Please Stop Showing Your Models as Appendix QHs

I’ve touched on this topic a bit in the past (you can read more here, here, and here), but I keep seeing it asked on Facebook often enough that I figured it deserved a post of its own.  This is really more a Showing 101 topic than a Don’t Eat the Paint topic, but it’s my blog and make the rules so there.

About once a week, I see someone ask if they should show their Carrick and/or Smarty as an Appendix QH.  I’m here to ask you to--please, for the love of Swaps—don’t do that.

Don’t Eat the Paint Strikes Back: Return of the Tutorialness

Programming note:

Hey folks!  So I haven’t written on this blog in a long time.  I took a break and it went a lot…longer…then I intended.

Part of the reason I stopped writing was time.  A full tutorial—once a week—is a time consuming operation.  The “new episodes once a week” schedule was aggressive and not something I can maintain long term.  When I had quick photos of work in progress and brief thoughts I wanted to share, it was easier to upload them to Facebook than it was to post them here.

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed myself doing the same thing that got me started on blogging in the first place: I’ve been running around the internet trying to tell people what to do.  The downside of this (besides the “who is this crazy lady and what’s with her obsession with blue painters tape?” reaction) is that I’m writing a lot of advice directly to people that gets lost when the topic dies.  Plus I’m starting to discover there’s a lot of helpful topics I missed my first time through.

I’ll be posting some new tutorials and rants about model horse showing in the coming [insert non-committal time frame].  I got really into showing performance in the last few years, and I have some thoughts on that to share.  

The best way to keep up with new content is to use some of my feed tools, which are posted somewhere on the right or join me on FB.

In the meantime, here's a picture of some tack and a horse I made:

My Little Nenya

A Christmas gift for Tara, owner of the beautiful Arab cross below.

It's Magic!

Like a lot of people, I have something of an issue with my attention span. So sometimes I sit down to write a presentation for grad school and instead make a Magic Eye:

[click to embiggen]

It's not perfect, but eventually I had to get back to writing about scambaiting and my eyes were starting to hurt. The hidden image is revealed after the jump:

What I Love About Animal Artistry

You know what I love most about AA resins? They are similar enough to china that they are tough to repair. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but I can repair them and most people are willing to give away a broken AA. That includes this little guy:

Royal By Accident

Many, many moons ago, I started a little Stone Chips QH. Being as anal about stock horses as y'all know I am, I practically resculpted his whole front end and painted him solid palomino. I showed him a few times under the name "Royal By Marriage"*, but the little guy couldn't buy a NAN card until I gave him a lacy tovero pattern. In return, he gave me my first NAN championship. I promised the little dude that he'd always have a home with me.

It's Been a Long Year

When I think of where I was and how I was this time last year, it's like night and day. I lost good things that made me happy. I still make some of the same mistakes that made me miserable. I've deepened friendships and ended others. I strive to be more honest with myself about who I am on a basal level and how much I can realistically pile on my plate.

What's that expression about the eyes being bigger than the stomach? My eyes are bigger than my schedule. It has been a consistent and lifelong fault. I remember having a conversation with my parents at the ripe old age of 14 about taking on too much. "Really? Laura, you think you can handle jazz band, church and school choir, the school musical, art class, models on top of your regular school work?" So I quit band and models, made honor roll, chased off a boy and barely kept from snapping like a twig.

My mantra was always "I'll find time." In my mind, that time was always the next free weekend, oblivious to the idea that the next free weekend could be months away and when I got there, I more likely would just collapse under the weight of my exhaustion. But then those valuable times of collapse/rest that often kept me away from a full systems meltdown went away when the unpredicted disasters started to flood in and take up every remaining second. I had to double and triple schedule just to make it to medical appointments. I would work sitting in waiting rooms. Or I'd sit there and marinate in self-pity or fear. It tenderizes the meat so I'd be emotionally soft when repeatedly stabbed with a metaphorical fork.

I'm working through a dramatic personal re-org. I'm learning how to say "no thanks, I'm full." I try to remind myself that taking on a new thing means compromising or removing an old thing. Baby steps.

All that goes to say that I'll be posting again, although I'm not going to promise to myself or anyone else that it will be regular or like clockwork as it was briefly. But I enjoy writing and making ponies and both feed into the other as a perpetual motion machine of productivity. And I wanna draw a little. I passed up an opportunity to sell my 2D art about a month ago. But the honest answer is it I don't do any of this to sell my work. I just like it. Sales are a byproduct.

Having said that, I'm hoping to produce some work for sale in the near future because I'm a poor college student and I can't buy groceries with personal growth or pay rent with emotional fulfillment. My landlord is a hard ass like that.