry, I forget who at the moment) recently said that the only way to get better at painting is to paint every day.  I'm not sure if I'm up for painting every day, but I think I'll be more prepared for NaMoPaiMo next time around.

Although I may have to buy some more blue paint ...

Shall We Dance?

Well, after what seemed like an age of waiting, my 2019 Premier Club freebie, the new SM Morgan stallion  "Charleston" arrived in my mailbox this week.

I know I wasn't the only one who thought the shipping took forever on this one.  A group of us Canadians were all feeling forgotten as more and more of our American friends started posting about getting their "Charleston"s in the mail.  I don't know why, but it almost seems as if Breyer did their domestic shipments first and their international ones later.

They didn't seem to do that with the regular Club offerings throughout the year.  Judging from what I read on the Internet, I received the notices to buy and the actual shipped models at the same time as American buyers did.  I'm not sure why the freebie was delayed then, but it very clearly was.

Anyway, I have some mixed feelings about "Charleston" himself.  Not with the actual model -- I love him -- but with what he represents.  I'll explain in a minute.

"Charleston," as he is, is a little delight.  I love the tiny shipper box they put him in, in addition to the blue drawstring bag that harks back to the first two years of the SM Club packaging.  The sculpture is really nice, and while the colour scheme is impossible for a Morgan, the mold itself will make a very nice Morgan in the future in the proper colours.

I think I may have mentioned before, when "Charleston" was first announced, that I was going to go with Spanish Jennet as a breed.  Lots of people are calling him either that or a Paso Fino, depending on how modern they think he looks (the Jennet should look like an older style horse than the Paso).  He isn't really ideal for either breed, but he's close enough.

His colours, of course, make him the mini-me of "Hamilton," an American Saddlebred, but he's clearly not a Saddlebred either.  But even in miniature, the "Hamilton" pattern is quite stunning, especially with the pearly whites used on the body of the horse.

So much for what "Charleston" is himself.  Now for what he represents to me.

"Charleston" represents the one thing that has always bugged me about the Premier Club ever since they started launching the free mini-me Stablemates in 2014 -- the debut of new Stablemate molds exclusively in the Premier Club.

On the one hand, I can see how this fits in with the philosophy of the Club.  The Premier Club is for folks who like to get the first editions of brand new molds, so they're being given the same thing with their freebie that they signed up for with the Club.

On the other hand, the way the new molds are being used in the Premier Club are as mini-me models of the bigger horses.  The problem there is that most of the new molds produced have failed to match the breed characteristics of any of the Premier Club horses released in a given year, leaving the collector with a bunch of new molds in odd or impossible colours, like "Charleston" in 2019 or "Darwin" in 2018.  And even if the colours do work, the body types can be way off, like the "True North" mini of 2017 and even the mini "Geronimo" of 2016 (who looks more like a Mustang than a Paint).

As a sometime member of the Stablemates Collector Club I strongly feel that all the new Stablemate molds should debut either in that Club or as normal retail releases, as the new Standing Warmblood did in 2019.  It just seems wrong to me to have a Club just for Stablemate fanciers and then to deny them access to one of the latest new molds.

Since the Stablemates Collector Club already gets at least one new mold each year, my solution to the problem would be to make the Premier Club freebie a true mini-me with using older SM molds that most closely resemble the Premier Club horse chosen to be replicated that year -- say the G1 Saddlebred for "Hamilton/Charleston" and the G4 Loping Horse for "Dundee/Darwin."  I'd give the SM collectors one or two new molds, and any other SMs that come out in a given year could be released as regular retail items, either as singles or in sets.

Of course, I'm not the one leading this dance -- I'm the one just trying to keep up with the steps.  Only one thing's for sure: you never know what move Breyer is going to make next.

I'm just glad that I finally got my "Charleston" -- at last.

Give Me a "D"

Yes, I should probably get a "D" as a grade for my progress so far on my NaMoPaiMo horse, but that's beside the point.  Today I'm taking you back on the alphabetical tour through my collection and introducing you to one of my "D" horses.

This horse is one of the newer ones in my herd.  It's odd, because I used to have a lot more "D" horses but it turns out I've sold a bunch of them.  Nothing against the letter "D" though -- in fact, I still remember the names of some of the horses I've sold: "Dixieland Debutante," "Dustbuster," and "Defiant" to name a few.  But they're all gone now and have been replaced by more modern horses like this week's "D" horse -- "Dudley Do-Right."

"Dudley Do-Right"

"Dudley" is, of course, the Breyer 1719 RCMP Musical Ride Horse, available from 2014-2015 on the Big Ben mold.  I try not to conga the Big Ben mold but it's difficult because Breyer has put it out in so many attractive colours.  I love my original Big Ben (you can bet that I was one of the first to get one when they started rolling them out in 1996) and I can't see myself ever letting go of him, so I have to be very disciplined to avoid adding others to the shelf.

But with "Dudley Do-Right," I caved.  What finally sold me on him were the little maple leaves painted as if backcombed on his hips.  He may have a bit more chrome than you commonly see on the Musical Ride horses, but he just screams Canadiana.  I simply had to have him.

Broke my heart that Breyer didn't have any leftover mini-me RCMP horses to sell after Breyerfest last year as I would have loved to have the "set."  I haven't actively been shopping for it though, as I find it sometimes take a few years after a Breyerfest for prices to come down to reasonable.  Besides, the Classic Stock Horse Gelding is not a mold I really have to have -- I already have a very nice example from Breyerfest 2016.

But back to "Dudley."  As any fan of Rocky and Bullwinkle can tell you, Dudley Do-Right was the name of the dashing but dumb cartoon Mountie who protected Canada's northernmost territories from the likes of Snidely Whiplash as part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.  I would have named my RCMP horse after Dudley's horse, except that the name of Dudley's horse is "Horse."  So my horse, with his admittedly goofy-looking Big Ben face, got the name of Horse's cartoon master, and "Dudley Do-Right" entered my herd.

To my eternal shame, my collection is very shy of RCMP horses.  I don't have Breyer's original Mountie horse, or Burmese, the ex-Mountie horse that was given to the Queen.  I don't have either of the Hartland horse and rider Mountie sets either.  At one time, I had two plastic Made-in-Japan Mountie horses without their accompanying Mountie riders.  One had a saddle and one did not.  Both had appallingly poor conformation.  I hung onto them for a long time as the finding of them at a flea market was one of my favourite childhood memories, but eventually I decided to put them in a flea market myself so some other child like me could discover them and cherish them.  I hope that's what happened.  I didn't sell them myself, but they sold, so I know they've gone on to new adventures.

Those two horses never got named, but if I had to got back in time I might just name one "Horse" after Dudley Do-Right's steed.  However poor their conformation was, it couldn't have been worse than that of "Horse."

Image courtesy of  cartoonresearch.com

They would have looked cute in his uniform, though.

Dissolving My Resolve

In other news, I am not only failing to pursue my 2020 New Year's Resolutions, but have actually begun flouting them.

I had resolved to cut back on model horse purchases.  We're just over a week into February and I've already purchased three new horses.  Two were the WIA horses I wrote about discovering a couple of blog posts ago.

But I specifically resolved to cut back on Breyer purchases, and this week my third new horse and my first new Breyer of 2020 arrived.  I caved in and ordered it on January 31st. 

However, it was bound to happen sooner or later.  When previews of Breyer's new 2020 line started coming out, the one horse that I knew for sure I had to get was the new Classic or "Freedom Series" Horse of the Year -- "Fairfax."  So it was going to happen.  What then was the point in waiting?  Sure, various retailers will probably have sales on Freedom Series horses throughout the year, but the savings are usually small and the shipping is still the same.  I managed to get my "Fairfax" from a Canadian dealer, which kept the price and especially the shipping down significantly.  And of course, I want to support home-grown model horse dealers whenever possible or practical.  So why not now?

Anyway, "Fairfax" is pretty much everything I want in a modern Morgan.  He's got more of a foundation-bred look than the Saddlebred look which was all the rage with Morgan fanciers a few years ago (and still may be, for all I know).  When Stone horses swapped out their old mold, Saddlebred-type Morgan for the new one they called this new old-fashioned Morgan a "Santa Fe Morgan" .  Breyer doesn't have a distinctive name for either this Morgan or the other Classics sculpted by Sommer Prosser, but Sommer's Morgans do have the Saddlebred look to them too -- so much so that Breyer actually started offering the mare as a Saddlebred just last year.

But "Fairfax" has the look of the kind of Morgans I like.  I don't even mind his head-up, watchful attitude as that's a typical Morgan stance.  And while Morgans are usually very conservative in colour, they do sometimes break out into silver bays, which look almost exactly like "Fairfax."  In typical Morgan fashion, he has no real "chrome" on his body, but he does have the most adorable tiny little crescent star on his forehead, like a shy little flash of white just peeping out from behind a dark cloud.

By the way, whatever Breyer says to the contrary, the "Fairfax" I have in my hands is a gelding, not a stallion.  If there were one thing I could add to him, I would have liked to see him with a few dapples, just to draw a bit more attention to the beauty of his colour.  But even without them. he's a real standout on the shelf for me.  I almost hope they don't turn the colour machine on this mold too soon -- the last thing I need is another model horse conga.

Oops -- did that sound a bit like a resolution to you?

Procrastination and Progress

Well, we're officially into NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month) now, so I thought I might as well give you a bit of a progress report on how I'm doing so far.

I've made considerable progress towards coming to the realization that I am a terrible procrastinator.  I always knew this about myself, which is why I have always gravitated towards work that involved deadlines as opposed to more open-ended, creative work.

Although I've known since last year that NaMoPaiMo would be coming around again, and I decided which horse I wanted to paint and what colours I wanted to use over the past two months,  I've let the first few days of NaMoPaiMo pass me by without doing a thing about it.

Ready and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting.

It doesn't really make any sense, since NaMoPaiMo does have a deadline, and since my goal is to paint more than one horse this time around, you would think I would want to get a good start on my official NaMoPaiMo selection.

But no, if there's a way to procrastinate, I will find it.  This time I seem to be doing it by convincing myself that I still have enough time to reach my goals and promising myself that once I really get working on painting, momentum will carry me through.

At least I know I'm not alone in my hesitation to actually start.

One of the nice things about NaMoPaiMo is the way the experience is shared worldwide by participant updates on the NaMoPaiMo Facebook page.  Last year I used to visit this page for inspiration and to marvel at some of the things that others were doing.  This year, I've already noticed a "confession" thread where a good number of people have posted about not having even started yet.  Some of them have good reasons -- like waiting for last-minute supplies to arrive -- but others are just like me and just haven't started because the mood hasn't struck them yet.

So I already know that I'm part of a larger, like-minded community in this respect.  And as I go on, and start to make some actual progress, I'm sure I'll find others like myself who are struggling with the same issues I'm struggling with, whatever they turn out to be.

Last year my big problem was getting seamless shading on my model.  When I laid the various layers of colour on they looked fine, but after drying the paint looked odd and uneven.  I eventually ended up painting the whole horse again with a solid colour that already had the shading mixed in.  It wasn't great, but it was the best I could do at the time.

This year's NaMoPaiMo model doesn't require as much shading, so I'm hoping things will go more smoothly this time.

That's once things start going, of course!

Wake Up Call

On Facebook recently, I discovered two model horse manufacturers that I'd never heard of before, but probably should have done.

I think I can be excused for overlooking the Lanard Royal Breeds Collector Series Horses.  Prior to these "Royal Breed" horses coming on the market, Lanard was best-known for making hairy Barbie-type horses, and many sets now being sold under the "Royal Breed" moniker continue to be horses of this type.  But four of them -- a Clydesdale, an Arabian, a Gypsy Vanner, and a Saddlebred -- have sculpted manes and tails and have in fact been sculpted by one of our hobby artists: Maggie Bennett.  And I would never have known had I not seen that Facebook post.

The other manufacturer I discovered has been in business for quite some time but apparently I haven't been paying attention.  It was only the other day when I saw a post showing the differences between two copies of their "Gustav" model that I became aware of WIA as a company and its connection to Brigitte Eberl as a sculptor.

In fact, I have not so far been able to find out very much about WIA, save that their products are made in China.  I don't know the exact timeline of their model horse releases, but I think I've narrowed down what they've made so far.

I would hazard a guess that their 1:9 scale offerings pre-date the tinier ones.  If so, the Sommer Prosser/Rebecca Turner adaptation of Prosser's "Windfall" resin as a WIA resin "Fair Lady" would be among the first of its issues, with Brigitte Eberl's adaptation of her own "Salome" resin coming out around the same time.  I'm dating them to around 2014-2016, but have no real proof to back me up.

Coming out about the same time are a set of Little Bit size horses -- the Isabell Werths special runs "Don Johnson", "El Santo", and "Bella Rose".  Of these, only Bella Rose is produced by WIA and is credited to Eberl.  Don Johnson and El Santo are Bullyland horses, but they each bear such a significant similarity to Eberl's sculptures of the same name that I'm fairly sure they are adapted from them.

I have a date of 2016 for the "Bella Rose" sculpture connected to information about its being a special edition of 2500 to benefit Christoffel Blindenmission (CBM), a Christian charity with a mission to improve the lives of disabled people in poverty-stricken regions of the world.

I don't know when "Gustav" came on the scene but he appears to be the latest Eberl to come from WIA and is available in two colours:  dark bay pangaré and black leopard appaloosa.

All of these latter models are available from modellpferdeversand.  I've never shopped there before as I've never felt the need to, but the pictures of "Gustav" I discovered on Facebook caused me to change my mind.

WIA horses "Gustav" and "Bella Rose"

I ended up ordering both "Gustav" and "Bella Rose" as I have always wanted a horse in a correct dressage halt.  Breyer has come antagonizing close to this many times -- with its Stablemate G3 Thoroughbred, its Stablemate "Django," the classic "Jet Run" and even the Traditional Western Horse and Pony (if they didn't have molded-on western tack), Halla, and the Nursing Mare -- but either the legs are all over the place or the head isn't in the right position.  "Bella Rose" has just the stance I was looking for.  I would love to have this horse in Traditional size.

All the WIA "Gustav"s I've seen (and I've now seem quite a few of them), differ from each other in their shading.  Mine is maybe not the best I've ever seen, but it's far from the worst.  He has lovely facial shading, and while his lighter belly has crept fairly high up his sides, I like it better than his having no pale belly at all.

So it's taken me a while to find out about these new (to me) plastic manufacturers, but now that I know about them I am definitely going to keep an eye out for them.  One can only sleep for so long before it's time to wake up to what's been going on all around.