Watch Out Showmanship Ring 05/02/2012
 "I'm never taking this off." There's a new sheriff in town. Cowboy Bebop is modeling a sweet western halter by non-other-than Jennifer Buxton. She's mostly known for her english tack, but as you can see, she can cowboy up with the rest of them. I especially love the silver pinheads. I set up the photocube downstairs, and photographed all the traditional/classic models for sale and trade. Once posted, I've been wheeling and dealing in trades. There is no money out there for OF models unless it's Der Uber SR. And those poor Hess molds...there is no love out there for them. But seriously, OFs are pretty much all at body price, so at the moment I think the best value out of them is through trade. I'll have my minis out hopefully by the weekend as well as assorted customs and resins. Frankly, I'm loving getting the extra space Add Comment Correction and Tips from Horsing Around UK 03/06/2012
 First, I'd like to offer an apology to Mark of Horsing Around UK for missing the fact that the measurements of their shoes are clearly on their website. It's in each entry. My lack of caffiene-addled brain evidently can't read, so egg is on my face. Mark and I had a great conversation though about the shoes. He offered this great tip on checking for size: We do get a lot of request will these horse shoes fit a particular model, but we don't have an unlimited model horse collection to cater for every inquiry. The best thing for people to do is place their horse on a piece of paper and draw around the hooves. Measure the length and width (do check more than one hoof as they can vary) and then check these against the measurements provided on our website. Mark also verified what I suspected after watching the farrier video: In the UK we are single toe clip front and double toe clip back on horses, and single toe clip front and back on Drafters. Obviously we own this range so we can package our horse shoes any way we like. So if you have any pack suggestion you think our US customer would prefer to see let me know :o) Also, Horsing Around is very interested in getting feedback on their shoes. Mark tells me it takes Vanessa about a week to make each shoe, so right now they are very general. But they will develop more specialized shoes if there is a market for it, so they would like to hear from you. Right now they are looking into draft shoes for the two Peter Stone traditional draft molds. Also, my article is intended to highlight shoes as an extra touch of realism. I'm not against barefoot shoeing, and my articles are not meant to endorse either side of the the barefoot vs. shoe arguement. To me, appropriate shoeing is just another detail to consider. Pencils Down for February 02/28/2012
 The month I dedicated to model horse projects is pretty much over, even with the leap year day. I'm fairly burned out from painting/customizing even in this short run, so the lesson learned here is a HOBBY=HOBBY. Accomplishments: Khemo is almost done except for some brushwork and color smoothing plus further detailing. Outsourced the Marwari resin to Jennifer Danza. The Fancy Enuf resin was started and mostly done in perlino. And the Thompson Teke has a new tail, some primer thrown on, and is secure on a base to keep the legs from bending from the weight (one leg had tried to start migrating.) After being more excited at cleaning out my clothes closet and creating a bulletin board system of organizing my jewelry, I think it's definitely time for me to take a break until after NAN/BF from customizing. It's a bit disappointing, as I'm fairly competitive by nature and was looking to go all out since this was a NAN/BF road trip. Instead, it's going to be a laid back vacation with my Mom, with some NAN action in the middle. I have a few performance entries I need to spiff up. But overall, 2012 seems to be a scaling back of the collection (not for financial reasons like an unfortunate majority of the hobby), getting out of pedigree assignment, and experimenting more with performance. I've been reassessing and throwing out the unecessary with all areas of my life this year, and the hobby is no different.  So March will be the month where I finish that book I started back in November (currently at 48,000 words.) Just last weekend I figured out how to get out of a plot snarl that was holding me back from finishing it. Now all of it it outlined so I'm ready to go. And I'll be staring at Michael Fassbender, because it makes more sense to me than the MH$P. Graying Pinto 02/11/2012
I'm a dirty cheater, and outsourced one of my projects to the professional hands of Jennifer Danza, whom I hope enjoys painting him. This post is largely for her reference, but I did want to point out some problems I've seen in the model horse world when it comes to graying pintos.  Hi Jennifer! This is the base color I'm looking at for the piece...a warmer grey. If I had to guess I'd say this was a dark buckskin turning grey on this Teke.  Further note to Jennifer: This is more of a reference to the type of softness/crispness I'd like to see in the markings. I'm very flexible on the pattern, although I like this one. However I don't have pics of the other side. I can keep looking if you would like pinto reference of both sides of something. If you can throw in a few dapples, I wouldn't mind. ;) But I don't want them to be contrasty/stark/starry. Hope that makes sense. Everyone else: Here's a graying pinto Marwari. Notice in the pictures that some of the pinto markings are fairly solid, but quite a few are "leaky" and softly fade into the gray. This is what drives pinto, paint, and appaloosa breeders completely nuts (outside of eventually losing the pattern.) Whenever I see a model horse painted into a graying pinto, it's usually crisp all the way around, and if I were the judge I'd want to see documentation because it just doesn't seem to jive to what I've seen in real life. Just take a quick look at the photos Google pulls up when you do "Gray Paint Horse" for more examples of the fades and leaks in the pinto pattern. You'll also see a few of the crisp model horse counterparts. The Marwari photos are from Manu Sharma's Facebook page. I recommend friending him as he has some fabulous Marwari pics and he's a dedicated fan of the breed.  While not required on models, horseshoes are a detail which I believe will only gain more importance in the future. For my tastes, I take into account breed, type of job the model is working, and realism. I purchased Myla Pearce's Shoeing CD--which I recommend. However, I wanted to save some additional time and ordered some horseshoes from Horsing Around. Not knowing much about shoeing, I went ahead and got the type with toe clips just for the added detail. More about those in a minute.  From left to right: Lg. Trad, Trad, & Sm. Trad. There were no measurements on the site outside of the description, so I didn't take any chances and bought the full range of traditional-sized options. I doubt that I'll ever go "*&^%! I've got too many horseshoes!" And you get to benefit because I'm going to give you measurements and what models I found they fit with! *Important note: These are pewter, which means they do bend to accomodate. My measurements are the comfortable width across the widest part of the shoe. You could probably push them further. The biggest issue I've had in not fitting models is length. Large Traditional: These are a whopping 2.7 cm. These fit most large trad resins such as Eberl WBs, Cantrell Morgans, the Tumlinson Friesian resin, etc. In fact, it seems most of the resins I own are more generous in hoof (excepting the Khemosabi resin.) They do not fit the Cleveland Bay Breyer OF. In fact, I couldn't find a Breyer OF it would fit but my collection isn't as extensive as most. I suspect it's too short for the drafts. Traditional: At 1.5 cm, these fit a majority of the Breyer OF Traditional models. It is as advertised and is most like the one you are going to order for your CM plastics. These also fit the above mentioned Khemosabi resin. Small Traditional: A 1 cm pony shoe. Fits Misty, my Aiden resin, and while I don't have a PS Pony I bet it will do fine. Does not fit foals or miniature horse models! They also don't work for what we think of as "large classics" such as the Classic Arabian Family. Ok, that toe clip thing. Turns out that being a UK company, they do a single toe clip in front and a double toe clip in back. However, that may not be appropriate for your model depending upon the type of work and reinforcement the hoof needs. I found this extremely helpful video explaining the purpose of the different types of toe clips. Hope you find this helpful, and happy shoeing! February's Plan 02/02/2012
February I'm pledging to plow through model projects. Some are fairly old. Like up to fifteen years old. Time to clean this up. But, as Hannibal smith would agree, you need a plan.
Ok, where was I? I got distracted. I admit this is sort of a vanity post for me to brainstorm getting my act together. This will act as an online guide for me throughout the month where I can check off items in red. My first priority is having all the project bodies taken care of for Lone Star Live. The NAN/performance pile I'm not sure I can tackle in it's entirety. So it may need to be delayed or just nibbled at while I take care of everything else. I do know that the essence of getting everything to go smoothly is to get the worktable set up so I can take advantage of the small scraps of time I have during the weekdays. Small stuff:
Medium stuff:
 Me in 2001 with my first NAN cookie. This is a sister post to my friend Jamie Stine's blog post listing her hobby goals because we both work best when we're hyper-focused. That's how I won my first cookie. I know, I won't shut up about that, but here's the full story which I don't think I've ever told. I shown halter almost exclusively for about ten years. Around that time I had purchased and painted the Amarna "Scherazade" resin, Black Aria, which for the time was doing decently in halter. Carrie Sapp had a spare costume and doll done by Cary Nelson and on a whim we put it on her. Aria got 2nd in the class and was NAN qualified. Now I had to give Carrie her costume back, which put me in a bind. In the 80s I always made stuff for the models and enjoyed crafting and sewing, but due to being a poor kid I was discouraged by my early efforts in performance. Older, more stubborn, and financially independent, I wanted to give this NAN thing a go. So I got the idea to do a more traditional costume, and I was lucky to have a good reference book of Arabian horses around the world. The Syrian section had a neat photo of two horses parked in front of a tent, so I created the costume from scratch from those pictures. I had a picture in my head of how the setup was going to look like and focused on every detail. I also created the tent, and "ruin" that is in the background. I enlisted my Arabic co-worker, Khaled Jaber, for consultation. He also got a good laugh at the show ring costumes that I shown him online.:) And over the next six months I worked on the whole presentation. When it debuted at NAN, it was one of the few (maybe the only one? my memory can't recall) authentic costumes on the table. They are common now, but at the time the type that was favored/winning were the hugely tasseled show ring costumes (look at early Nelson and Marston costumes) with elaborate setups involving palm trees, camels, slave girls, etc. (These also amused my Arabic co-worker no end. He'd look at them and go "what!?") Personally, I do like show ring costumes, but I prefer them to be shown in a show ring and not in a movie set! I was hoping for a top ten. When they announced Black Aria was the Champion in Arabian Costume I went nuts, and my lovely Region 5 friends went nuts with me! I also got a lot of compliments from folks who liked seeing an authentic setup, and Judy Renee Pope and Elizabeth Bouras gave me the thumbs up not only for the horse and scene but naming the model after a Danzig album. Afterwards, we saw the rise of the authentic costume, although I wonder if I caused it or if folks were just ready for a change. So the shocker here was that Ms. Halter shower here got into performance by winning a Grand at NAN! But it took the next seven years for me to acquire the tack, and tentatively test the waters with an entry here and there. I still consider myself a newbie due to the level of competition at Region 5. So flashforward to today: My original gameplan for NAN 2012 was full of stars and unicorns...that is completely unrealistic. I wanted to qualify and make NAN-level setups for about every major class. The list of dolls alone that I needed was about the size of a football team. So, taking "quality over quantity," which is Christie Partee's motto, lets get realistic. Stuff that has qualified:
 Models just put up for sale. How the Ball Got Rolling & the Project Pile of Doom...DOOOOOOOMMM!!!!! November is National Novel Writing Month aka "Nanowrimo." A few of you may be familiar with it, as I know a few in the hobby that are struggling writers. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I've thought about trying it for a couple of years, but this year I thought of a story and just decided to go for it. I wanted the challenge, and to attack it in full force. Right now, a few of you are going "so what? What does this have to do about the hobby?" The answer is NanoWrimo got me thinking.  More models put up for sale. Aiee! Right now I've written about 26,000 words, which is the most I've written on anything much less a novel. I'm excited, because I'm most likely going to make this goal! And in the process, I'm learning a lot about my work methods, how I delegate time, etc. So, I've been thinking of ways to apply this sort of discipline to other areas of my life. Which brings me to the hobby. Now, if you're an artist you've probably got the dreaded "project pile" which seems to never stop. Whenever you finish a model, another piece of raw plastic potential of awesomeness always seems to take it's place. Their existence creates a mental block, keeping me from making the type of customs that I'm passionate about. I'm now dreaming of just working on one model/idea at a time, and in my spare hobby time work on performance setups. Normally, this plastic vortex of doom is hidden away in a box, which becomes several boxes. I did something unthinkable...I put it on the bottom row of my shelf. This way I look at it. And I go "urgh" because it's baggage. I don't want to look at this stuff, and putting it in a box doesn't trick me anymore. Frankly, I want the closet space as much as the mental space.  One of the projects moved to a future sale item. My Hobby Challenge The next live show I'll be going to is Midwinter's in the first week of January. My goal is to have all the projects DONE or GONE. Sure, that Huck Bey body with the stripped mane and tail is neat, but he's not as exciting as that Lonesome Glory/Ideal Jumper combo that is currently dancing in my head. Yes, Cigar is a great body to work from, but I don't have anything definite for him. Out. Why do I have that MFT? I've got a CM Gaited entry that needs tack already. Goodbye! What's this broken SM? BOOT. So here is what I have left for December:
 Ack! A recently discovered box of sales models! Those Loose Ends I was Talking About I'm not like a lot of collectors who conga, or have a horse room. Not that there is anything wrong with that as long as you have the space! I'm just not one of those folks.:) Instead, I prune my collection like a bonsai tree, and create rules to keep me in check so I don't end up with a bunch of wierd stuff (like my tack collection two years ago!) This year I got some wonderful glassed-in shelving for my models which share my loft with the art studio. I noticed that taking out all the classics and curios scales from the shelves (which were ideally set for traditional models) made my collection more balanced and could "breathe." I also only show Traditionals in performance. With that in mind, I'm only keeping the classic racehorses and the one CAM from my childhood collection. I'm still figuring out where to put them, but they are out of the case. Then I looked at the large china pieces, and decided they could leave. Not that I had any stellar pieces, but what I have is just gathering dust. I'm keeping the HR minis though, and I store them with the plastic minis that I now keep in a seperate curio-scaled cabinet I picked up at Hobby Lobby. The result is that I have space for expansion, can get to them easily, and examine them critically. Not to mention they look more like a museum display instead of an episode of hoarders. But I'm slowly creating a scenario where every model I look at is a "never sell."  Our Favorite BF Model Albatross "All Glory." Starting Fresh for 2012 In addition to all of the above, I'm doing quite a bit of collection purging. Pictured throughout this blox is the sales shelfs, another box of OF models, and misc items going out. So it's a combo of OF models, the chinas I mentioned, the ex-project pile, some tack pieces and wierd items. OUT! OUT! OUT! One thing that I will be doing, is putting aside some of this stuff to our local shows. It's something that I encourage folks to do normally, but with tightening belts and items that just aren't moving it seems like a logical thing to do--especially for youth shows. The thing I have to keep myself from doing is trading for anything unpainted, or go "hey, I could trade for that Roxy and PS Palouse which I could do something with." (Which I almost did right before I wrote this article! argh.) I still have those instincts, but no. I'm going to fight acquiring future "maybes" and go for only those projects that make me excited to go to the worktable. Oven Cleaner is Not Your Friend 10/24/2011
 I had a batch of 8 models that I primed at the same time with Rustoleum Auto Primer bought from Home Depot. Evidently the primer was old, and they all went sticky. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Slowly I went through all of them, stripping with Easy Off Oven Cleaner. I finished the last two (Bogucki Marwari and a Thompson Teke) over the weekend. I was fully suited up, as I'm a safety fanatic (I think I'm one of the few customizers who uses gloves with Apoxie Sculpt.) I had the long vinyl gloves, long sleeve shirt, ventilator (for the fumes, my eyes are rather sensitive) and goggles (in case my scrubbing flicks cleaner in my eyes.) I had two windows open. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was cooking up a batch of meth. I rinsed off the Marwari resin and grabbed a rag to wipe it off. Then at some point, I took the gloves off after rinsing the Teke, and picked up the rag I used previously (with the gloves which still had oven cleaner on them.) I immediately felt the burn and dropped it. I rinsed in the sink, probably not enough as I should have. It never turned red, so I just ignored the burn until the next morning when it was still going. So I ran screaming to urgent care. The good news is that it's a minor chemical burn. I got some prescription ointment. The wrapping is more for protection at work, although it does make me look dramatic. Pictured is my clunky work, not the clinics. I threw out the Easy Off right after my visit with the clinic. Not doing this again. Next time a horse goes sticky, I'm going to send it to someone else or possibly toss it off a building. ASB Browbands, and some Finishwork *gasp* 09/19/2011
 I've had a very productive studio weekend. First, the big news. Pictured is the prototype reproduction of the patent leather ASB browbands which are currently in fashion. This one is made from two layers of graphics tape. One is red, and on top is a clear glossy to give it the patent look. I curled it under itself, and sewn the edges with nylon thread. The result looks pretty much like the solid browband here. I'll be posting a full how-to later. I'd also like to experiment with different designs such as color combinations, tapering, and having the ends be leather. Other colors and styles are an option, but it is actually suprising to see how conservative the real Saddlebred show ring is. If you take a look at current ASB pics (Heather Moreton-Abounder's Flickr account has tons, like this one), red/maroon patent/vinyl browbands are the hotness. Black-lined are seen, but the dotted ones that we see in the hobby rings seem to be somewhat passe on the Nationals level. Now with Arabians, Andalusian, MFTS, and Tennessee Walkers it seems to be open season in terms of styles. I would recommend looking at pics of their National shows to see what the trends are.  It may suprise some of you that I actually paint! I know the only finishwork I've ever trotted out was the half-painted Khemosabi resin, which still needs to be de-oranged. But I'm back at the painting table. Pictured is some blocking in of a commission for Jamie Stine of a dapple sabino palomino patterned after Faux Finish of True Colors farm. This is a very basic undercoat in acrylic. Also on the worktable is a Willoughby resin in raven black. He's currently being done in oils, and I'm adding a lot of color and metallics to push him from what the hobby considers a boring black. Unfortunately his undercoat photographs like bleah at moment, so he'll need to wait for later. I do apologize for all my finishwork fans for the lack of updates on that front. I've been overwhelmed by my body project pile and have been delegating lots of stuff to other artists. I've also needed the break to concentrate on making nifty things for performance. It's hard being interested in everything! | Alicia Vogel
My forays into miniaturizing the equine world. ArchivesMarch 2012 CategoriesAll |
RSS Feed