A Round of Photos

So, since the website is down for major updating, the blog gets to be the star child here in posting a batch of those new photos for all the models I finished lately. I'm still learning the little differences between CS2 and CS6 (oh my) so photo editing is a bit of a pain right now. By editing, I mean cropping, adjusting color to get it as close as possible to the real model, and adding my copyright tag. My camera and light setup get me pretty close, but not 100% there. 

Last update you got a peek at the lineup. Well, more have been added since that photo, but let's start with those, huh? First up...drumroll please... is Roundapony! If you click the link you'll see Roundapony is a collaboration of sorts between lots of Colorado gals. He's Karen Gerhardt's Roudabout cob resin (I think she has only a couple of these left in resin if you want to buy one!), and is actually one of the master waste mold casts. That cast made it into Jennifer Buxton's capable hands where he got transformed from a Classic scale British Heavy Show Cob to a Traditional scale pony because 1) Jennifer has a *bit* of a *thing* for ponies, and 2) she only shows Trad. performance. Lastly, this cutie made his way to me! 

I am a huge fan of well-done customizing. To me, not only does the customizing have to be realistic, correct anatomically, and done with professional caliber, it has to "match the piece." It has to be changed, but remain the same if that makes any sense. How Jennifer managed to take a horse that was meant to be a British Heavy Show Cob and turn him into a cute little show pony and keep him ultimately the same horse I can't put into words, but she did just that.

This guy's color is so shiny and glowing in person I'm a little disappointed that the photos can't get that kind of detail. Seems to be a constant problem of mine. /Whine. 

He has such a cute face!

The braids came out great! Jennifer did such a nice job on them she gets to do more of them for me on another model! :D

I love how nicely he looks with his hunter clip too! And it was *so* much fun to paint! That pinto pattern really helped me show it off too with that white hair contrasted on the body colored ones!

As you can see, all that Colorado work really came together nicely on this piece! I'm always hoping to do more stuff like this as it's fun to work with ladies like Jennifer and Karen. Stay tuned for the next model up! You'll just have to wait and see who it is!

Painting Peek!

Lots of horses are getting painted and preparing to get out the studio door over here! I haven't had time to crop or edit (to correct color when necessary) any of their photos yet, but I have these guys pictured below photographed and uploaded to my computer. I have a Victrix in there as well, though she was a day late to join these for their group photo shoot. Probably a good thing as my background was barely big enough for these five!

Stay tuned for more photos of these five and the Victrix shortly! And then five-six MORE horses after that! I'm on a painting spree!

Still Workin' Sunday

There is a live show coming up at the end of May. Live shows are probably the best motivation for me to finish horses. There's just something about the excitement of it that pushes me to work harder and do more. The real job has been hectic lately, but I've been putting in really late nights for the models to get things done. It leaves me pretty tired, but very satisfied! 

I've got about 9 or so horses I want to finish. They're all in various stages of completion, but the majority are pretty close to done. It seems to be how I work. There's usually not one horse finished, wait another month another horse finished, etc. It always seem to work out that I finish a small army of horses at once. And when I do, it's FANTASTIC! I can almost hear the hallelujah chorus now. 

These two just got oil layers on recently so they're the stars of the show for today. The first is a Sencillo resin. This will be the second that I've painted. I sold off half my very limited amount of personal copies which I had originally planned on painting, leaving me with two left. One will be used to mold the ceramic edition, the other will be for my personal painted collection - which consists of like three half-painted horses. X^D. Anyway, I don't plan on taking any more Sencillo commissions, so the two gals besides myself that have these painted-by-me Sencillo's will have pretty rare items on their hands. 

The owner of this guy requested a old graying sooty buckskin overo. He's pictured below with his light and medium tones finished, and he's now at the point where I can drybrush on some shadow and soot. The photo was taken at night with my iPhone and while the color is close, he's slightly more gold in person. The soot and shadow will make a big difference. When the body color is the way I want it, I'll start penciling in those old gray hairs. I found a fantastic reference photo for this! Then I'll add the overo markings to take him over the top. 

This next piece is Roundapony. You've probably seen this pony before on Jennifer Buxton's blog. I really enjoyed reading her progress on this piece as she took him from a really rough master cast to a fantastic customized "pony". Jennifer has a bit of a thing for ponies. ^_^. So when she got her hands on a master cast of Karen Gerhardt's Roundabout resin, she knew where she wanted to take him. Jennifer is also a trading model horse goddess. She's fantastic about trading services with, and since I hate prepping so much lots of my rough guys end up over there. In exchange I get to pick a model from her amazing nekkid collection to paint. When Roundapony was one of those options, how could I *not* pick him?? Sorry Tiffany Purdy, but I get this one!

He's shown in his first layer of oils too. He's got a long way to go before he's just right, but he's making a good start. And I'm happy to say that he's being a good little pony and is probably one of two horses out the many in my studio that is not giving me fits getting him painted. 

I love the fact that this guy is hunter clipped! I've not painted anything like that before and it's just a fun little change. Again, still a long way to go to get that body smooth and glowing in both the clipped and non-clipped areas. You'll see what I mean when the finished photos go up later.

Isn't his face *adorable*?! He's just a cute little stinker and I'm really enjoying myself painting him. When the bay body is where I want it, Jennifer also wants some tobiano markings on him. It just dawned on me that pretty much all my commissions left over are pinto horses! You can definitely see what's en vogue in the hobby.