Plastic Pony Peg Legs

Arrggh and avast ye smarmy poop-deck-swabbers!  ‘Tis that time of year when ye pirates and pirates wenches be bringing out yer best verbal swashbuckling because it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day!  And in honor of this most holy of pirate tongue waggling holidays, the good ship Don’t Eat The Paint has sailed pack into port to teach you youngun’s all about peg legs!  That’s right you land lubbers--Captain Blue Tape is here to help you greenhorns get your sea legs by sticking pegs into the legs of yer wild plastic stallions.

[coughs]

[clears throat]

Okay, I can’t keep that up for an entire tutorial.  Nonetheless, welcome to a new season of Don’t Eat the Paint! (Brought to you by my new found impulse to blog again and also talk like a pirate.)

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.