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!