Blogging Again! New Mini blobness

Yeah! I am finally getting caught up enough in my resin production that I feel I can justify some time spent on the blog. As you can see from the date of my last post, it's been very neglected. Poor blog.

After about 2 and 1/2 weeks from now, I plan to be fully caught up on all my Darcy, Beth, Gawyn, and SG orders and will start on Legacy and Darling orders. Those should take me about 3 weeks to get caught up on as well. Darling is actually my NAN donation horse this year too. My creative juices have been overflowing and I have been near twitching to start new pieces. I have so many ideas lined up in my head it's starting to get crowded up there. ;)

I haven't had much extra time while I play catch up, but here and there when I could sneak in some sculpting time I've been working on a couple new pieces. These will be the first of the line-up to escape my head's captivity. I want to play with different scales so I can appeal to a wider market. So while one is still a traditional piece - the very much anticipated Morgan Stallion to complete the Darcy and Elizabeth set, the other is on the opposite end of the size scale - a 3" tall representation of Darcy! MINI Darcy! Now that the big gal is sold out, I felt it would be okay to start speaking of the shrunk down version. I thought it would be nice to give those who wanted a Darcy but couldn't afford her another option. Also, many people who only collected the smaller scale loved the big one, but again, wouldn't buy because she *was* traditional.

Mini Darcy is a completely new endeaver for me. The scale is very small, and at first I was a little intimidated. I also planned to use a wire armature with Apoxie Sculpt as my medium, instead of my normal J-Mac clay. The reason being I knew I would want to sand things down and get sharper curves, and I didn't think I'd be able to get that smooth look I wanted in complete clay form. So, a hardening material would be needed. I had a new order of Apoxie Sculpt sitting on my drafting table going "Pick me! Pick me!" so I did. :) I'm actually having quite a bit of fun with the medium. I don't plan on switching over to use it on my larger sculptures, but it's working out wonderfully on the smaller one! The technique is so different and the only thing I get a little frustrated with is the fact that I need to work in small layers and wait until that layer dries before adding a new piece. But, working with my oils has taught me much patience. :)

A lot of you are probably asking, "Well, why didn't you just have her digitally reduced like Mini Scarlett was and Bitty Bosco was?" The digital reduction process is *extremely* expensive (like around $2K). I've also heard that the master copy you get to work on has these lines running through the resin, which is extremely hard and difficult to sand down. Mane and tails are so bad as to almost be easier to resculpt. So, I thought it'd be more fun (and certainly easier on the wallet) to sculpt the complete piece from scratch and save myself all that not-fun work.

I thought it'd be a fun and interesting thing to see the process of her morphing into a blob on wires to somthing that resembled a horse. She still has lots of issues here that will be sanded down and redone, but again, these are the early stages and just shown as a explanatory peek into the process of sculpting a mini with Apoxy Sculpt, sand paper, and carbide scrapers. More to come. :)

Myr gets to use his new bankie!

Most of you know by now that I have a really special little Arabian named Myrlyn. He's really not little height wise - he's 15.2 (tall for an Arab), but is very very narrow. So narrow in fact, that the 72" winter rug I got him last season was basically a tent on him. It was bad. And, now that I have my own place that he can be turned out in, I really needed a winter turnout rug that fit him. He likes to run around a lot (which is beautiful to watch), but because the tummy straps and underleg straps hung down so far, I was terrified he'd catch a leg in them and seriously hurt himself. Yes, I am a paranoid momma.

I'm a bit of a bargain shopper when it comes to horse stuff - not because I won't spend the money (I have no problems at all in that department! ;P) but because I just don't have it to spend. But obviously this was a very needed item. So, a friend and I were looking at rugs for our horses (in fact, Liesl's just posted photos on her blog about Leg's and how she's pretty in pink in her new winter rug! http://phazestudio.blogspot.com/2009/11/indian-summer.html). After searching on craig's list and not really finding anything I went to check on ebay. Low and behold, there was this SMASHING navy and white plaid designer blanket for a rediculously low price. It was tiny at 62" but I knew Myr was narrow enough he may just fit. So, I grabbed my measuring rope and ran out to the barn. Low and behold Myr measured at exactly 62". It was my sign that I was supposed to buy it (My shopping self really doesn't need much encouragement). Well, I put the bid in and kept my fingers crossed for the next few hours (which was how much time was left in the auction) that no one else would want it. It was so nice that I couldn't imagine being the only one wanting to buy it. But I think the small size saved me.

So, anyway, we have our second big snow storm here in Colorado very much underway. We got at least a foot overnight here in Evergreen anyway. So after going out to the barn this morning to make sure all of Myr's needs were met, I started snapping some photos!





This next photo I absolutely love and think came out so nice with the dark background of the barn's interior faded out and the snow lightly falling around him. I think the hay is a cute touch too. :D

Makin' Progress!

So jumper guy is making some headway in my studios over here! He has been patiently waiting for my attention to go back to him after it wandered to painting for most of the month. I'm happy to say that my mind is happily balanced between the two right now, and the work is diverting my stress into a healthy outlet.

The stress is coming from a loan hurtle in the guise of "seasoned funds" in our bank account. To veer off topic a bit, our loan broker told us that we would need closing costs and earnest money to show in our account for 2 months. No prob. We have it. But when it came down to get the loan, suddenly he's trying to tell us we need to show the earnest money twice over. Um, that's money we don't have. It's like, person, the earnest money has CLEARED THE BANK ACCOUNT and you still want to show that the funds are available to be drawn for the closing costs PLUS that again??? Sigh. I am finding out there are numerous stupid, non-logical rules about the mortgage world that people of any intelligence would be shaking their heads over. It's enough to leave me wanting to pull my hair out. Especially since the closing is supposed to be the 30th (of September - that this month, as in 6 days away). We are only 2/3 packed (we held off packing everything until we got the final approval otherwise we will have to unpack EVERYTHING), we have not called the moving company (since we don't know if there will be a move now or not), we have not called utility companies, etc. Hence the reason I have some stress. I know that things will work out, it is just a question of how long it will take to "season" fundage and close. I have been waiting a long long time and frankly, I am just sick of waiting any longer.

Sigh. Okay! Now that that is of my chest I can move on back to news on the jumper! He is nearly complete! I am sculpting the other half of the tail and then I will work on the head and give this guy some "gelding gear". After that, I want to add some butt dimples and some neck wrinkles. He will have shoes, but they will come after I have a solid cast to work with. This is so I can make sure all the feet are level.

I have decided to do a "Performance Horse Series" of resins. This guy will be the first of that series. Next up is a floaty stock horse hunter pleasure, and then a reiner, and then possibly a western pleasure horse. I am thinking I'll include the Park Trot Morgan Stallion I've been promising Linda in this group too. If you've got an idea for a really obvious perfomance position, I'd love to hear about it and see photos!

If all goes according to plan, I will have him done by the end of next week and start taking orders on him. I had planned to no longer take pre-orders on pieces, but because my rotocaster is not here yet I will wait until the next release to sell already cast batches. I will probably be selling a small quantity to start of these guys and hold off on selling the rest until some are cast. Say 30-35 pieces. Orders will be posted to my mailing list first, so if you are not a member you might want to join up!