You Say Hoarding, I Say 'Savoring'

Three years ago, I came home from Breyerfest with eight Alborozos. At current count, I have five left to customize, many in various states of disassembly:

White Out

When I was 13, I attempted my first pinto: a medicine hat Lady Phase. This was my second custom and my first traditional scale paint job. It was an extreme challenge for me as I had 1) no idea what I was doing and 2) limited supplies. I was painting with cheapy acrylics and those brushes you buy by the dozen in plastic bags. The model was a disaster of epic proportions. It was my single worst custom and the runner up wasn’t even close.

The evidence was quickly destroyed, but the learning experience has stayed with me. Lesson #1: I sucked as a handpainter and needed to find a new medium immediately. I cobbled to together my life savings (approximately $21 and change), bought my first airbrush, and never looked back.

Fake It Till You Make It

Casanova’s pattern is halfway to completion.

The Rack: Lengthening a Model's Back

I was pleasantly surprised to see y'all found last week's tutorial helpful. It's not a standard topic for model horse tutorials, but it's nice to see such a positive reception. As a follow up, this week I'm going to opposite direction:

When Should I Lengthen a Back?

Last time on “Don’t Eat the Paint”…

Some breeds have long backs. Some have short backs. Ponies are usually long:

That Swaps Thing

It has occurred to me that I never posted a full picture of my Swaps in progress. Bad me.

This angle is unflattering.

In between commission work, I'm doing a rough prep job on him before he goes off to his painter, Lauren Tapley (or Hoeffer...but she's still Tapley in my cell because I resist change.) She is currently thinking something in the dun family.

Times, They Are a Changing

By now, I'm sure most of you have heard that Breyer is discontinuing JAH.

I originally subscribed as a horse crazy kid, way back in the mid-nineties. I think I begged for month before my mom relented and sent in the subscription card found in every yellow Breyer box. My first issues opened up a new world to me of custom Breyers and performance set-ups. I spent hours reading the classifieds, scanning for (what else?) Shams for sale.

The How-To's were a godsend. I can say with confidence that I wouldn't be where I am today without them. There was particular article, which lead to a custom, which lead to a sale years later, which drew me back into customizing.

So part of me is deeply sad to see it go.

However, I've also been in the hobby long enough at this point to know that nothing ever just disappears. Magazines have come and gone. But overall, for every resource I've seen fall away, dozens have popped up to replace it. Breyer is moving into the digital age and much of the content is moving online. If this prompts Breyer to expand their website, I see this as an overall gain for the hobby.

Still, I'll miss it.

Drawn and Quartered: Shortening a Model’s Back

Required Reading

“Super Glue and Baking Soda: A Love Story”
“Best Laid Plans”
“Brands I Prefer: Everything Else”
“Brands I Prefer: Clay”
“Building a Frame & Armature”

Ingredients

1 model horse
1 bottle of super glue
2 tablespoons of baking soda
1 Sharpie marker
2 oz of Apoxie

Why should I shorten my model’s back?

Because it’s easier than it looks. Despite being a relatively minor procedure, it can give the same impression as a more dramatic overhaul of a conformationally-challenged plastic horse. In short, little effort but a huge impact. I’m kinda surprised how rarely you see this process done.

Weird Keyword Searches

Blogger has this handy little feature which tracks how people find my blog. It includes keyword searches, which have become my own private source of entertainment. Some of these are too good not to share:

• "can a horse eat paint off a car"
• "scotchblue painter's tape frog"
• "abstract bold colors with horse with blue mane and tail on lower"
• "the order that"

"Barbaro statue" is always near the top. So when you notice I work Churchill's Barbaro-The-Gelding Statue into every post, know it's an attempt to draw in non-model horse readers.

He's cute and I appreciate the engineering, but a very obvious gelding.

(Not really. I've run out of things to say about the statue.)