General Additions thread - Catching up on all I missed, pt1

Really wonderful to add so many new stablemates to your herd at once!
It must be nice to not have to worry too much about doubles, and know that you can just repaint those ones! Really looking forward to seeing what you produce!

Yes, because I've already got my one of each, this whole box was destined for repainting, no matter what horses I got in it. The only possibility of an extra one to keep was the 'chase piece', which is a rare model only packed in some of the boxes, but those are always decorator colours - things like blue with gold splashes, or neon metallic pink, or rainbow stripes - not something I'd choose to buy, but too rare to just paint over, so I'd end up keeping it and having one less horse to customise from the whole batch

Today's general addition is this little parcel of tiny horses from a model railway maker, Noch

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(With a penny for scale : although using British currency might not seem very international of me, it's the same size as a Euro 2cent coin, a US cent, and a lot of other countries' pennies too, so hopefully it helps )

They're so small, I'm planning to change them to more realistic colours, with shading and better markings and details, but it'll be challenging at that scale, I've never done anything this tiny before!

I don't know if there's anywhere on the forum I ought to post model railway animals? There isn't a category for their brand, maybe they're best suited to 'Non toy animal items'?
Once I've figured out how to open this packaging ( ), I'll take some out-of-box photos if you'd like to have them posted in whatever's the appropriate place before I paint them up!

So small but yet realistic!

They are amazing !!!

George wrote:

....
Once I've figured out how to open this packaging ( ), I'll take some out-of-box photos if you'd like to have them posted in whatever's the appropriate place before I paint them up!

I would love to see that !!! They seem ever so detailed !!!
A small lego block for size, perhaps? I only have a vague idea of the size of Euros/pennies  

And it seems we have no NOCH models on TAW, so anything you can tell, age perhaps or...
I can see the item no

We really don't have a railway section but if those are not vintage, you can show them on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] section. They are animals so no way to put them on non animal series. If the railway subject gets a moderate number of topics, we might consider to open a dedicated section to it.

Ohhhh, I was reading that as non toy animal items, as in animal items that aren't toys, rather than non toy animal items, items which aren't even animals at all, oops!

They're not vintage, there's quite a lot being sold brand new on ebay by different railway sellers - this particular packet looks a bit scuffed and worn so might've been made a while ago but I just checked the maker's site and the exact same set is still currently in production

I don't have any Lego and don't know any small children I could steal a bit from, so I'll take a picture of them with a tape measure when I do their photoshoot [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

George wrote:

Ohhhh, I was reading that as non toy animal items, as in animal items that aren't toys, rather than non toy animal items, items which aren't even animals at all, oops!

They're not vintage, there's quite a lot being sold brand new on ebay by different railway sellers - this particular packet looks a bit scuffed and worn so might've been made a while ago but I just checked the maker's site and the exact same set is still currently in production

I don't have any Lego and don't know any small children I could steal a bit from, so I'll take a picture of them with a tape measure when I do their photoshoot [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Sorry, it was my confusion actually. Non toy animal items is for animal figures that are not toys as you correctly mentioned.
I was messing it with the "Non Animal Series".

Love those teeny little horses and I've very excited to see how you paint them. Love tiny models, the tinier the better.

George wrote:

Which rabbits, the ones back on page one of this topic? They're adorable, I've looked at getting more but cos of the shipping and them the inevitable import fees they'd just cost too much to have sent here.

These ones! But all of your rabbit models are equally delightful, so.

George wrote:

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Ohhh, those bunnies, I forgot about them

Absolutely love the three bunnies  

A month since my last additions, today I have a little parcel of Breyers to introduce. Taking advantage of a 20% off offer from one of my favourite online sellers, I decided to go for a model I'd been undecided over for a while, some blind bag models, and finally (but not pictured here) a few unicorns to de-horn and paint up, because the moulds aren't available as normal horses yet.

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Here's the first one, a Morgan in a simple but very effective bright bay colour.
I don't buy many at this scale (1:12), because I don't like all the moulds and they do a lot of overly pearly or generally poorly designed colours in this range - and more often than not it happens that the good colours are on the moulds I'm not a fan of, and the bad colours spoil the sculpts I'd have happily owned otherwise So when a mould I was keen to buy came out in a colour I liked, he went on my 'maybe' list, and then the special offer price made up my mind!

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I like his flicked-back ear like he's paying attention toward the 'photographer' in pictures, it's a nice touch which gives him a little more life and realism.

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He seems a pretty good rendition of his breed, with the typical compact, rounded body, deep neck, and handsome-looking head. Bay is also a very common colour for Morgans, and it's nice that they gave him nice bright highlights rather than flat plain brown, or the metallic reddish bay they use so often.

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The rest of the parcel were Stablemates (1:32) scale, here's the ones I'm keeping as they are - all three from the 2022 Mystery Horse blind bags, though I bought them already opened so I knew which horse I was getting. I'd have bought one of each to complete the set, but the others had sold out before I made my choices, so I just picked one of each remaining horse.

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This one's the Peruvian Paso mould, but I admit I'm not quite sure if they intend it to be chestnut or red dun! I assumed chestnut, in all the pictures it looks chestnut (the legs are no darker than the body, with is a bit too orange for a dun), but in person I discovered there's a dorsal stripe painted along the back in a darker shade of paint, so it's quite possible they mean it as a chestnut-based dun

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The mould is a bit weird-looking if you're not familiar with the breed, with the foreleg swinging outward so dramatically, but that's how they move - look at the one on the left here

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A mould which looks good from either side

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The Loping Quarter Horse mould in chestnut, again a really typical colour for the breed and nicely done, with nice pale shading on the flanks, and just a hint of gold in the paint mix - this is when the metallic effect can work well, it's subtle enough to enhance the paintwork rather than making it look silly and plasticky, and on a horse breed which can have that subtle sheen on the coat in real life.

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The reiner in frame overo pinto, a neat combination really, as in this mould I've already got a solid coloured blue dun and a frame overo chestnut, so if you take the base colour of one with the markings of the other, it's this result.

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I wasn't too keen on this mould when it was first released, but I think that was just due to a lacklustre paintjob on the first one, as in good eyecatching colours like this it's just fine!

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Hopefully at some point I'll be able to get hold of the other three blind bags from this series - there's a spotted dressage horse, the Valegro warmblood [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] introduced on here earlier, and a gorgeous Icelandic which I really, really want!
If nobody else lists opened bags so I can choose my missing horses, I might just start buying a few unopened bags from wherever they're cheapest, as I wouldn't mind duplicates too much - more moulds for repainting is always a good thing!

Does Breyer put more effort into the 1/9 scale than in the 1/12 scale?
Is there a noticiable difference? Since both are large sized, do you think they intend to have a different commercial target? I know 1/12 is compatible with many other lines and it also works for classic dollhouses.
Anytime I see the reiner I always think if a Chalicotherium could look like that. ; and anytime someone tells me I am walking in a weird way, I'll tell I'm a Peruvian Paso.

Nice additions! I do love that little ear twist on the morgan. Is that a classics or little bits scale? (Or . . Freedom series and Paddock Pals? Is that what they're called now?)

What a nice chestnut on the quarter horse, I love a coppery red chestnut in real life.

Beautyful models

I like that type of Morgan horse even if it is very much infuenced by Arabian ancestors

Roger wrote:

Does Breyer put more effort into the 1/9 scale than in the 1/12 scale?
Is there a noticiable difference? Since both are large sized, do you think they intend to have a different commercial target? I know 1/12 is compatible with many other lines and it also works for classic dollhouses.

I think the 1:9 definitely has the most prestige, and effort put in, the 12th releases always seem like a little bit of an afterthought or sideline. They're big sellers with children, so they're aimed more at the play side of things - the catalogues show them being tacked up and played with, with stables and barns and kids in shot holding them, where the larger scale are shown in realistic scene set-ups with information about showing and customising so they're more aimed at hobbyists, teens and up. They're also much more affordable (here they retail at £20/€25 compared to £55-60/€66-72) for a child's collection.

Jill wrote:

Nice additions! I do love that little ear twist on the morgan. Is that a classics or little bits scale? (Or . . Freedom series and Paddock Pals? Is that what they're called now?)

What a nice chestnut on the quarter horse, I love a coppery red chestnut in real life.

Classics. And I find everyone I know still says 'classic' for them, even if Breyer doesn't want us to any more. Freedom Series is useless as a scale name, when they also plaster it on Stablemates and Mini Whinnies packaging, and I think some of the random kiddie stuff comes under the same branding, too - you can't rename a scale if you can't be bothered to check what is that scale when designing your blind bags and boxes

SUSANNE wrote:

Beautyful models

I like that type of Morgan horse even if it is very much infuenced by Arabian ancestors

I almost put some of my Morgan models into a 'Morab' category on my site, cos they looked more araby than others, but then decided I didn't really need yet another of those mixed-breed breed pages on there

Oh, I love that Morgan! Very sweet-looking horse! Congratulations

George wrote:

Roger wrote:

Does Breyer put more effort into the 1/9 scale than in the 1/12 scale?
Is there a noticiable difference? Since both are large sized, do you think they intend to have a different commercial target? I know 1/12 is compatible with many other lines and it also works for classic dollhouses.

I think the 1:9 definitely has the most prestige, and effort put in, the 12th releases always seem like a little bit of an afterthought or sideline. They're big sellers with children, so they're aimed more at the play side of things - the catalogues show them being tacked up and played with, with stables and barns and kids in shot holding them, where the larger scale are shown in realistic scene set-ups with information about showing and customising so they're more aimed at hobbyists, teens and up. They're also much more affordable (here they retail at £20/€25 compared to £55-60/€66-72) for a child's collection.

Thanks, it makes sense in my opinion and it is a correct strategy from them.
There's no thing like real collectibles but it is like the traditional Breyer are the real sculptures while the 1:12 is the series that opens the toy market to the company. So, there's no real competition between Classic and Traditional scales.
I see also that the prices of the Classic models is not too far from what we expect from CollectA and Safari similarly sized models.

Some of the newer Classic moulds are pretty nice, but they do seem to re-use quite old moulds (less accurate proportions, in a dated artistic style) more often in that range than the Traditionals, where the majority of regular run releases stick to the new or relatively modern moulds every year, with maybe one or two more vintage-y options among them.

There's one new Classic mould introduced every year now - sold first as a limited edition Horse Of The Year with a name, then reissued in other colours or in sets later down the years. So they are investing in new sculptures at that scale, but nowhere near the extent that the Traditional range gets, with multiple big-name hobbyist artists providing new work on a regular basis.

Very beautiful models and pictures! The morgan is impressive!

Lovely, I don't think I've ever seen a Breyer horse where I can fault it much- although it's probably because I don't know enough about horses! Even if a little stylised sometimes, I love so many of the horses by this brand, and these ones are so beautiful too!

The horses in the new blind bags have beautiful subtle tones - I like them! I am hoping that the new Icelandic will be coming in larger quantities to the UK soon so that we can both get one.

When Breyer announce the regular runs each year, usually there's two or three I really like and immediately put on my wishlist, and a few I don't like at all and never want to buy, with a couple left in a sort of 'in-between' state where I don't dislike them but equally they don't have the instant 'buy me!' appeal. A lot of the time, it's cos they pair a really great new mould with a bit of a boring colour, and I think 'maybe I'll wait til they release it in a more interesting paintjob'

One of the models in that very category was LV Integrity, from 2018 - a mould I liked the look of, and didn't own yet, but issued in a what looked to be a rather flat and common bay colour. Several times I'd had a good look at the photos and considered him, but some other release always took priority over adding another plain bay to my herd.

Sometimes, I'd end up seeing those models in person, on the Breyer sellers' trade stands at real horse events, and they'd win me over by being more interesting than I thought - a nice face and a lot of character, or a richer more deeply shaded version of what had looked a bland colour in the catalogue shots.
Of course, covid disrupted the usual schedule of horse sports for competitors and spectators alike, and I haven't been to a trade stand since. So there's a lot of releases over the last three years which I've never seen in person, to have that chance to warm to ones I'd originally written off as not interesting enough

But now and then, an older model will crop up at a bargain price on a shop site or Ebay, and remind me of a horse which has been lingering on my 'maybe' list since release - somehow 'you can have it for half price?' tempts me to make decisions on the ones I'd procrastinated on for years

So this week's introduction is not a brand new release, but still a first in this mould for me. And his colour is so much nicer in person - perhaps this is one of those runs which had variation depending on who was handling the spray gun that day, with some a very uniform and even application, and others given much more highlight and shadow through the thickness of the paint.

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The mould was sculpted as a Shagya-Arabian, which is a whole separate breed than the Arabian, rather than just a strain. They were a cross-bred developed at several studs in the Austro-Hungarian empire (now 13 independent central European countries) as a cavalry horse, using Arab stallions to local riding horse mares, to make something larger and more sturdy but with the character and toughness of the Arabians. As cavalry ended up being phased out of modern warfare, they took on the role of a sport horse, and general leisure riding too. The name comes from Shagya, one of the early stallions who is said to be somewhere in every individual's pedigree across the modern breed.

So in model form, it's an interesting mould, with hints of Arabian conformation and movement, but bigger, with stronger chunkier legs, and a straighter profile to the head. Curiously, the real LV Integrity is a purebred Arabian, so didn't have to be made on the Shagya mould, but perhaps the horse's connections felt that it was a better match for him - he's a sporty endurance gelding with a nearly-20-year competitive career, rather than a young showring stallion all bouncy prancing and full of showing off, or being posed for the camera.

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You can see here in the fully side-on profile shot how the head is straighter and bony without being coarse, rather than dished and rounded look of most purebred Arabian types.

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I think he's got a really great face, very alert and lively, with those big ears pricked up high

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Another mould which looks good from either direction, as he's trotting on a completely straight line with his head facing forward

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A very handsome horse, I think perhaps he wasn't too popular on release cos most model people like very araby-looking Arabians, and aren't so interested in partbreds or these old European breeds with mixed ancestry. They're the sort of thing which always gets a mention in the encyclopedia type books of horse breeds, but there's never a class for them in showing, and I suspect the majority of people who bought this model would've just left it filed as a pure Arabian like the real horse it was made after. But I like having a big variety of breeds and it'll be satisfying for me to add this one to the Shagya page of my site.

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Definitely worth the £26, especially now the average Traditional scale release is £55-60 so more than double this offer price, I'm glad I decided to get him after all.

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And I do really like his colour, I don't think I'll regret going for this bay release if they come out with a more exciting paintjob in the next few years, cos the bay is rich and shaded and shiny enough to hold it's own, and any more colours would be an addition to stand alongside him, rather than something I wish I'd just waited and had instead!

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I haven't come up with a name for him yet, all my allocated Shagya-Arabians are G3 Stablemates which got filtered out of the Arabian page for being too big and chunky, so I'd given them Arabic or English/American names already - this is the first time I've had to think of something specifically for an Austro-Hungarian horse, and I don't speak any of the languages from that former empire!

I'm not familiar with this mold at all, very handsome head and neck! You're right, you got a really nice bay. I'm glad it worked out that way. A voice in my head does cry, "Oh he's so long, he would be hard to fit on a shelf." But that tail is so cool looking!

Hahah, I already have what can only be described as shelving issues (the last nine Traditionals I've bought are on the mantelpiece, floor, or laying on storage boxes with socks underneath them as padding) so I'm less concerned about fitting him somewhere as I already can't fit anything anywhere so length doesn't make it worse

I think it's an Eberl mould, she always does give them lovely handsome faces.