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

Three Breyer arrivals to introduce this week!

First, two more Stablemates from blind bags - these are the batch which were first sold in the USA last year, then had their international release as 2022 regular runs. I bought three as opened bags early on, which left three still to find, including the one I wanted most! One of our UK retailers had an offer of 15% off for halloween, so I decided to order six blind bags and see what I got - hoping that gave me a pretty good chance for the Icelandic, with the Valegro as my second choice, but any duplicates were also fine cos I do so much repainting and it's always good to have more moulds to choose from. Some in this batch (Mini Valegro, Peruvian Paso and Loping QH) I've only painted once so far.

So what did I get? Not the Icelandic

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But I did get one of the Mini Valegro!

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He's quite a bit paler than the one [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] showed us recently, his tail's got a lot more of the brownish red tones, I'm thinking he looks more like a very dark liver chestnut than a bay. Which is good, cos it makes him look more different to my original Valegro portrait one :

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Here's the other side, I think the little white specks are just dust spots from when I unpacked him but I was in a rush to get these photos in the last little patch of sunlight before the garden got taken in shadow, cos I knew the next few days are due to be wet or cloudy. The usual problem for photography outside of the summer months!

There was only one other I didn't already have...

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He's described in the leaflet as a Sporthorse - the mould was released as a Hanoverian, but they don't come in spotted patterns. The only pure warmblood breeds which do are the Knabstrupper from Denmark and Malopolski from Poland. So I either have to file him as one of those two, or go along with Breyer's partbred option and have him as an appaloosa sporthorse

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The spots on the example in Breyer's official photo looked far too regularly spread out, like they'd been dotted on with very deliberate spacing, so I thought I wasn't going to like the model and hadn't even included it on the list of ones I was hoping for, but luckily when this one came out of the packet his dots are more irregular and natural looking!

The other bags were duplicates, for my body box. Two of the Peruvian Paso and one Loping QH, which is great cos they're both moulds I've only painted once, so now I get to choose more colours to do, and one of the Reiner which I have painted several times but it's always nice to have one more - and he's got a terrible wonky S-bend of a dorsal stripe so I'm glad I got the flawed one rather than somebody who was hoping for it to keep in their collection!

The other parcel this week was something much bigger, and even more exciting!

The Akhal-Teke is one of my favourite breeds, I've been fascinated by them for as long as I can remember. Breyer have sold one as a limited edition before, but using Thoroughbred mould, which was the closest they had at the time, but not quite right, as it didn't match the unique physique and motion of the true Akhal-Teke. So I was delighted when they brought out a brand new sculpt which really did capture the breed in all it's long, athletic, and slightly weird beauty!
The only down side was that they used my favourite colour the horses come in, on the very first release, a Premier Club model which would forever be way beyond my budget (there's currently a few on US Ebay for between $300 and $450 )
And then, they used my second favourite colour, the iconic metallic cremello so particular to this breed, for a Breyerfest special run which would be equally out of my reach.
Finally, they did issue a regular run, but in bay which isn't all that exciting - even though I happily bought one, and do love him, I was mildly disappointed that the two 'best' colours were gone and would never be repeated in the regular run range.

Not long ago, one of the metallic cremello Akhal-Tekes came up on UK Ebay for £150. Which is much cheaper than I have seen them going for (around £250, plus the costs incurred with US shipping and then UK import fees which would push it well over £300 to get one sent to me), but still more than I could justify for one model horse, even if it was one of my favourite breeds in a great colour. So I let it go by.
Then the same horse was listed for £130. And I still let it go by.
And then, it came back up for £105. And I had to have a serious think about this.
Yes, that's still a LOT of money to spend on a model horse. But to rationalise it a different way, that's the cost of two regular run models. Would I rather have this horse than two from the normal range?
If somebody at a trade stand held up the boxes and told me I could have two of this year's standard stock releases OR this extra special, much-coveted single horse I might not get another chance at, what would I do? Of course I'd go for the special one I really really wanted!
So thinking of it in terms of models not money, it made sense to go for it and just buy the Akhal-Teke

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And here he is! I'm so glad I went for it in the end

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He's such a stunning model, the glowing warm shading shows through the pearly finish so well, and while I'm usually the first to complain about overly shiny metallic paintwork looking unrealistic, it works so perfectly on a breed like this, which has that famous sheen in real life - here's a photo of one

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I think cos it's a big dramatic action sculpt it looks even more striking than the same colour on something small or simple, and the level of detail the artist's used to emphasise the leanness and muscle of the horse is really picked out by all those shiny highlights!

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I was struggling with the light so some of the angles are a bit dark and odd, it's really difficult to avoid the shadow falling on the backdrop in an unrealistic way when the light is low this time of year, so there was a lot of adjusting the chair almost into the hedge and tilting the base board with a broom, then standing in among the plants getting my trouser legs soaked, just to get the horse in the light and standing upright without a wobble, let alone all the angles I wanted shots from!

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The other side of him, just as handsome but not so photogenic cos he's turning away from us

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I've named him Aý Şöhlesi, which means 'moonlight' in the Turkmen language - although it suits his colour perfectly, and I do like giving my various horse breeds a name to suit their nationality too, I am cursing myself a bit for this one cos it includes a letter I'm always going to have to go copy-paste, my UK keyboard doesn't have an Ş option!

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And finally here he is wearing the traditional style collar I'd already made for my bay one - I'd ideally like to do him something of his own to wear, and had a beaded-leather design in mind so I'm not making the same thing twice, but it's awkward fitting them around the mane and I couldn't figure out a way to do that with the different materials I'm hoping to use this time. So he has to make do with a shared hand-me-down for now!

Oh wow, that Akhal Teke is spectacular! I love this mold and this is probably the nicest color version I've seen so far! Big congrats, fantastic newcomer!

And the stablemates are lovely too of course

OH!!      What a wonderful breed and model!! I am sure you did the good choice with this treasure!

Ana wrote:

Oh wow, that Akhal Teke is spectacular! I love this mold and this is probably the nicest color version I've seen so far! Big congrats, fantastic newcomer!

And the stablemates are lovely too of course

Yes, you see what I mean about being sad they'd 'used up' this colour on a run I didn't think I'd be able to buy. I suppose it is a bit niche, though, the general horsey audience for Breyer toys might not know much about the breed and think the colour looked unrealistic or unappealing. It's a bit like some of the pearly pastel shades they've used for unicorns before. I showed it to my non-horsey mum, predicting she might think it looked peculiar or not like anything a real horse could be, but she's read (or rather, looked at the pictures in ) one of my Akhal-Teke books, so she did know the colour exists!

The Stablemates were always going to be overshadowed by the big brother in this post, just like they were when the parcels arrived - they're nice enough and I'm glad I have them, but he's something really special!

Caracal wrote:

OH!!        What a wonderful breed and model!! I am sure you did the good choice with this treasure!

Thank you! They're such glorious looking horses, I'm glad to have two different colours now, and the beauty of Breyer collecting is that every mould will come round in more colours over the years, so I can look forward to buying more, too

I think it was a very good decision to get this fabulous Akhal-Teke. Very iconic breed, a sculpt originally devoted to it and a beautiful color.
Yes, it is a little cruel for your other smaller new models to show it together with such a shiny piece.
Regardless of the light you use, your pictures are always fantastic!
I think you can write Ş pressing the key alt and at the same time 350 on your numeric keypad but I'm affraid it only works with MS Word, Wordpad but not websites. Thus, copying is much easier.

Congratulations on the stunning Akhal-Teke! When the price of a model gradually drops, it is always a difficult decision when to buy it before someone else snaps it up. Glad you got it. Do I understand correctly that you will now never buy any regular runs of this model?

Always hard to tell from photos, but yes, my Valegro seems to have a blacker tail. Like you, I also assumed that spots on the appaloosa sporthorse were too regular, so it's nice to see that it is more random.

Roger wrote:

I think it was a very good decision to get this fabulous Akhal-Teke. Very iconic breed, a sculpt originally devoted to it and a beautiful color.
Yes, it is a little cruel for your other smaller new models to show it together with such a shiny piece.
Regardless of the light you use, your pictures are always fantastic!
I think you can write Ş pressing the key alt and at the same time 350 on your numeric keypad but I'm affraid it only works with MS Word, Wordpad but not websites. Thus, copying is much easier.

I definitely won't regret the decision! I've put him beside the mantel clock so I see him every time I glance up - and the other side of the clock is my bay on the same sculpt - not because I selected them to live there as a matching pair of ornaments, juts cos I have no shelf space to put the other one away yet and now another has joined him. Hmm, I think this is the first time I've ever bought two Breyer Traditionals on the same mould in a row before, how interesting for my notebook list!

Yeah, copy-paste is the way to go, which is fine cos I don't have Word (I haven't used that since I was at school! ) and I don't think I've ever seen Wordpad on my laptop either, all my typing's done on websites or occasionally Notepad.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Congratulations on the stunning Akhal-Teke! When the price of a model gradually drops, it is always a difficult decision when to buy it before someone else snaps it up. Glad you got it. Do I understand correctly that you will now never buy any regular runs of this model?

Always hard to tell from photos, but yes, my Valegro seems to have a blacker tail. Like you, I also assumed that spots on the appaloosa sporthorse were too regular, so it's nice to see that it is more random.

Thank you! This is the first time I've ever spent over £100 on a single model horse and I'm glad I did, although it's a lot to spend I don't think anyone else would've enjoyed him more if they'd got in before me and paid the higher price, he's just perfect for my horsey interests and I'll be so happy to have him in my collection.

You might think I'd be satisfied having got this one, but I can tell you now I'll still buy all future regular runs as well, any colour they could possibly do would look good on him and I look forward to having more! The only things I'd turn down would be decorators or unicorns, they do release a few of those at this scale but neither are my cup of tea. Oh, and I'd avoid any done with the thick gloss finish over normal colours - I know some people love glossy models and say it makes them more vibrant and pretty, but I think it ruins the paintjob - I find them unrealistic when they've got that glassy shine, more like china ornaments than the texture of a real horse.

The stablemates are lovely, but I congratulate you especially for this so beautiful Akhal Teke !
I love the sculpt and with this colour is ...is real Akhal Teke , your favorite horse breed :)

Wow, really big congrats on a milestone figure! I remember you mentioning him before and how sad it was that the 'best' colors were limited to very hard to get releases (classic Breyer move!). I think you made an excellent choice, he's beautiful and almost never shows up so affordably ("affordably" ). Very lucky! I love the name you chose as well.

I also think your little Valegro is beautiful, I love liver chestnut. I don't love the warmblood mold but I do like the spots on yours, as you said. Some of them suffer from the 90's appaloosa look for sure, with the too precise circles.

Three big Breyers to share today!

First, one of the 2022 'mid year' releases, although that term is a little bit laughable when they arrive right at the end of the year, or sometimes into the following year, in my country But this is one I've been looking forward to ever since I first saw it!

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His official name is Get Rowdy, and he's a portrait model of a horse who started out as an eventer then switched to hunter classes (which are nothing to do with actual hunting, although we don't have it over here I gather it's more like a combination of showing and showjumping, with judging as well as jumping score counting toward who wins)

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The sculpt is a really beautiful and technically impressive one, with really great anatomical correctness in a tricky but dynamic pose, and a realistic art style. I especially like the flick of the tail, and the way the whole thing looks so harmonious and balanced. He was sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn, who did the recent 'Erren' criollo for WIA, although that wasn't a factor in deciding to buy him - I either didn't know at all, or knew once but had completely forgotten, cos I only just now went to find out so I could write the artist in this post

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I don't celebrate christmas but still wanted to give him some sort of seasonal themed name cos of when he arrived, then had an inspired moment during the photoshoot, and realised I already had the perfect name in mind!
There's a big annual horse show in London which is always dressed up all festive, with themed decorations around the jumps, and riders plaiting tinsel into horses manes, and fake snow sprinkled around the arena, and it's always televised - the only time we ever see showjumping competition on a normal free tv channel outside the Olympics.
One of the classes is Puissance, a high-jump contest, and one of the horses who always does well in it is a big pale nearly-white grey with darker grey legs, named Mr Blue Sky. He won again this year (well, it was a draw between the top two who both cleared the same height, but that counts as a win too ), and I'd thought to myself 'It would be nice to name a model after him', cos the name is cool, reminds me of a fun song, and I've always enjoyed watching the real horse.

So now I'm standing in a field and I have in my hand a pale grey horse, in a jumping pose, arriving round christmas time just after this competition, being photographed against a bright blue sky...and yeah, he's got to be my Mr Blue Sky

I wasn't sure if I preferred the photos with a bit of landscape behind him, or against only sky, so I took a few of each. Of course in real life a horse would only be jumping like this with tack and a rider on, so no photo is ever going to be realistic as such, but from an aesthetic point of view, does he look better with open sly, or a bit of the horizon and field too? I'm still undecided

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One fun thing I could do with a plain-sky picture, though, was edit out the stand so he looks like he's really floating in mid air...

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I also have another Breyerfest release to introduce, and this one's a matching pair!

In 2016 the theme was 'carnival', so all the special run models were Latin American or Iberian breeds. The Andalusian Mare and Foal were sculpted by Brigitte Eberl, we've talked about her work on here before, and I'm a real fan of the style - the horses have a lot of life and character, and there's a rougher texture to the finish on muscles and skin creases, they're not crisp and smooth and stylised like some sculpts. Eberl horses seem to be handsome and naturalistic rather than pretty and idealised, and I rate that highly when picking my favourite moulds!

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The mare was described as a sooty buckskin, but I think she looks more like a bay. And I'm going to have her as a bay - so she can be an Altér Real rather than an Andalusian! I'm always up for adding a rarer breed to my collection, and it's nice to have another Portuguese breed rather than adding to the loads of Spanish ones I've got already.

Altér Real horses are always bay, but lots of different shades - Here's a good picture of a herd where you can see some lighter, some darker, but all very similar looking. Even though the mould was sculpted as an Andalusian, Altér Real are said to be generally a bit more solid and chunky than the main Portuguese Lusitano bloodlines, and that's because old Andalusian blood was crossed in to undo the influence of some bad cross breeding in the Napoleonic era, which diluted the classic Iberian type toward being a lighter cavalry horse - using the unaltered pure Andalusian helped revert them to their older style. So a model which was sculpted as an Andalusian makes a perfectly good example of an Altér Real, too, as long as it's bay!

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I was struggling to catch the light before the sun went too far down (these were taken with the fake grass mat resting on the roof of my mum's car to get high enough, I'd used up too much time on the jumping horse and only had minutes left!) so only got two pictures rather than the usual full photoshoot, but I did at least remember to take one of the 'wrong' side this time!

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Here's her matching foal, again described as buckskin in the release text but I think he works fine as a bay - a lot of foals are very much lighter than their adult colour, including having pale points on the legs instead of the jet black they'll grow in as they shed into adult coats. Again, here's a herd photo, of some Altér Real mares and foals this time - those babies at the front look just as pale as my mini one!

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He's an alert-looking little chap, and I also feel it's nice to have a foal sculpted as a distinctive breed type, with his Iberian head. Most of the foal moulds are rather generic light riding horse TB/sport-type or stock horses, so they can be paired with lots of different adults, so it's good to see the expense and attention being spent on creating a good Spanish/Portuguese foal, even though they only have one mare he could go with.

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I've given them matching pair names, too, which are also seasonal! They were posted to me on the 21st of December, the winter solstice, so I looked up the Portuguese term for that and it's 'Solstício de inverno' - so I've named the mum Solstício, and her baby is Inverno  

I love that jumping horse

these are all really nice George, congratulations!
The foal Inverno is a real beauty! and reminds me of the very old oil painting horses, with the slightly concave forehead and curved neckline that I usually see in national galleries. If I come across one of the pics I'm meaning I will post it.
The grey horse Mr Blue Sky is very well sculpted, I like the pose and body shape a lot! Your photos look good, even in the light conditions you mentioned. It's great to see his eyes gleaming and also his horse shoes! How very shiny they are, I've never seen that in a model horse before. - Do you have a full photo of them, showing all their detail?
And - you took the wrong side of Solsticio, haha. I think I prefer that side of her!

Beautiful addition, the mare and foal are one of my favorite newer molds, especially the mare. They are beautiful in this color! I hadn't seen these two before.

Three beauties!

The flying horse is absolutely stunning! Britains used to make a fence with a peg for a horse to jump over. Perhaps an idea for Get Rowdy? The other two are beauties too.

These actually arrived some time ago but I didn't update the forum thread!

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A long time ago, I collected every release on this mould. I didn't really intend to - just like with the G2 Appaloosa and G2 saddlebred, at some point I noticed I had a LOT of them and that made me start looking for the colours I didn't have, and it became one of those 'conga line' moulds where I tried to get as many as I could. One which always eluded me was the bay with diagonally opposite white feet - I had four other solid bays, but not this one! He was part of a limited edition set only sold by JCPenney and only in the USA, so very few made it over here to start with, and I never saw him come up for sale second hand. I stopped doing my conga-lines of every release when Breyer brought in the expensive club specials and more unattainable releases, but when I saw this model which had been on my wishlist for all that time ages ago. I just had to get him after all!

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The same seller had this Thoroughbred from the same 2006 special run, and while it's not a mould I ever sought a complete set of, I thought it looked really good in this pretty pale grey colour - unlike a lot of Breyer greys, the paint isn't just speckles and shading over bare plastic, but has a base coat of shaded grey for the body colour too - you can see where the white socks end with a crisp masked line.

The other recent arrival is a much bigger boy - a Traditional scale draft horse!

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You might not recognise him at first glance, as in Breyer's catalogue photo he was mostly covered up in unrealistic decorative trappings - here's how he looked in the promo images and in the boxes of models on display.
I don't usually buy the Holiday Horse sets, partly because I don't celebrate any of the holidays they're aimed at, so I don't appreciate the decorations, but mostly because the models inside the costumes are usually given pearly or metallic paintjobs, aimed at making them look prettier and more ornamental when used for their intended purpose. But I only like matte finish models in real-horse colours, so the Holiday special runs are usually something I look at once when the releases are announced, then never think of again But every now and then, they do one where the horse is a normal, plain colour, without any fancy paint finishes, and I think 'Oh, I'd have liked that one!'....and STILL don't buy it, cos they're too expensive compared to a normal regular run - I can't justify paying that much extra for the costume and props I'd never use.
So when those real-colour horses come up for sale second hand, at a bargain price - and even better, without all the stuff! - that's when I jump at the change to have them for my collection after all!


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Without all the extras, you can see what a handsome mould this really is. He was sculpted as a Shire, but it would be extraordinarily rare to see any individual of that breed without any white markings - one or mayyyybe two dark legs and some shorter socks, yes, possibly even a star and snip in place of a blaze, but no white at all and that's no purebred Shire horse! So I had to get to work on finding a different breed for him. A lot of the central-European draft breeds come with little or no white, but most of them are heavier set and lack the leg feathering this sculpt has, so I started to look a bit further afield, and happened across this picture - the North Swedish Draft. Lighter build with longer back? Bay with no white markings? Feathery legs? Long loose undocked tail? He's even got the little pale grey nose! Perfect! This means he's also the first model allocated this breed on my website, which is always fun - I love building up a catalogue of different breeds and types from across the world.

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Here's that sweet grey nose again, he has a very kind and happy face. I looked up some names in Swedish and settled on Härskare, which means ruler or monarch, which seemed fitting as he arrived around the time we had the coronation of a new king!

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The other side, showing the lovely flowing mane, and also the tiny mark by his shoulder which was why he sold for an affordable price - it's so small it didn't bother me, and this being the 'wrong' side anyway the damage won't show on display - I'll only ever see it when dusting him, and I very rarely get round to that task

Nice additions

It's always nice to see the holiday horses without their gear, just to get a good look at them! That's a really nice color and model, and doesn't seem to have suffered like many of them do from damage from the tack. Does that mold stand well? I like his little tippy toe back feet, but they always make him look a little precarious.

Congrats on the JC Penny horses, too, they are both lovely and it's always nice to add one you've been eyeing for a long time! I do think the G2 warmblood is a really nice mold to have a conga of.

Oh, he's very steady on his feet, maybe because they're so big - the one flat-to-the-ground hoof is a nice large surface area for stability, and the legs having all that feather means they're huge chunks of solid plastic and weigh him down well, his centre of gravity must be a lot lower than a slim-legged arabian or TB!

The only other Holiday Horses I've got are Wintersong (grey Othello shire), Holiday On Parade (palomino standing Saddlebred Stallion) and Jewel (buckskin Showjumping Warmblood), and all of them have been fine with no paint marking or damage, so I wonder if maybe those pearly finishes I avoid are more prone to marking than the normal matte paint?

I'll have to do a new conga line photo soon, I have one more of this warmblood mould on the way so I'll hang on til he gets here too!

George wrote:

Oh, he's very steady on his feet, maybe because they're so big - the one flat-to-the-ground hoof is a nice large surface area for stability, and the legs having all that feather means they're huge chunks of solid plastic and weigh him down well, his centre of gravity must be a lot lower than a slim-legged arabian or TB!

Oh good, it's nice when these molds representing moments of suspension manage to do it without risking the stability of the whole thing. I hope they release him in a regular run color at a regular run price eventually!

Quote :

The only other Holiday Horses I've got are Wintersong (grey Othello shire), Holiday On Parade (palomino standing Saddlebred Stallion) and Jewel (buckskin Showjumping Warmblood), and all of them have been fine with no paint marking or damage, so I wonder if maybe those pearly finishes I avoid are more prone to marking than the normal matte paint?

Oh, maybe so! Come to think of it, my matte Silent Knight looked okay, too. I have seen so much staining in photos, but I hadn't paid attention to the finish of the horse. (Othello is another one I hope to someday be able to afford a representative of! A really lovely mold!)

We've had that shire in regular run grey up til fairly recently, so it's possible you might still find one in stock on some more obscure shop site? Ok I checked and he actually retired back in 2020, so not that recently, I think it doesn't help that I live on Time Delay Island where everything arrives six months to a year after other countries had it, so releases always feel later than they are

I ended up with a bit of an Othello conga (I know, not the best of moulds for that cos it's massive and very long on the shelf thanks to the flare of the long tail!), it's one of those moulds with a wonderful character, I think it's the kind face and floppy ears, he looks like a gentle and pleasant sort of horse to know. I actually knew a relative of that black one they did as a portrait model, Fox Valley Oliver. His mother's full sister lived next door to my grandparents cottage!

Härskare is fantastic! So much better without Christmas decorations. Good that you found a perfectly fitting breed for it too. I like the colours of the new Stablemates too.

Great additions!