Introducing Gerrit

Well he is finally finished. My very first original sculpture, Gerrit, a Frisian Stallion preforming the Spanish Walk. Gerrit is a Frisian name and it means brave and hardy which is appropriate for a frisian horse as they were originally breed as war horses.
Originally I started this horse sometime back in 2012 and he was originally supposed to be a portrait model of Totilas in extended canter. My original in clay was very incorrect and to be honest a bit of a hot mess. I couldn't see the errors in it that I can now that I have learned so much more about sculpting conformation, anatomy and movement. So I jumped the gun and cast him errors and all, and have spent the past year working the resin copy into a correct, balanced piece.
Now the he is done comes the not so fun parts. I need to figure out how to advertise him and cast him; do I send him to a professional who does all the hard work or do I have his mold made and do the casting at home? How much to charge, do I add magnetic bases, etc, etc... Decisions, Decisions! Well without further ado, here he is, all decked out in primer. I am painting him to see what he looks like with clothes on so those pictures will be come up in the future.

Loss and Sadness

So even though I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been working A LOT on my sculptures. Wagner has now transformed into a spanish walking andalusian and I have started another new sculpture in clay and it is coming along quite quickly. I will post some pictures of both soon.

I guess though I came to blog today about the sad loss of my littlest cat, Piper. She was actually my mom's cat, but she came to live with me the past 3 months as she had IBS, esophagitis and pancreatitis. She needed up to 5 meds a day, plus fluids and a lot of food. I was basically a vet tech for her, giving palliative care. It sounds like a lot to put a cat through, but she responded so well. She was completely back to her old self. While she was here, she played with the grump, Mable; slept with Daphne on the couch and sat with me while I sculpted. She was a special little thing, who never grew up. One day she just wasn't eating as much and she wasn't herself. My vet came out twice last week to take blood and give me more meds. On Friday she called at 12:30 to tell me the blood work was bad. Piper had pancreatic cancer. 2 hours later and piper was the sickest she had ever been. We put her to sleep at 7 pm.

She was doing so well on her meds, I honestly thought she would be around until the summer. I knew this was how we would lose her, but it just seems so sudden. I never get use to this. Losing loved ones never gets easier, it gets harder with each passing. Knowing the pain that you have to endure the next time one gets chronically sick. I still have 3 cats, a dog and a horse to go through this with. It feels like a sacrifice; we get 14-16 years of pure love from these little people and the sacrifice is the pain of losing them and making the decision to put them down and end their pain. This is a feeling I will never get used to; a feeling I never want to get used to.

New Dremel!

So I finally have a bit of an update. I have been playing with my pan pastels the past month, working on my Catalina and a WG I decided to hair and repaint as well. Catalina is such a beautiful sculpture and she has been driving me NUTS! I just couldn't get her colours right. After 3 attempts and a very failed stripping session, the BF got me some new pan colours for my B-day and they were perfect. I finally got the buttermilky colour I was going for. And then I ran out of finishing spray and bought two cans of the wrong kind :( I have to get him to drive me back to the art supply to exchange them. It is really amazing how much he puts up with. I took over his house 2 years ago with my horse models, throw blankets and cats. Now the bathtub is a mess from all my strippings and there is dust everywhere despite my constant sweeping and there is always a faint oder of horse in the basement thanks to the winter blankets and dirty saddle pads. To be fair I have to put up with his stinky tennis clothes and various tennis gear, including a ball machine in the living room. I guess we're almost even :P

Anyway back to horses. Here is Catalina in progress while she waits for the proper spray.

I need to replicate this colour on her left side, then add the dapples and lighten her up a bit before the final details on the eyes, hooves and any white markings I add. Then mohair!!

I got a new dremel with a flex shaft which has cut my work load in half, so of course wagner has had more surgery Increasing my work load x3. His head has been lengthen and narrowed, new neck, repositioned front legs (well leg, still need to put the right one back on. He is currently a twin of my dog) longer croup, and I am currently working on narrowing and reshaping his chest and shoulders. He still needs his pasterns, fetlocks, knees and hocks refined. Long way to go, but at least it is in the right direction!

CM Breyer Totilas

Finally completed. I love how he turned out! Except his whites; he has bumpy white syndrome :S I have to work in even thinner layers of white, which is frustrating. Need to learn more patience.

CM Breyer Marwari

He is finished! I repositioned his head, re-sculpted his neck and mohaired his mane and tail. Originally I had re-sculpted his mane and tail, but wanted to give mohairing a shot. I pulled the mane off 4 times because I kept thinking of better ways to glue the hair on and I loved every minute of it! Gluing the hair on, cutting and styling! I ordered a whole bunch more hair and now all my OF Breyers are starting to look like victims...

What a pain in the ... back.

Welp I got a kidney stone. 15 years after my first one and I had taken such good care of my kidneys to prevent more; until last night :S AND I just got a call from my barn owner and the silly mare got a kick to the butt and its a bit swollen. What great timing, I can't ride and she can't be ridden! We can hobble around the farm together instead. Blah and we had been working so well the past few weeks oh well. On the model front I have made great progress with my Marwari and decided to try out hairing him with mohair. He's a bit of an 80's hairdo mess at the moment but I will get some pictures soon to show him off. So fair it looks awesome and will look better after he gets some styling done. I decided to paint him a shaded black with pastels and the colour turned out really nice. I just love working with the Pan Pastels.

Totilas Update

He is definitely still in progress, but love how his colour has turned out! He is a dark golden bay, minimal tobiano. I still have to do the eyes, hooves, nose, belly and fix his base. I ended up painting him in pastels because I too had to suffer through the sticky problems so many customizers have complained about. But with my guy, I used Krylon indoor/outdoor primer and it dried perfectly, but when it came to adding the base coat in oils, the stickiness surfaced. So I switched back to the pastels and no more problems. Same thing happened with the Mawari, so he will be done in pastels too, but I am also going to try hairing him! I got some mohair from Rio Rondo and have already read Carol Williams tutorial twice. Fingers crossed it works :)

Wagner!

Wagner is now completed! I'm putting him out on forums, here on my blog and my facebook page to get opinions on him before I have him cast. He is going to be the best I can make him before I start selling him. I still have to contact casters to get quotes and time frames. Now isn't the best time to officially release him since Breyerfest is next weekend, so I definitely won't be taking any orders or opening his edition yet. I just want to get him out there and let people know he's a comin!

Here are some primed photos of him. I'm also going to give him a quick paint job so I can see and then show off how handsome he is in fancy clothes :P

In Progress Custom Breyers

While I have been doing the finicky details on Wagner, I started customizing some Breyers again. I haven't painted a model in such a long time! My old few are painted in Pan Pastels and while I love the look and medium, I wanted to branch out and try acrylics and straight up oils. I recently completed Silver in a palomino tobiano. I tried the acrylics and the finish was coming out streaky and kinda lumpy, so I went over the paint with pastels and it softened out the streaks nicely. Since these are all for my own learning experience and stay in my collection, I don't mind if they aren't perfect :)

Next I started on Breyer's Cleveland Bay in oils and its going pretty well! I quite like working in oils. He is still in progress. 

 I have also started work on the new Mawari and Totilas. Like so many other artists, I have had problems with paint and primer adhering to them. I striped down the original paint, and still the primer was coming off on my hand and the oils weren't drying properly. Oy so frustrating! So these two will be done in pastels. And so far the pastels are working perfectly. Totilas will be dark golden bay, possibly with some minimal tobiano markings and the Marwari, well I'm not so sure yet, but I think I am leaning towards a perlino. No pictures of the Marwari yet, he is still a sticky, shiny mess. I did however resculpt his tail and repositioned his head and neck. I'll add some pictures of him when he isn't such a hot mess.

Reunited!

Wagner is back together again! I don't have more recent pictures, but he also has button braids, neck wrinkles and his hocks and knees are starting to come together. This is the recent version of him I have been working on. So far he is more refined that the first one and his braids are a better size (ie. smaller!). The first version proved useful though, he generously donated his legs to the V2!

I love these things! The BF bought a bucket of over grip for his rackets and this is how they came; wrapped up like little polo bandages! Unfortunately the are just a tad too big to be model horse props, but maybe I will try wrapping Wagner's legs with them :D So far BF hasn't noticed that I stole these from him!

I fall to Pieces

Working with horses is like a puzzle; fit the pieces of training, equipment, diet, etc together to get the big picture. I took it kinda literally with Wagner. Duof. He will look all the better for it when put back together!

Heads

I cast a few spare heads to play with. Thought I would give Wagner more of an expressive face. It sure looked liked I had given him a Wallace and Grommet face. That luckily didn't last long. Below are three versions and the current state of version number 2. 

Updates

The pony and the warmblood keep plodding along; just more refining and detailing the master resins.
I thought I would share the current condition of the original clay sculptures. So sad, all that work put into the clay to have it destroyed in the mold making. Oh well. I can make as many resin copies from the waste molds as I want so not a bad trade off I guess.

I haven't done any customizing for a very long time, but awhile ago I got a Breyer Silver (a grail for me!) to customize to a tobiano. I just finished him this morning. I used acrylics and pastels. I remembered why I don't use acrylics; the quick working time pisses me off too much :S Oh well he turned out alright in the end, better than previous attempts using acrylics. Next one I do will be in oils. He looks ok in the photos, but he is very streaky :S 

Together Again

Horse and Pony

I am currently working on both the warmblood and pony resin masters. For comparison, here is a picture of them side by side.

Although neither horse looks like this anymore; they literally fell to pieces! Well Wagner did. He decided to dive off of a table and broke his front let. It turned out to be a happy accident since I was debating repositioning the front leg anyway and I figured since the front was off, might was well take the plunge and fix the back leg too.

As for Tristan, he lost his head. After putting a mane on him, he still looked to refined rather than thick and pony like. So his head is getting thickened and his neck is coming off and getting shortened. And his pasterns need to be fixed. 

Sneaky Peak

Revisions to the Master Resin are well underway. I would like to paint him up for photos when his sales ad goes up. The resin's name is Wagner, but I think I will name this one The Master. I hope he doesn't hear drums...

Highland Pony Tristan

I have been working on a second model already. Tristan the Highland Pony Stallion. He has come along SOOO much easier than the canter warmblood. Its like he is sculpting himself :)

Proportions and Percentages

When sculpting from a photo, the best way I know to accurately maintain proper proportions of the horse is to compare percentages. So for example I will measure the body length of the photo horse, from chest to rump, and then use that number as my main proportion to measure other body parts against. So if the body length is 6 inches and I measure the neck length at 3.5 inches; the percentage of neck length to body length is 58%. I make sure then that my model also has a proportion of 58% neck to body length.

To take things up a notch; lately over on the Hooves blog by Mercedes, she has been writing extremely educational posts about proportions, percentages and conformation of real horses. These measurements can easily be applied to model horses! Below is a photo of my canter warmblood (I really need a name for him!) with the main points and measurements marked as followed;

A: Point of the Wither
B: Point of the pelvis (innominate)
C: The Lumbo-Sacral Joint
D: Point of the Hip
E: Point of the Bum
F: Patella
G: Scapula/Humerus Joint
H: Elbow (Proximal end of the Radial-Ulna)

The lines mark the following measurements;

Red: Length of the body - from the end of the scapula to the end of the Pelvis
Orange: Length of the hip - between the points of the pelvis
Yellow: Length of the back - between the point of the withers and the lumbo-sacral joint
Green: Length of the shoulder - between the ends of the scapula

A lot of these points are hard to see in photos and I recommend poking a real horse to get a good idea of where these points are located as well as reading Mercedes' posts!

Here is what these points look like on a real horse for comparison.

To get the percentage of the back length, you divide the length of the back by the length of the body and for the hip percentage, divide the length of the pelvis by the body length. 

The ideal percentages for a riding horse from Mercedes' Blog:

The Back

• A long back: >50%
• A medium back: 45-49% (Note: 45% is considered ‘ideal’ for a riding horse; the ‘perfect’ length to provide lateral flexibility and longitudinal strength)
• A short back: < 45%

The Hip

• Poor hip length: < 30%
• Average/Adequate hip length:  30-32%
• Good hip length:  33%+
• Great hip length:  35%+

The most important thing to remember as a sculptor is to check, recheck and then check again your percentages and proportions!!!

Recently Mercedes did an in-depth analysis on a readers horse. I wonder if she would be up for analyzing a horse model?