Portraits

For next year I've decided to focus on portrait models. Since I will have limited funds for the next three years I want to focus on special models. That goes for cats and dogs too :)

Magdalena

Magdalena was a kitten born at our stables. She was one out of three tortoiseshell coloured sisters and she was the only semi-longhaired of them. She was a very sweet kitten and I loved her colour. Magdalena was later adopted by one of the horse owners who boarded their horse at the stable.
For Magdalena I found this beautiful model called Hana which would fit Magdalena perfectly and I plan on painting her myself

 Isaiah

Is my classmates longhaired white cat. He has one blue eye and one yellow and unfortunately he doesn't hear perfectly on one of his ears. He was adopted from a shelter and he is a very special cat who really got to me with his silly behaviour and sweet disposition.
Patches (sculpted by the same sculptor as Hana which I plan to buy for my Magdalena portrait) seems to be a perfect model for Isaiah.  

Vit

The story of Vit can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
The model I've thought about for Vit is either Breyer's Stretching Cat or the one they call Silver Tabby. He too is planned to be painted by me.

Kitty

Sleeping on Nikes back.

Was one out of five kittens who lost their mother when she was hit by a car. The kittens where still very young so they had to be brought up on special formula. Fortunately 3 of the kittens where adopted rather fast. The other kitten (besides Kitty) that remained at the stables had to be put down since an unknown accident injured him rather bad. Because of her upbringing Kitty became very trusty to humans and for some reason she seemed to like me and Nike quite a bit. When she wasn't sleeping on his back (as in the picture) she liked to sit on my shoulder or sleep in my hood when I was doing my stable chores (the sleeping in the hood thing became harder when she grew bigger :P). Unfortunately she disappeared and that was very sad since I was very fond of her. I would've brought her home but we had Sigge and with his history we didn't want to bring in another cat.

For Kitty (and for Svante as well) I'd love to have Donna Chaney's Lucky Black Cat for the portrait.

 Sotis

The story of Sotis can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
As for Sotis I really liked Napoleon to be the model for his portrait.

Sigge

The story of Sigge can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
For Sigge I probably couldn't find a better match then Kitkat as that was pretty much Sigge's signature pose =P

Svante

The story of Svante can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
For Svante (and for Kitty as well) I'd love to have Donna Chaney's Lucky Black Cat for the portrait.

Totte

The story of Totte can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
Totte was a bit harder to find a suitable model for but I've decided it'll be either the Schleich St. Bernard or the Schleich Bernese Mountain Dog.

Hjalmar

The story of Hjalmar can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)

The model I have in mind for Hjalmar is the Breyer Rottweiler. I planned to paint him myself but he'll need to have a tail sculpted and that's not something I feel comfortable doing so I might need someone to do it for me.

Liten

The story of Liten can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
As for Liten I'll go for the Breyer Beagle and I plan to paint him myself.

Nike

The story of Nike can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
I actually already have the model to portrait my dear Unik, the KLF Bruno resin, I just need to decide who I want to paint him (and of course save up some money to have him painted!)

Poppes

The story of Poppes can be found here so I wont write it down in this blog post too :)
The model that will be used for Poppes isn't quite decided yet. I first thought about the Eberl Siegfried but since I acquired an unpainted Eberl Lohengrin I think that he might be a better fit. I have yet to decide who will be painting him :)

Freja

A sweet riding pony mare born in 2007. I had the great fortune to be help out when she was started under saddle. She was very nice and easy to handle during the whole period and my trainer joked and said that we didn't break her in, we just got up in the saddle and started riding. And it was pretty much what we did, she was sweet and behaved her best all the time so it was very easily done. She always comes when you call for her and even if you don't call for her she still comes. Very nice and easy to handle although, she gets a little squeamish at times, she is probably the sweetest little mare I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
For Freja I would really like to have the Eberl Primula for her portrait as I see quite some similarities between the horse and the model.

Wera

Wera was a chestnut warmblood mare at my school. I suspect she was also sabino since she had a broad blaze, 4 high whites and a white belly spot. She was such a sweet, simple mare. Or simple might be the wrong word since not everyone could ride her. I can't say why we worked well together. I'm not the best rider, I'll admit that, but we just got along and it just worked. I trusted her and I think she trusted me too. I really liked this mare (usually I don't get along as good with mares as I do with geldings but Wera was different), not just because of her beautiful looks, but also because she was a bit misunderstood. She needed patience from the one handling her since she didn't like to have the girth tightened and she preferred to face the stall door when you put on the bridle or else she could easily be a little panicky (and that's just a few of her quirks). I gave her that patience and learned more about her every time I rode her and we just worked well together. Unfortunately she had to be put down in 2012 due to a severely injured leg after she got in a fuss with some other horses out in the pasture.
As for Wera I can probably never find a better model then Eberl Elsa. She is a perfect match to the body type of Wera. I would need to have her mane resculpted to a shorter, pulled mane but other then that she's perfect.

Seeing what models I would like to have for my portraits it'll probably take me a while to achieve my "goals", since the only one currently in my possession is Bruno, for my portrait of Unik (and Lohengrin, if I decided to use him for the portrait of Poppes). But I have 3 years to try and save up for them so that wont be a problem :)

Legs and ears

During the packing for my move back at the end of August one box accidently fell out of the car when my father open the driver's side backdoor. The box in question was my body box. When I unpacked the box I saw that two of the model horses had suffered some damage.

The first one being my Bat Girl resin. She lost an ear so she added some work for me. She's had a broken tail before and someone glued it back but they glued it back slightly off from it's original placing so I have to figure out a way to get that fixed. But her repairs will be covered in another blog post :)

The other horse, my G1 Arabian mare, repainted by me, broke her leg and somehow, the piece got lost so she needs a whole new leg. I first thought that I'd repair it with the superglue and baking soda method. But since I've never tried that method I thought that it might be hard to make a whole leg. And I don't have any tools to reinforce the leg with wire so it was out of question.

Next idea was to sculpt a new leg in Fimo clay and attach it with superglue/baking soda. I'm by now means a good sculptor but I don't care, I just want to fix her for sentimental reasons. She's one of my first bay paintjobs so she'll never see a show ring, so if her leg is not perfect I don't care, I just want her to have one.

 

You see she looks miserable without her leg, she can't even stand on her own...

 

See? I had to help her :(

 

I tried to sculpt the whole pieces at once but I just ended up smushing the leg so I decided to make it in three sessions. First I made a "core", a piece with roughly the shape I was looking for. Then I tried the length and burnt it in the oven.

 

First try out, almost good, a little too long.

 I did some more sculpting to get some details in. I then put it in the oven again so that I could sculpt some last details.



Some more details.

After a third time in the oven I considered the leg done. So out with the glue and baking soda! (I cheated and only used glue, the strongest I could find, so I'm confident it'll suffice)

Now the leg is in place and she stands good on her own again =D I'm much happier now and I think she is too. Next step will be stripping, priming and repainting but that wont be covered in this post :)

Christmas gifts part two

Yes the T.I.B.B.P medallions arrived and now I just need to prep, prime and find some reference shots and then I'm off to start painting them =D



The mare I'm going to portrait on J's medallion.

Not the mare I'm going to portrait on E's medallion but the color matches, as I couldn't find any pictures of her horse at the moment :)



Unexpected

I had a plan for today. I was supposed to finish my part of the seminar task, go home, eat my dinner and then do some more reading so that I wont be overwhelmed when the exam comes (and also so I don't have to study too much when I go home for Christmas =D).

Well, even the best laid plans fall apart sometimes. At least I finished my part of the seminar task but when I came home I found a notice, to pick up a package, in my mailbox. First I thought that it was the literature for this and the next course I'm studying so I thought that I'd pick it up tomorrow. But then I read a little further and saw that it was from the US! So the only thing that it could be was my package from Resins By Randy.

I ordered 3 T.I.B.B.P medallions to paint for my friends for Christmas and (even though I shouldn't have) I also ordered a resin for myself.

I just couldn't help myself, this was my last model horse buy before I started living on my "student economy" and I've wanted this model for a while since I plan on getting more into performance.

So, with no further ado, let me introduce the Justin Tyme resin.

This model has so much potential! And he is bigger then I expected.

He looks so athletic and strong.

And even though he is still unprepped, unprimed and unpainted...

...And I haven't even decided on a colour for him yet, though I lean towards chestnut sabino or black sabino...

...I just can't stop staring at him...

... or taking photos of him!

I mean look at him wearing the accessories made by the talented Jana Skybova. He just begs for a saddle, bridle, rider and an awesome jump!

 

 

Oh, the possibilities! Let's just say that I haven't done any studying today =P



New accessories

Yay! Monday I got my new accessories! =D Now I just need the right horse for it too, and he is hopefully coming soon...

Unfortunately I don't have any models to show this set off on but I'll give you a picture anyway :)

 



The set is made by the very talented Jana Skybova and will be part of a jumping or eventing setup in a, hopefully, not to distant future :)