General Additions thread - Recent additions, from February to April

George wrote:

Hahah, I already have what can only be described as shelving issues

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Franz Joseph is the first name we think about when talking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I guess. Though, it is such a common name, I think. Absburg could work better.
I enjoyed again to read your post and I find this horse particularly beautiful. Your third picture show it in an angle that shows how glorious is this model.

Integrity is so beautiful! This has to me one of my favourites that you have shown! It's that rich glossy coat of all the shades of brown I love- reminds me in a way of the sleek racehorses I sometimes see photos of!

Wonderful model!

Beautieful horse figures :)

Roger wrote:

I enjoyed again to read your post and I find this horse particularly beautiful. Your third picture show it in an angle that shows how glorious is this model.

Yes, it's a very handsome breed which is ideal for making into a beautiful model - and I think it's a very elegant pose, too, the long straight trot stride with legs in symmetry and the mane and tail flying out behind.

Bonnie wrote:

Integrity is so beautiful! This has to me one of my favourites that you have shown! It's that rich glossy coat of all the shades of brown I love- reminds me in a way of the sleek racehorses I sometimes see photos of!

Bay is the commonest colour in the Thoroughbred (racehorse) breed, but a lot of them are much darker, this lovely shade with reddish tones and almost tan highlights is more unusual. I think they look like conkers, fresh and shiny from the shell!

Caracal wrote:

Wonderful model!

widukind wrote:

Beautieful horse figures :)

Thank you both! I don't know why I put off buying this one for so long, it's so pretty on display!

Roger wrote:

Franz Joseph is the first name we think about when talking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I guess. Though, it is such a common name, I think. Absburg could work better.
I enjoyed again to read your post and I find this horse particularly beautiful. Your third picture show it in an angle that shows how glorious is this model.

Attila would be fine too 

AsRogério, I enjoy reading your post, Im' still a nut in horses but I am really amazed by all his information and considerations about horse breeds. I don't understand everything but your planet is fascinating for an alien like me 

Big congratulations George !
I also have this model and I love it !
I am a fan of the sculptor, her works are really great and this model is no exception.
The colour is great too.

I decided on the name Aldebaran in the end, the Arabic name for one of the stars in the night sky. Reading a bit about the breed through pedigrees and stud sites, it seems they're more often given names in Arabic, or English for the UK/American ones, than anything else. Even though they have mixed heritage with mares from other European countries, that doesn't seem to have been adopted into their naming traditions.

I'm glad you can still find it interesting when I introduce yet another horse model each time, and ramble on about breeds and colours and history and so on

And yes, Brigitte Eberl has so much talent for getting anatomy right but also expression and pose and attitude, her horses always seem very 'real' somehow. I've got quite a few of her pieces now she's sculpting for releases in plastic (Breyer and WIA) rather than only limited edition unpainted resins, which are a bit out of my price range and almost always too big for me to paint anyway!

Today's introduction is a little grey pony which was sold with no name on release, so I've called him Platinum Jubilee after this long weekend's national celebrations. I imagine if he was a real pony with that long-winded name, it'd get shortened to PJ or Joobs by whatever children were riding him

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He's a 2009 regular run, and originally came with a blue nylon halter, but I just recently bought this one second hand on Ebay and although he's in perfect condition, he didn't have that any more.
I don't mind, though, I make a point of never leaving halters on them on the shelf incase it marks their faces - I've seen older models with coloured stains from the dye, or 'tan lines' where the plastic has yellowed each side of the strap but not under it. So it's safer not to use tack on display (the only ones I keep tacked up are my Household Cavalry set, and a custom diorama of a George Stubbs painting, as the accessories and rider are an integral part of each scene, and it doesn't matter if they get any marks under the tack as it'll never be removed.)

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This mould was sculpted as a Morgan, which we normally think of as a horse-sized breed. But he's a portrait of one individual, Flash, who was only 14.1hh, and was used in Pony Club training and competition in the USA. And the fact he's pony-sized is why I liked him so much, and had to add him to my collection : my first horse was a grey pony, Arab cross Welsh C, so I've always had a soft spot for a neat little grey.
(And to anyone reading that who thinks crossing Arab intelligence with Welsh attitude is a bad idea....yeah, she was FIERCE, small but mighty, and the only reason I got the chance to have her in the first place was cos she wouldn't let any other customers get on, so the riding school owner gave her to me on permanent loan )

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The only thing I'm not so keen on with his paintjob design is the grey face, usually the muzzle shading, even in summer coat, will be mostly on the muzzle and around the eyes, not spreading right up the front of of the face too. That was why I didn't buy him first time round, even though I was already collecting in 2009 I remember not liking the dark head, but this example does look a lot less black than some I've seen, it's a softer shading so detracts less from the overall realism.

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He's got beautifully subtle dappling, on his sides and a little on his neck, faint and very gently applied - some Breyer dappling around that era got derided as 'fishscales' by collectors, as it looked very harshly drawn in as semi-circles or overlapping circular blobs, but I think they've done a nice job here.

A beautiful addition and a great name for him. Is there anywhere we can view your Household Cavalry set?

Lovely addition!!

thebritfarmer wrote:

A beautiful addition and a great name for him. Is there anywhere we can view your Household Cavalry set?

I don't seem to have any pictures of my own set, I've just checked my websites and my computer, but here's somebody else's from a sales site, just so you can see what it looks like. 1/9th scale. I'll have to try for a new photoshoot with mine if it's sunny in the morning!

George wrote:

thebritfarmer wrote:

A beautiful addition and a great name for him. Is there anywhere we can view your Household Cavalry set?

I don't seem to have any pictures of my own set, I've just checked my websites and my computer, but here's somebody else's from a sales site, just so you can see what it looks like. 1/9th scale. I'll have to try for a new photoshoot with mine if it's sunny in the morning!

Very nice, it is the Action Man series I think?

No, Action Man did produce a Household Cavalry edition, which you're probably thinking of, but I don't have it, I'm more specifically collecting on the model horses side rather than vintage toys or dolls, which the Action Man buyers tend to be.
This one's made by Breyer, and they're a slightly smaller scale so horse, tack, and rider wouldn't be interchangeable even if you had both.

Thanks for the info. I did not know Breyer had made one.

I took my horse and trooper out in the daylight for a photo this morning, I hadn't realised I didn't have a picture for my collection websites, so here they are (the rider's gloves are hiding, I've definitely still got them but I don't know where they got put )

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Beautiful ! Thanks George

Amazing detail: the reins, the stirrups and the trooper's clothes. Too hot for gloves at this time of the year!

Another new addition, and this one is a little bit of a rescue horse.

He was a special run only sold in Tractor Supply Company stores in the USA, these models aren't tiny limited editions like some, but they are hard to get hold of in the UK where we don't have TSC - your only option if you really, really want one is to buy from a US-based seller who's found the models in-store and listed them for sale, willing to post internationally, and then of course us British buyers have to pay customs and handling fees on top of the price.
So understandably, they sell for a lot more over here on the second hand market than they do on the 'right' side of the Atlantic, where you can just nip to a physical shop and buy one

I first saw this horse sell on Ebay a little while ago, for £80 which was too much for me, so I just admired the pictures but left him alone. Then last week he popped up again, from a different seller, but now at just £30. He'd been carelessly packed and got damaged in transit, with white paint marks on him, and some of his own paint scuffed and scratched. The recipient was rightly disappointed, didn't want to keep him in that state, and put him back on Ebay with his damage carefully described and photographed.
Now, at a much more affordable price (regular runs are currently £45-55 here), I looked again, and decided I could deal with the marks on him - I'm so used to custom painting, surely I'd be able to colour-match the paint, and apply it well enough that if he didn't look 100% immaculate, then at least he'd look mended and handsome again

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And he does!
You can barely see where the marks were; on this side there was a scuff across just above where his elbow would be, on both knees and one fetlock there were flecks of base plastic showing through the black, both ear tips were rubbed, and on his other side, a few very obvious scrapes between the hock and the bum.
Now you'd really struggle to spot any of the repairs, I'm really pleased with how easy he was to mend, all apart from the elbow scuff which was deep enough to scratch the plastic as well as the paint, so although the colour is replaced, if you tilt him to the light there's a rough mark which doesn't shine. But he's fine on display, I can't see the 'scar' in any of these pictures taken at the normal kinds of angles you look at a horse, it's only when you turn him upside down and hunt for the flaw that you'd find it

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It amuses me that we were just talking about this mould the other day in Saarlooswolfhound's Breyer thread, and it was about a day later that I had one on the way for my own collection

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I think he's really handsome, the mould is a good one anyway with a handsome head and a powerful, elegant pose, he makes a good Spanish Mustang. His official name was Jasper, but I've gone with Whirlwind, cos I've got a rearing Spanish Mustang in bay sabino called Wayward Wind, and I like family name themes

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The other side - I even zoomed in on the full size image of this before I resized it for the forum, and can't make out the repairs anywhere on his bum, so I'm really glad I decided to go for it and hope I could repair him. The seller had put in the description that he could be used as a custom body, and at that price he could've been a bargain for someone to repaint, but I think with him being a special run it would've been a shame to change him entirely, at least this way he gets to stay himself in his own colour, and I get a rarer model for my collection than I could have afforded otherwise

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A solid colour like bay can seem a bit boring, especially when compared to the pinto Picasso which is the only regular run on this mould so far, and got to be such a gorgeous flashy pattern. But when they make a bay this rich and nicely shaded, with the nicely designed white markings (love the little wibbly edges on the ones on his face!), it's anything but plain and dull.

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Whirlwind suits him as a name, it's suitable undomesticated for a feral horse, but unfortunately I don't have any wilderness-landscape backgrounds big enough for this scale, so he has to pose in front of this bit of English countryside complete with fence line and distant fluffy sheep

Congrats :)

A wonderful model and saved from the custom bin :) Nice job on restoring him.

Beautiful,beautiful models!!

Thanks, I feel lucky to have got this one, and to have been able to fix him up to full prettiness