New Frisian Horse from WIA

MPV has announced on their Instagram about a new 1:18 scale WIA model that is for sale now on their website in two colors. It is a Frisian/Baroque Pinto stallion, and I believe that he was sculpted by Brigitte Eberl.
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A very handsome sculpt for sure... I really need to start grabbing some of these figures.

Oh, Niklas is stunning! He looks very noble. As an absolute Friesian fan I prefer the classic black one. He looks nice as a Baroque Pinto but I would have probably preferred another shade of chestnut. If only their shipping wouldn't be so expensive...
When they showed the pinto's back as a teaser on Facebook, I was so sure that it would be a Tinker. But yesterday they showed the Friesian's leg and I was like: ok, that can't be a Cob... I'm very happy that they released a Friesian but I would love to see also some other animals or a foal sometime.
Thanks for sharing!

I like the black one a lot, very lovely sculpt and you can't go wrong with a good plain black, he looks great in that rich semi-gloss finish like the sheen on a healthy clean horse coat.
The pinto looks oddly simplified in the painting though - like there's no shading in the colour patches apart from on the face, and the outlines of them are such stylised sweeping curves? Compare to the previous pinto they made, here - he makes the new one look such a cheap and basic paintjob! I'm actually very surprised, WIA have always put a lot of effort into really good paint designs in the past, this is the first time I've ever looked at one and been disappointed and doubting if I want to get it.

Yes, we are back to Brigitte Eberl sculpts what makes me happy. Even considering that I enjoy so much this breed, I think I like best her previous sculpts for WIA but I still like this one a lot, especially in its classic black color.

Yeah, the pinto's paint job is quite basic for WIA. I'm not crazy about Friesians, so this isn't really a must have for me personally, but I think that this and Collecta's model are probably the best Friesian models on the market rn in this scale(and maybe Schleich's in 2024?).

I like WIA horses very much. I already have a black Frisian horse from Schleich, so my choice will now be the pinto version.

I thought you might like to see some real photographs of the new WIA models - but I'm having a terrible time trying to take many good ones!
Between the short hours of daylight and the bad weather I really haven't been able to find a safe sunny spot to have a proper photoshoot in - these boys arrived last week and I've only JUST managed to get a few pictures (I gave up on an actual outdoor shoot, and improvised by balancing them on top of a bookcase to catch a bit of the feeble natural light without them getting bounced off round the frozen-solid garden by the 60mph winds )

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Here's Niklas in the true black Friesian colour, and it's a really deep dark jet black. I know that sounds silly, and surely black is black, but a lot of models have either a brownish or greyish tint to them, so it makes a change to see one which is so pure and uniform. The finish is glossier than usual, too, which highlights all the details of the sculpt without being over the top - it's a rich sheen to the finish, rather than a thick layer of clear gloss applied over the top like a glossy model by Breyer (I don't like those, but think this is very very nice, so if you also tend to avoid glossies in general then I'd say you'd probably be fine with this one!)
His hooves are gently shaded, rather than flat grey, and it's hard to see but both Niklas releases do have tri-coloured eyes like previous WIA horses.

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Another angle, showing the huge elegant curve of his neck, and the way he seems to be looking at the camera however you pose him! For a standing pose, he's got a lot of attitude and energy, and seems to be a good representation of the Friesian personality as well as matching purely on anatomy and conformation.

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Handsome head!

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And here's the pinto version, which does have more shading than the rather poor-quality promo pics showed, he's much better than I was expecting - as I wrote above, this was the first WIA model I wasn't so sure about wanting to buy, but he's well worth it.
Although the paintjob may be plainer than their previous pinto cos it doesn't have so much contrast in the colour bits or detail at the edges of each patch, it still makes for a very striking horse, at a very affordable price (getting him sent from Germany cost me less than buying a Schleich from a UK stockist!)

Both of them are big chunky models in hand, with a lot of weight and a slight flexibility to the plastic which makes them feel solid and extremely high-quality. It's hard to explain but WIA feel different to other models like Schleich and Mojo and CollectA, less 'toy' and more 'hobbyist collectable' - even though obviously all of us on a forum like this are thoroughly into the collecting hobby anyway, and treat all our animals as the latter anyway, even the ones which were intended as cheap toys for kids

The pinto doesn't look too bad actually. I think that I actually do prefer Schleich's new Friesian stallion over this guy(not saying the sculpt is better, just personal preference), but I do think that he is a worthy addition to WIA's lineup.

Lovely sculpt, as the WIAs all tend to be! I tend not to be a friesian collector because black horses just aren't my jam in model form (despite my favorite real horse ever being a little solid black). But you're right, looks like they did a lovely job on this one. :) The color of the pinto is lovely, but I'm not sure how I feel about the shape of the spots themselves. That thumb of brown on his barrel is really distracting for some reason. Overall though, definitely a step above the "toy" figures in my personal thoughts!

I would say that Schleich's horses are toys that strive to achieve a level of realism that is convincingly sufficient. On the other hand, WIA models are miniaturizations of realistic horse sculptures, produced with materials, size, and pricing that place them in a market category closer to Schleich and other similar brands. It's a kind of bridge between two different worlds within the theme of collecting horse figures. For me, it's the ideal concept because I clearly prefer figures within the size and price range of Schleich but with artistic quality close to that of resin models by renowned sculptors.
I naturally find this Frisian horse figure superior to Schleich's, even though I acknowledge that the German brand produces very beautiful Frisians. However, the sparse texture style with a glossy finish surely does not align with the taste of traditional Schleich-type figure collectors, who tend to avoid a glossy finish that gives them an outdated appearance in an era where modern figures are increasingly textured, creating a false sense of greater detailing.