Harecroft Horses - Tales from the Body Box - CollectA batch two!

Just beautiful! 

I've been organising my photos today and found these compilation pictures, where you can see all the models I painted in a year, laid out together.

First, all the 2019s (I didn't start painting in 2019, I just didn't think of making a summary til then!)

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And then 2020 happened, and I ended up painting a LOT more!

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What a beautiful way to organise all your stunning repaints!

What a line up! How long does it take you to do a custom, on average? That's so many in a year, and some of them have such complicated patterns. (Of course, you did produce that beautiful quagga really fast!)

At Stablemate scale I'd say about half an hour, if it's a simple colour like a plain chestnut or bay without any dapples.
An hour, for a pinto or fleabitten/roany/spotted/dappled kind of coat colour.
If I'm copying photos and it matters about the likeness, like the racehorse portraits or real horses I've known (rather than just being a random colour idea ref from a book or google), then those take an hour-ish even if they are a solid colour, cos there's a lot of glancing up & down and careful placement of markings or shading to match the pictures from different angles.

As the size goes up, so does the time, so the Schleich and CollectA and medium size resins take about twice as long. And Trads take about twelve years and counting, cos I bought the bodies then indefinitely put off actually painting them

Half an hour to an hour! I guess practice pays off! They look like many hours of work, in a good way.

It doesn't mean it's easy, it just means I'm a panicky artist Just like a flat drawing or painting, I spend loads of time thinking til the idea's set in my mind, then once I've actually got the paint on the brush I hurry through all the stages where it could go horribly wrong at super speed while I'm on a roll, like there's less chance for disaster the less time it takes to get to a 'phew, that's ok' stage - then I can take my time over the final faffing to add all the details and give it a finishing polish. The speed is less an experience/professionalism thing, as reducing the chance of failure by getting it over with

Spoken like a true artist, anyway.

That's a fantastic topic! You start with a Mojo repaint. I think Mojö Fun horses are the best candidats to be repainted. They are often very competently sculpted with the fine detail that you as an artist can notice as the way the fur or eyes are sculpted or the subtle movement we can find through their poses. Anna really does a great job on them but the mass produced painting does not give them justice. When one of these horses are repainted as you did, we almost feel like we are seeing a real horse. That's a praise for the sculptor but also for you. It is magnificent.
All your other repaints are really beautiful and these horses inspired on paintings with all you tell on your blog about it, it is just facinating, I wished I could take you to some cultural places around and enjoying you admiring the equine art. Yes, Portugal is also a country of horses, especially Lusitanos are commonly found in art.
As a fortunate coincidence, I had fun knowing that among our friends, there is a rough pony and a Shetland collie called Bonnie. I think I messed it all.

Yes, so often the sculpting just deserves better paintwork than a mass produced model can get for general release, I've got a nice little box of second hand scuffed/faded CollectAs on my table which are going to get good detailed repaints at some point, they'll look so great in custom colours! Resin quality sculpts for plastic toy prices

It's lovely to hear my artistic ideas being so appreciated. I always think that this hobby is perfect for me, cos I love miniatures, I love horses, I love collecting, and I love art, so I can combine all four into one creative passtime

I've painted a few Lusitanos, but I really ought to do more. Most of the Iberian horse moulds we have to choose from are PRE (Andalusian) instead.

Bonnie IS a very rough pony right now, you're quite correct cos she's shedding clouds of long shaggy winter hair. I brush and scratch and pull it out by the handful, and then the next day there's just as much all over again

George wrote:

I've painted a few Lusitanos, but I really ought to do more. Most of the Iberian horse moulds we have to choose from are PRE (Andalusian) instead.

Do you have pictures of these Lusitanos? Andalusians (PRE) are quite similar to Lusitanos. I am not a horse breeder so I don't mind that these two breeds are mixed.

Here's one Breyer Stablemate I did on the andalusian mould

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And Fénix, who had a resculpted mane too

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This resin was described as 'Iberian stallion' on release, so you could allocate your own breed to suit what colour you painted him

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And this tiny one from a CollectA mini tube

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Thanks, they are so beautiful! A few with those extreme neckes. I surely love that resin! It is a pleasure to see the breed of my country being tributed with such talent.

George wrote:

And Fénix, who had a resculpted mane too

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Thank you for doing something with that mold's mane! It looks so much nicer that way.

Fantastic artwork in this topic: the ideas, the painting, the backgrounds and the photography! I especially like the horse models inspired by paintings, such a great idea.

I had a busy weekend painting, last week I bought a nice little parcel of bodies from a hobby friend, and included were a couple of moulds I'd been hoping to get hold of. I always have a little mental list of ideas to paint, but til now I hadn't got the breeds I wanted for the colours I had in mind.

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First up, Alskær Fra Harecroft, an Icelandic in a gorgeous shade of dun inspired by this reference photo. The horse is described as a bay dun on Pinterest and other image-collecting pages, and annoyingly I can't find an original source, but I'm wondering if perhaps he isn't just an unusually light bay dun, but rather a dunskin - buckskin plus dun.

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This photo was taken in the shade with the camera's cloudy day white balance setting, in reality he's somewhere between the two pictures. His name translates as 'most bright' cos he's just about as bright as a dun colour can be, and my prefix becomes a suffix in the Icelandic naming tradition.

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A high angle to show his dorsal stripe, the most nerve-wracking bit of any dun paintjob!

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Making use of my free bit of Icelandic scenery from the Breyer Elska box - it's such a shame they've abandoned these attractive and useful photo backdrops in the boxes' bland new redesign.

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I do love this Icelandic mould, and still have plenty more colour ideas I'd really like to paint, whenever more of them come my way.

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This one was the result of a bit of recent reminiscing with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] on here - she loves her Llanarth True Briton model just like I love my Danaway Tango on the same mould, and remembering his wild patchy roany sabino paintjob inspired me to finally get round to the sabino SM welshie I'd had in mind for years.

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I didn't base him on Danaway Tango himself, just used made up markings over a similar bright chestnut shade. I find messy smudgey roaning on bays tends to get worryingly pinkish, so the more gingery tones in this colour prevented that from happening.

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He isn't quite how I intended, the white softer than my original plan to flick it on as speckles with a toothbrush - in the end I chickened out of such a haphazard method in case I lost control and got more paint where I didn't want roaning than where I did. I've named him Harecroft Baledwr, the welsh for balladeer, as in writer and singer of folk songs.

Finally, not just another clipped bay thoroughbred, which I know I've painted several times already, but one more for my line-up of famous racehorses in miniature. I don't know if anyone on here follows UK and Irish horse racing, but I'm sure if you do, you'll have heard of Faugheen!

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One of those horses who made a big initial impression and went on to live up to the hype, Faugheen always stood out as full of character and enjoyment of the game, and in return I enjoyed following his career over hurdles and then over fences.
He retired safe and sound at the beginning of the month, and the very same day I picked out one of the G2 TB models I've been saving specially for portraits. Something about it just didn't seem quite right for him, and when I was looking for reference photos to properly copy his distinctively shaped stripe, I realised what it was - he seems to have his ears pricked so often, I just had to resculpt his mini self to match!

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The new ears really change the expression of the mould, while it didn't look unhappy before, just concentrating and running hard, with them pricked up it's got that look of a horse who thoroughly enjoys his job!

So enjoyable to see these photos and repaints. The thoroughbred is one of my favourite stablemate moulds, but yes, the ears look like they were made so that they don't break easily during play. Nice to see upright ears.

Wow, that dun! Just awesome how you've captured all the tones of the coat, all the paler areas and the soft transition into the dark on the legs. I love the gradient of the mane and the delicate dorsal stripe. That is a really beautiful color, and I think you captured it amazingly well!

So nice to hear Danaway Tango inspired that little sabino, it's amazing, I think the white came out just lovely even if not exactly what you envisioned (I'd be interested in seeing how the toothbrush effect comes out someday, too).

And I love the choice to resculpt the ears on the thoroughbred, that's a perfect touch on that mold. Plus you got them so fine and tidy at that size, really impressive. What an excellent portrait!

I keep remembering how long you said it takes you to paint a stablemate while looking at these and just being blown away.

So many beautiful models, and I love how you paint them so softly, really capturing the fur on the horses!

You surely know how to turn a horse happier. :)
Beautiful repaints and pictures.
Your dun horse photo reference can be found in a polish website but I believe you know it. Oh, the black horse in that site is something phenomenal.

Oops, the forum didn't pull this topic into the 'since your last visit' link, I didn't see your replies!

I've done some resculpting on this mould before to change the mane to braids or just add in the forelock and upper chunk of mane (they have the American-style clipped-off haircut!), or give it chunkier feet, but this is the first time I've messed with the ears, and I love how it looks!

I always used to find dune really hard to paint well, applying the black paint to the points. Dry-brushing made it too hard to blend smoothly enough into the body colour. Wet-on-wet paint goes streaky. Mixing the cream/gold tone with black to paint in one layer just makes it look greyish green! But I've finally figured out the best trick, to shade the legs slightly browner, let it dry, then add the black.

I haven't got any customs done with white on top of colour via the toothbrush, it's a technique I use for adding darker speckles for roany appaloosa colours, or fleabite specks on greys. I'm yet to try risking it for white-on-dark!

This weeks custom projects were a bit bigger than the recent Stablemate size - I've been brave and done some big CollectAs!

First, a Campolina body who I got some time ago, but put off painting cos I couldn't decide on a colour for him. This Brazilian breed has some lovely primitive-marked duns, and for a long time I had a sandy bay dun half in mind for him, but it just didn't seem quite right, he was telling me he wanted to be darker, much darker...

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And now he is! I think this colour suits the mould really well, more so than the red dun it was originally issued in. I gave him the deep brown tones I've not usually painted, rather than the more slatey grey of a typical grulla (which is just the word for a black dun, or mouse dun as they're often called here in the uk - that's a base of black coat, affected by the dun gene)

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The colour looks very different in different lighting, this makes his paler highlights stand out more, and the sun across his cheek shows his head off well. It's a really noble-looking mould, with the typical curved nasal bones giving him an unmistakable profile. Early on in the breed's establishment, there was a lot of inbreeding, which would've exaggerated the head shape, but now it's not fashionable to aim for more and more curve - modern breeders are careful to avoid anything extreme, and favour a head shape which is still distinctive, but not too dramatic

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You can see his primitive markings very clearly here - the dark stripe across his shoulders, the zebra marks on his knees and hocks (called 'zippers' by the campolina breeders, a colour detail they prize), and the frosting of pale colour either side of his tail

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I made up his markings as I went along, he didn't seem to need any white on his head, but his feet looked better with a little bit of white interest, and that lets me have fun with striped hooves, too!

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This angle is great, really catches his upright, alert pose. The CollectA sculpt seems to be the only example of this breed in the entire model horse world - some people out there may've done customs from other breed moulds, but none of the brands have released one, and there's not even a single campolina sculpt listed on Equine Resins Directory! This means he's only the second of his breed to join my herd, and the lone example on my website will soon have some company on his page - once I've managed to choose a name for him!

His companion is from the other side of the world, one of the famous 'white horses' of the Camargue in southern France

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I've loved this mould for ages, in fact, my original finish Camargue mare was my very first CollectA model ever - I won her as a prize in an online photo show! And I've always wanted to do a repaint to really catch the detail of an interesting colour which is lost in the basic factory paintwork.

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I didn't want her to look too clean, it was important that my model could capture the hardy outdoor lifestyle of the breed, and their natural management, without the human-imposed standard of cleanliness - this is not a grey kept spotless with baths and shampoo and clipping and trimming. She's tame, but not pampered. Perhaps my bias here comes from the fact my first horse was a fleabitten grey (arab x welsh C, rather than camargue, but still, fierce independent-minded mucky speckled beast which was never washed to white!)

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The brands on camargue horses have certain meanings : the letter stands for the year, the number indicates the order they were born in the herd (first foal of the year gets 1, second has 2, and so on), and the larger stylised logo or initials are the breeder's unique identifying mark. I designed one which reads H F for Harecroft Farm.

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I based her on the example in Dorling Kinderley's 'Ultimate horse book' - my grandad gave me my copy in the early 1990s and the photos are so familiar and iconic to me, they're often the first I think of as my mental image for any set breed. Here is the Camargue page from one of their more recent books, with the same main photo.

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To help fully capture the camargue personality, I made her a traditional simple halter, as all the books seem to like noting that they're made of twisted horse hair rope. You can see in this close-up the mixture of colours - one strand of blonde hair, three of mixed light and very dark brown, so I copied that with embroidery thread :)

These customs are superb and really the new color of the Campolina makes it look stunning!
The Camargue resulted very realistic with a ultra-detailed halter and it was fun to read all your observations as it is a pleasure to watch your pictures.

I think some moulds just look good in dark colours, there's something about the way the highlights and shadows bring out all the detail. But pure jet black can be more difficult to photograph, and it's also very boring to paint, so I favour a colour with some, uh, colour in it

The rope halter looks very simple to put on, too, just one loop which tucks through to the other side rather than a buckle or knot to fasten, and it'd be very secure and effective for handling once a lead rope was clipped on. I use just a lead rope twisted to make half a halter when I'm grooming my shetland, she finds it boring and tries to walk off, but if there's something on her head, she doesn't - she's got no idea that the rope isn't attached to anything at the other end

This camargue is the reason I've been investigating egret figures. I was hoping I might be able to buy one to sit on her back - there's a LOT of pictures of camargues being used as egret perches But there don't seem to be any suitable - just two listed on Toy Animal Wiki, one's posed flying, and the other would be too big (and too expensive for me to get hold of anyway). I'm thinking I might have to sculpt one from scratch, if I'm determined enough that she needs a bird friend

Both of these, and your previous works, are really beautiful. I love that camargue, she is in a docile posture but her eyes let you know she is wise to what you are doing.