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

George wrote:

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and she looks SO SMART in this photo, must be the flicked over fringe! and the neatly tied up jumper she is wearing:) - like wearing a tux perhaps ??


I would love to see her snow angels if you ever manage to photograph one.

Haha, you know why I took photos that day? It was a brand new straight-from-the-bag coat I'd put on her, and I knew it was the only time it'd ever be that spotless and smart looking!
You can't put the outdoor coats in the washing machine cos it takes all the waterproofing out of them, and having them professionally laundered and re-waterproofed every year is more expensive than it's worth just to look clean, so once mine get muddy, the only time they get 'washed' is when they're rained on
Here's the rest of her posh tuxedo - it wraps nicely round her neck and shoulders to keep the cold and wet out, she tends to get the shivers and be grumpy if she gets too much winter weather on her - no idea why cos both sides of her breeding are native UK ponies which evolved here naturally and are meant to do just fine feral without needing jackets, but Foal likes to be well wrapped up when she doesn't think it's warm enough.

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I call this one the Black Friday coat, cos I bought it half price in the sale that day, and, well, it's black

And here is a photo of a past year's snow angels, we haven't had any snow yet this winter - it's not very clear but the three slightly discoloured flat patches.

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Lovely to meet you real 'Foal'! She's so beautiful and sweet and sounds like such a wonderful friend!

The next batch of Stablemate repaints are ready! These are more from my 'order 10 random horses and paint whatever I get' experiment

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Breyer once released this Connemara mould at the original larger scale as a Sable Island Pony, and because of the pose, I much prefer it as a feral breed type than a polite domesticated pony (my own horse's portrait being the notable exception, as she's playful and rough rather well-mannered and placid :lol : ). So I decided to do at least one of my mini versions as a Sable Island, too.

I spent some time looking through colours, and while many are the same shades of bay and chestnut that you'd see on any other kind of pony, there's some more unusual colours, too - often sun-faded and sea-bleached from their outdoor all-weathers island lifestyle. In the end, I decided to go for a shade I've never tried painting before, and based my paintwork on the horse on the right in this photo.

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The hardest part was getting the blonde mane to go over the top of the dark shading, I don't think I've quite got the softness and blending of colour I was aiming for, but it was too difficult getting the colour right with my limited palette (and my blondest-looking paint dried up in the pot, so I was making it from white, yellow, and beige), and I kind of gave up when it looked decent even though it's not very neat or smooth. A bit more like impressionist oil painting than I usually like to leave it

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I've named her Estrella - I chose my first Sable Island Pony's name from a list of ships wrecked there in the 17-19th centuries, as that's how it's believed horses came to be living on the island in the first place. So I went back to the list and chose another which made a likely sounding name for a pony as well as a ship.

Now, something much more familiar and local to me, a couple of traditional cobs!
I looked at what I'd painted already, one piebald and one bay skewbald (or black tobiano pinto and bay tobiano pinto, to use the international terms) with about the same ratio of white to colour on each, and decided the next logical variation I should go for a different base colour, combined with less white and more patch.

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I really like how his markings turned out, I painted them over the seal brown base coat rather than base-coating white then trying to paint carefully within the patches, which made it a bit easier - this works best when there's going to be more colour left showing, but is the frustrating ay round when you've got a lot of white to colour cos it's hard to get it perfectly smooth if you're covering a lot of surface.

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He looks like the sort of horse you'd enjoy seeing frolic out in the field, but wouldn't especially want to have to lead anywhere

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I've called him Harecroft Helter-Skelter. My large scale one in this same mould is Hurly Burly, so it's kind of carrying on a theme

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Rather than go straight for another variation of a tobiano, I thought I'd try something really different with the next one - a blagdon cob.
We were talking about the sabino horse colour in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] 's Stablemates thread the other day, and how some of them come up with real wild patterning and roaning. These splashed, freckled, and roaned horses are known as blagdons in the cob/traveller community, an older name for them which hasn't been changed now there's been all the research and understanding of equine colour genetics. So this custom is a sabino or a blagdon, depending on which tradition you want to go with - here's a real example just so you can see the kind of colour I was aiming for

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I set about his colour in a different way than I'd usually paint, just cos it's so hard to figure out how to get the mottled colour effect. First the body had a total coat of white, several layers very thin so it would be as smooth as possible. Then, I scribbled all over him with a pencil I hoped getting the hairy, roany colour laid down with scribble first would give the finished thing more texture, so it doesn't have to be as painty-looking. Over the top of the scribble was another layer of thin white paint, to help blend it in but also to seal it, so it wouldn't rub off or smudge while I carried in handling him. Then the pinking for where the skin shows through the coat, and some diluted grey added over the top of the colour patches with a fine brush, so they're emphasised and blended in without being too dark or too heavy.

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I gave him two blue eyes, cos white markings which catch an eye socket often have that effect on real horses. Some sort of blue-themed name would suit him, I think, but I've used so many already I can't think of anything else right now

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The colour does look quite good on the mould, so far I've only done the more typical tobianos with large solid patches of colour, and I don't generally do many pale colours on any kind of mould, so it's been interesting for me to try this (I've been pushing myself for more variety lately, so you probably have seen light coats from me on here, but over all the years I've been painting, I know I have a big bias to darker colours and dark pintos)

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I have two more of the cob mould left from the lucky dip parcel; I'm thinking a sooty buckskin or golden dun tobiano would look nice - another with more colour and less white. And I've also got two more of the connemara, with no colour ideas at all yet. But I think I should paint a totally different sculpt next, rather than get stuck on a loop doing nothing but cobs and connemaras for weeks

Nice to see paler colors in your palette.
I always learn new words while reading your interesting posts and the word of the day is blagdon.
Estrella is again a Spanish name, actually, that doubl ll is hard to pronounce for an English speaking person. If you had chosen the Portuguese name Estrela, it would be much easier. Well, Star is always a beautiful name regardless of the language.
Your repaints are all beautiful and yes, it is time to stop playing ping-pong between Cobs and Connemaras. Hahah!

One day, I'll have to draw up a chart of every possible horse colour/pattern and mark all the ones I've done, and see all the ones I haven't got round to or thought of yet

I'd pronounce the L's like Y, I think that's correct? Like in tortilla, or grulla to use a horse colour example as a lot of my thread here is talking about horse colours already

Always a joy to see your new repaints. I sometimes see Breyer repaints on Ebay (usually expensive), but they are never as good as yours. The painting process for the blagdon sounds very complicated, but it's absolutely beautiful. I like the very appropriate background too.

George wrote:

One day, I'll have to draw up a chart of every possible horse colour/pattern and mark all the ones I've done, and see all the ones I haven't got round to or thought of yet

I'd pronounce the L's like Y, I think that's correct? Like in tortilla, or grulla to use a horse colour example as a lot of my thread here is talking about horse colours already

Pronouncing like Y is the best option for an English speaking person and the widely most accepted. Double l (ll) is pronounced like Y but also as a softer version of J or even SH depending from the country. But Y is the most common among Latin Americans and those are who introduced the Spanish language in USA, for instance.
Though, the original European pronounciation is like the gl in Italian (Cagliari) or lh in Portuguese, a sound that does not exist in English language and that is nothing like the gl in Englishh. It is usually described like a ly but it is not correct. So, using the English Y sound works for all Spanish speaking communities. Curiously we don't have that sound in Portugal and as we are next to Spain, we favour the original pronounciation.

George wrote:

Haha, you know why I took photos that day? It was a brand new straight-from-the-bag coat I'd put on her, and I knew it was the only time it'd ever be that spotless and smart looking!
You can't put the outdoor coats in the washing machine cos it takes all the waterproofing out of them, and having them professionally laundered and re-waterproofed every year is more expensive than it's worth just to look clean, so once mine get muddy, the only time they get 'washed' is when they're rained on
Here's the rest of her posh tuxedo - it wraps nicely round her neck and shoulders to keep the cold and wet out, she tends to get the shivers and be grumpy if she gets too much winter weather on her - no idea why cos both sides of her breeding are native UK ponies which evolved here naturally and are meant to do just fine feral without needing jackets, but Foal likes to be well wrapped up when she doesn't think it's warm enough.

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I call this one the Black Friday coat, cos I bought it half price in the sale that day, and, well, it's black

And here is a photo of a past year's snow angels, we haven't had any snow yet this winter - it's not very clear but the three slightly discoloured flat patches.

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she looks so smart in her tux! It really suits her :)
what a wonderful buy and a good name for Foal's coat

I love how it's tucked up snugly around her neck and shoulders, I feel the cold there too, I don't blame her wanting to be all toasty

those snow angels are super

Time for another catch-up, here's my past week's-worth of repaints. I managed not to paint only cobs and Connemaras this time, but one Connemara did sneak in here anyway

First, an attempt at a really dark sooty buckskin, which ended up looking FAR more like a bay than I wanted!

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At a glance you'd just think I was aiming for dappled bay, which is disappointing cos I've done that colour loads of times before, and really thought I'd avoid it coming out too similar cos I used different paint colours in the mixing here. But no, just another bay-ish horse after all

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It's a nice enough result, the colours blended together okay, so it's no disaster - I like her, and have named her Basilisk. It's just incredibly frustrating that I can't figure out a way to keep the light areas more golden in tone, when using any combination of my cream/gold/tan paints with brown and black to darken them somehow always ends up making either a mess, or yet more warm, reddish shades! This is a real sooty buckskin, even with trying to find the closest match to the bright one I painted you can see his light areas are more orangey-golden.

So I decided to take a deep breath, pick another body from the box, and get well away from the sooty/dark kind of buckskin and just paint one I thought I could manage, with no darker browns getting involved in the body colour at all!

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Here we have the famous Connemara 'dun' : yes, they're traditionally known as duns, despite being a completely different colour genetically

A moment to explain...
Dun is a dilution gene, which acts on whatever basic colour the horse carries, and gives them a dorsal stripe, dark points, leg barring, often a dark face, and sometimes pale-haired 'frosting' on the top of the tail and outside edges of the mane. Think of a Norwegian Fjord horse - you just pictured a dun.

Cream is different dilution gene, it lightens colours. Inheriting one gene creates a halfway effect, inherit a gene from both parents and the colour goes even lighter, with pink skin and pale eyes.
If your horse's basic colour is bay, inheriting one cream gene turns the brown/reddish/mahogany-coloured body to a lighter gingery/tan/gold shade, while the points stay black.

Centuries ago, the British & Irish horse breeders, owners, and riders didn't know all this. They called any horse with a sandy body and dark points a dun, and ingrained traditional words are really, really hard to get rid of in the horse world. Even these days, with the majority understanding horse colour a lot better thanks to online information and genetic testing, within certain breeds there's an outright refusal to change terms used. So buckskin Connemaras, and Welsh ponies/cobs, are often stubbornly described, and officially registered, as dun - even though there's no actual dun genes in the breed.

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Despite all the potential confusion about colour, I wanted to paint the lovely bright clear buckskin, which is a very popular and famous colour for this breed to be - the 'duns' are often favoured over other colours for sales prices and for show ring honours, and almost all the horse books will make a point of mentioning them, though they rarely point out that dun's not dun in this case
So ever since this mould came out, I'd thought that this would be the perfect colour to paint it, and it seemed timely, too - helping even out my previous failed attempt by getting a buckskin right this time

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I've named her Harecroft Diamond Hill - after a mountain in the Connemara national park.

While I was looking through reference pictures for a standard pale buckskin, I happened across a couple of photos I'd bookmarked a while back - silver buckskins. Here's one of them (sorry for the horrible way of linking Google has come up with, there's no other way of doing it without stealing the photo and uploading it myself, and I wouldn't do that!)

Silver is yet another gene which can alter basic horse colours. On a bay horse, it turns the mane and tail silvery and the lower legs brown, instead of black. Now add cream as well, and you've got a pale sandy body colour, brown points, and blonde/silver streaky mane and tail. There's a challenge I couldn't resist!

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I think he turned out really well! As long as I'm not trying to add darker shading into the body colour, these cream and beige paints work nicely together, so I can add in highlights and even some dapples to give it a bit more depth.

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This mould only arrived recently (my friend sent me some unwanted Stablemates bodies along with those Schleich ponies I posted about before), so it didn't stay in the body box for long. Morgans are great for painting unusual colour combinations, as there's so many different genes carried within the breed.

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Here he is with the normal buckskin - you can see the difference is mainly in the lightened points, but I also added more yellow to the mix for the Connemara, and a hint more peach and grey for the Morgan.

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I've already painted a silver bay on this mould, and named him Harecroft Silver Dollar, so this one is Harecroft Silver Buck - it works as a themed money pun, a buck as in a stag, and would shorten to just Buck as a nice nickname if he was a real horse!

Some really stunning new repaints here! And interesting to read about the colours too! As usual I love how you blend the colours so softly and naturally!

Your repaints are really all so beautiful and reading about these color paradoxal things is really fun.
The only problem of seeing all these masterpieces is that I surely can't pay what your talent deserves if I ever want a horse repainted with your brushes.
The money themed names are very funny.

No need to feel bad about that particular problem, I never take commissions so I have no prices. My mind just doesn't work that way - the second anyone hopes or asks or expects anything from me, I can't deal with providing it, and I put it off til hiding from it's the most stressful thing in my life, to the point where I never want to make/draw/paint at all - not just their thing, but none of that thing, ever again
That's why I only paint what I personally want to own afterwards - even doing customs in popular pretty colours with the plan of selling them would stop my creativity dead just like that, and I'd have to find a new hobby again

Call it 'artistic temperament' : all creative types are weird in our own ways

George wrote:

No need to feel bad about that particular problem, I never take commissions so I have no prices. My mind just doesn't work that way - the second anyone hopes or asks or expects anything from me, I can't deal with providing it, and I put it off til hiding from it's the most stressful thing in my life, to the point where I never want to make/draw/paint at all - not just their thing, but none of that thing, ever again
That's why I only paint what I personally want to own afterwards - even doing customs in popular pretty colours with the plan of selling them would stop my creativity dead just like that, and I'd have to find a new hobby again

Call it 'artistic temperament' : all creative types are weird in our own ways

When this forum was more active, it was common some talented painters being frequentely asked to repaint models. I know it was quite stressing for some of them. It is not always easy to find motivation, time and inspiration so don't think too much about what I said and please continue enjoying as you're doing and sharing all these wonderful pictures with us.
All my repainted figures are from different STS members and I enjoy having them,. My Iberian lynx repainted by Kosta is a kind of Kosta's landmark in my collection. The same for my Phillipp Iberian lynx, Anna King cheetah, Alain snow leopard, some foxes and a few more. They represent the artists, friends or whatever with a personal meaning, not exactly the animal. So, if I get you distracted, I will want a George's representative but without any plans for now.

Not sure why, but I like buckskins. And bay horses. The cantering warmblood is the perfect combination! It's beautiful even though you didn't intend to paint exactly that colour. Is it still a warmblood or did you paint it to be a different breed?

Great repaints I too have a soft spot for Duns/Buckskins.

Thanks, it was interesting exploring three different variations of one colour, and one I haven't painted very much before, too. I've only ever known one buckskin horse (and he was one his owner insisted was golden dun - his parentage was bay mare to palomino stallion, so there was no chance he was really dun ) and he was handsome but a bit of a handful to ride, one time he bucked and bucked til I came off and some builders came running to see if I was alive and ok cos it looked so bad to be launched at speed and land head-first. I know they always say you should get straight back on if you have a fall, but I did not get back on that day

Roger wrote:

When this forum was more active, it was common some talented painters being frequentely asked to repaint models. I know it was quite stressing for some of them. It is not always easy to find motivation, time and inspiration so don't think too much about what I said and please continue enjoying as you're doing and sharing all these wonderful pictures with us.

Yes, I don't find the idea being mentioned to be stressful now, as I can just politely turn people down and explain why, it's only when I ever tried to accept the request/commission that I had the issues, saying a simple 'Nope, sorry, that won't happen' in advance leaves my mind easy, even though it's a shame I can't help people have what colour/mould combinations they'd enjoy owning!

rogerpgvg wrote:

Is it still a warmblood or did you paint it to be a different breed?

Yes, this one can stay a warmblood, not all warmblood-type breeds can be buckskin (some are almost entirely bay, others also come in chestnut or black, while some have just those plus grey as the full range of options), but Belgian ones have a wide variety of colours including the cream dilutes, so she'll end up filed on that page of my site  

I love how the mane turned out on the middle one.

Some really unique individuals in the ones I have missed! I really love the portrait of your mare, it does seem to match her perfectly, especially the rolling angle! The way you paint the mane on that mold, on all of them, is really nice with the thin wild hairs along the withers. They never look so nice on the factory paints, but I love seeing the distinction in your customs.

The cobs are magnificent, you really have that pencil technique working for you. I would not have guessed the media but it's perfect! And the haflinger is just delightful, plucky and such a gorgeous, gentle, warm color with that pangare handled really well. But I think the two buckskins are my favorites. I was just reading about morgan color genetics today, for whatever reason. I think color genetics are fascinating, and I love seeing someone with such a keen understanding of them represent them like this. Seeing the two next to each other is neat from multiple perspectives - both are amazing customs, and it's also a neat comparison. I can't believe those subtle dapples as well, brilliant.

I know you are disappointed in your sooty buckskin, but I sympathize - even using digital media where literally every color is available to you without painstaking mixing, that is a hard note to hit exactly right. The combination of the warm dark browns and the coppery-gold almost always seems to fudge the golds. The real horses have the advantage, I guess, of individual hairs being beside each other rather than pigments being mixed to maintain those colors. She is, nevertheless, a beautiful custom with gorgeous dappling.

(I sympathize also with the idea of commissions. I used to take commission work - not models of course, but paintings - and I don't think I will again! I told myself I needed some hobbies for myself that were not monetized and therefore 'work' because I needed to have things I could do to relax from work. All my hobbies were becoming stressful. )

Oh, I also meant to say, but I lost track of all the ones I had missed! That drastic custom is phenomenal, I'm glad you went out of your way to do that one, it's a perfect adjustment. How unfair that such a unique and lovely breed is so unknown! I do love the fjords, of course, but I think they could stand to share some of the limelight.

Wonderful repaints!

Burgerenby wrote:

I love how the mane turned out on the middle one.

Thanks, there's a little bit of fine sculpting flat against the shoulder to indicate where the strands of mane should go, but it's fun to add in a little bit more hair to blend it, the original factory paintwork usually just handles that area with an airbrushed fade-out (like this - I didn't actually realise they'd done a similar colour on the mould when I painted mine, but it says this was a special run for the Breyer club issued as a random colour from four choices, so that one's never been orderable or anywhere I'd have seen it )

Jill wrote:

Some really unique individuals in the ones I have missed! I really love the portrait of your mare, it does seem to match her perfectly, especially the rolling angle! The way you paint the mane on that mold, on all of them, is really nice with the thin wild hairs along the withers. They never look so nice on the factory paints, but I love seeing the distinction in your customs.

See the above reply - I like painting that bit, too

Jill wrote:

The cobs are magnificent, you really have that pencil technique working for you. I would not have guessed the media but it's perfect!
And the haflinger is just delightful, plucky and such a gorgeous, gentle, warm color with that pangare handled really well.

Thank you! I don't think I'd do it again, unless I ever wanted to do another black-based blagdon on another mould, but I kind of feel like I've covered that option now, and repeating it wouldn't be as rewarding as figuring it out once

I think that pony mould is so perfectly suited - it's really got that open, happy, friendly demeanour you see in Haflingers. It's almost too cheerful for the Highland it was sculpted as

Jill wrote:

But I think the two buckskins are my favorites. I was just reading about morgan color genetics today, for whatever reason. I think color genetics are fascinating, and I love seeing someone with such a keen understanding of them represent them like this. Seeing the two next to each other is neat from multiple perspectives - both are amazing customs, and it's also a neat comparison. I can't believe those subtle dapples as well, brilliant.

I know you are disappointed in your sooty buckskin, but I sympathize - even using digital media where literally every color is available to you without painstaking mixing, that is a hard note to hit exactly right. The combination of the warm dark browns and the coppery-gold almost always seems to fudge the golds. The real horses have the advantage, I guess, of individual hairs being beside each other rather than pigments being mixed to maintain those colors. She is, nevertheless, a beautiful custom with gorgeous dappling.

We don't ever need a reason to read more about horse colours But yeah, it's interesting to see them side by side, even though I didn't know I'd be doing the silver buckskin next when I painted the first one, and didn't have the first one around while working on the second, so they weren't designed to contrast with each other, it's kind of fascinating to muse on what makes the colours so different and how to recreate them in paints.
I know what you mean about digital art, I always designed and drew a lot of bays because they're pleasant and easy to compile in colours and highlight/shadow tones, chestnuts aren't too bad especially the dark or clipped ones, greys are hard to shade to match the surroundings and light, and duns are the kind of thing I did once and was glad to get to the end of

Jill wrote:

Oh, I also meant to say, but I lost track of all the ones I had missed! That drastic custom is phenomenal, I'm glad you went out of your way to do that one, it's a perfect adjustment. How unfair that such a unique and lovely breed is so unknown! I do love the fjords, of course, but I think they could stand to share some of the limelight.

I look back at that one now and am very glad it looks so pretty - if I did it well enough once, I don't have to try it again

Caracal wrote:

Wonderful repaints!

Thank you!

My first custom for over a month!

I didn't decide to take a break, I just hadn't been in the mood for painting and hadn't realised how long it'd been with those don't-feel-like-it days in a row, so knowing my habit of accidentally abandoning it for months or years, I thought I better get on and start one before it became too long a pause and was difficult to get out of

In 2020, Breyer released miniature versions of some of their most famous large-scale moulds, to mark their 70th anniversary. They were sold in blind bags, so you could either keep buying without knowing what you were getting (likely ending up with lots of duplicates), or you could dodge this system by buying opened bags on the resale market and collecting one of each. I went with the latter option to gather the whole set, but a few months ago decided to play along with the random purchase game and get myself some lucky-dip duplicates just to repaint.
One of the models in my mixed bunch was the mini version of the vintage 1970 'Indian Pony' mould,
which I was quite pleased about as I'd never painted one of those before.

So yesterday I picked that one from my body box, and gave her a new colour...

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Meet Shikoba, the Choctaw Pony mare. I wanted to do a pinto all along, but wasn't sure what colour I'd use as the base, I dithered between sandy chestnut, red dun, or this warmer bay dun, in the end I decided this would be most different from her original finish paintwork colour (chestnut tovero) so that's what she got.

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Some of the 1:9 scale models have sculpted feathers in the mane, so I thought it'd be a nice detail to add those to the tiny version - I made a couple from painted paper, unfortunately the blustery wind took them off mid-photoshoot and I only managed to find one, so even if I reattach it she won't look quite the same as in these photos

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I was going to do her tail plain black, but as I was applying the first coat the smudgey edges blended so nicely I thought I'd leave it with this fade-in effect - a lot of real duns have a mixed mane and tail where the centre is black and the edges are the same as the body colour, so it's something which looks deliberate and not like lazy painting which needed filling in to the edges

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The dorsal stripe down her back.

And here's some photos from after the feathers got away - I'm not entirely sure they looked realistic enough in the first place, as a copy of the model ones (like on this example here) they were ok, but the thickness of the paper made them look rather chunky and stiff, not soft and fine like real feathers. So I took a second set of pictures without them, incase I decide to leave them off after all.

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She's got two blue eyes - a lot of frame overo pintos have a white face and if the marking is wide enough to catch the eye sockets, they'll have full or partial blue eyes. I think she looks very happy and friendly!

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Her name means 'feather', because my existing original-finish pony in this mould I named Hushi ('bird') and I enjoy linking my same-breed models with a theme, like they're part of a family line. I chose the Choctaw pony breed for my first one, and they come in a wide range of colours so this and any future customs will all be allocated the same breed for my site.

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It's important to mention again that calling Native American horse & pony breeds what their indigenous owners and breeders call them is the only respectful way to refer to them - singly, by breed name, rather than lumping them together under the old-fashioned casual racism of 'Indian Pony'.
It's not the 1970s any more, the mould name from back then may not have changed, but all hobbyists can help acknowledge and respect people by dropping racist terms from the model horse world.

It got absolutely wonderful. I don't know anything about Breyer but I know I've read several times about the original model. I don't know if it was because of the controversy or just because it is a popular mould. So cool they made it at a smaller scale.
I am also happy that you continue with energy to continue painting your models.

Yes, the mini shrunk-down versions of the bigger moulds are really a great idea, I'm so glad they came up with it, and also let them be released as normal cheap runs, rather than saving them only for the exclusives!

Yesterday I painted two more, thought I better keep up the momentum now I've got restarted!

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I've had a couple of these dressage horses in my body box for a while (they were in the blind bags the year I got a cheap whole boxful to work my way through!), but hadn't had any nice ideas for colours on them lately, then I happened to see a photo of a spotted horse competing in dressage and realised that would be the perfect fresh idea to give one of my horses a very different paintjob!

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I don't know what breed I'll go for, possibly Knabstrupper as they're the most famous spotted warmblood breed, or maybe the Malopolska Ana was telling me about a while ago, though I think the back is a bit too long, and the legs a bit too chunky even after I've carved them slightly slimmer (but that's something which runs through all this sculptor's work for Breyer's Stablemates, every breed has thicker legs than needed, some collectors suggested that maybe Breyer asked for them to be more solid so the range was more robust for children, but after these moulds we've had loads of very fine and more fragile legs from other sculptors, so maybe it was just a style thing)

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One of those moulds which has two good sides, as it's posed moving on a perfectly straight line it photographs just as well from either side

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The name I choose will depend on the breed I end up using, one's Danish and one's Polish (although either could be named in English as so many breeders in the sport horse world are bilingual and international, so maybe the breed's nationality won't end up mattering after all )


Now, the next one has a bit of a problem. I painted him working on my lap, as usual, and when I'd finished I was really pleased with how he'd turned out, didn't notice anything wrong at all. This morning, he still looked lovely, and I was happily satisfied with my work - til I got him outside for a photo.

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See the issue? Handsome enough horse, pretty colour, no massive errors in the paintwork, no missed bits, no stray fingerprints or stuck fluff... whatever could have made me say 'Oh, no!' at him? Look at that back foot! His back leg nearest the camera is so warped his foot is far above the ground when the pose means it should be touching down, and supporting his weight.

Here's one of my other customs on this mould so you can see how it should stand...

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And how he doesn't stand It's cos I don't have a desk or table, if I'd stood the mould on any flat surface before painting I'd have noticed this and been able to fix it first!

So ok, I think, I'll just take him inside, use boiling hot water to bend the leg, hope hope hope the paint doesn't peel off with the wet or the heat, then retake his picture.

The paint's fine, but the plastic doesn't soften. Not even a little bit. I try reboiling the water and putting him in again. I try pouring it directly on the leg. I try leaving him in longer. I try more force. I try everything, but the leg just will not bend.
This body was made from a different plastic, completely clear, sold in this set designed for making decorative art pieces, like stained glass or rainbow or however you wanted to colour them. They paint up just fine with normal model paints, too, and I've had several of them for turning into ordinary horse-coloured customs in the past, without ever realising that the different plastic can't be softened with heat in the normal way!

So for now, I'm left with two options - either cut the leg almost all the way through at the hock joint
so it can be bent downward, trying not to scratch up the paint anywhere else, then using filler in the gap and repainting that little section of leg trying to match yesterday's paintwork enough that the patching doesn't show.
Or, I could make an entirely new diorama base with uneven ground, and have his high foot resting on a convenient rock or lump
I'm not sure which would end up looking the most effective, and both have a risk - I'll either ruin him by trying to move the leg, or I'll waste loads of time and materials creating scenery then he'll look weird and wrong anyway and I'll still have to tackle the leg.

But I thought I'd put the photo here first, because he's still a pretty horse, and so you can see that even experienced painters make very silly mistakes and don't notice at the time