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!

Cookies and Customs

So, I've been wanting to do a medallion forever. I had a first attempt with this guy a few years back:

And I had an idea pop into my head while hubby and I watched a movie for a second one. A little foal hiding behind mamma's bottom and peeking through her tail. A few hours later I had my piece! Meet Peek-a-boo!

Worlds different from the first one, huh? Peek-a-Boo is roughly 2" wide by 4" tall. I'll probably be selling a few of them later, but she's not high on the priority list at all.

Next up is the custom part. I meant for that to be plural too, as the tittle suggests, but I forgot to snap a photo of him finished so I'll just plant in a little teaser description and let you look forward to him later. Here's the Weather Girl custom I'm working on with a much nicer, and much less orange background. ;) She's *almost* ready to paint but still needs some tweaks here and there. I will hope to have her up for auction next week on AB. I abhor bases in all fields - sculpting them, painting them, looking at them - so I went with a thin acrylic rod on the front hoof instead. She's quite sturdy even for being narrow.

 Can't wait to be able to put that bay paint job with chrome on her! Yum! And that teaser I promised. I have a stunning Gomez by Deb McDermott that has been in the works for a while. As with most of my own pieces they usually don't get worked on unless I have left over stuff that needs to be used. So, while cleaning resins, any surplus of Apoxie mixed went towards the customizing of Gomez. Nothing in terms of position, but a lot in terms of decoration and hair. His tail is customized and was shortened, which meant an acrylic rod to support him. Then I took off his mane on the one side and added a double french braid to the neck so he's got those gorgeous locks on both sides now. I couldn't stop there. I'd been eyeing all these fancy Spanish parade horses and of course was inspired. So, to that gorgeous thick Spanish hair, I added roses and ribbons. The end result is AMAZING. So much in fact that I'm going to keep him in my own personal collection for a while. That's no small thing. I never hang on to horses any more as I can't afford to keep my own work. If I keep it, that means I'm loosing the money I could have made from a sale. I currently have one horse in my personal collection right now and this boy will make it two.

The Weather looks good!

So, I'm doing something I have not done since my early teens. I'm customizing a plastic model. There is something about melting plastic and chopping off heads that just oozes nostalgia for me. I'm assuming, but I think *all* painters and sculptors start out doing this. By taking that beat up body and playing Dr. Frankenstein on it. But the end result is amazing. It's almost mind boggling to me that we can take these horses and totally remake them into something else.

I am seeing that the trend in the market right now is for customized plastics. My guess on why that's the case is because it's a wide open market that has not been oversaturated yet. Not with really good pieces. As mentioned, it's more of a novice field still. But, wanting a change, I think a lot of the top artists are going back to their roots. Especially now that we have such wonderful bodies to work on. Also, they are cheap to get a hold of. Cheap compaired to a $200-$500+ resin anyway.

So who's my victim? Breyer's latest plastic - Weather Girl.  She'll be what I would term a "moderate custom" when all's said and done; which means that you'll still guess she started life as a Weather Girl, but she's had a *lot* of work done. My inspiration? A photo of an Arabian hunter pleasure horse. Here's where I am so far:

She's sitting on my drafting table and only able to stand right now by leaning on something - in this case a jaringly orange and distracting box of Baking Soda. The right elbow is still bothering me. I think it needs to be moved back towards the body some more. The angle to the shoulder isn't helping so I'm actually going to fix that first and see if that's the whole problem there. Besides being straightened, the left front leg hasn't been touched. The left hind leg works where it was (woots) and there wasn't too much to do on that back right hind. I did straighten the canon as it was really messed up, probably due to a mold flaw. Her tail, when attached will look something like the drawn in one: braided with the extention for some crazy length. I'm hoping it will be enough to support her so I don't have to add pegs or a base. Her mane will be a running braid (french braid) that will enhance the shapely ness of her neck. I love how regal and feminine she's looking already! Despite the fact that I don't like them, you'll never see a top level hunter pleasure Arabian go in the ring without pads and weighted shoes. So, I'll be adding them as well. To finish her off I'll add an absolutely glowing dappled red bay paint job with golden highlights and lots of chrome. That will be the part that's most fun to me. :D