IMEHA Results for March

I never get tired of getting showresults! It's so fun to see how different model horses does for different judges.

I have some models who haven't placed once since I began showing them with the IMEHA. I totally blame my not so impressive photos. Especially since some of the models that have never placed with the IMEHA are some of my most successful liveshow horses :)

Perhaps my pedigree assignment might be a little off as well, but I'll hopefully have time to revise my assignments this summer. But first and foremost I'll get some new photos.

Some of my models does well month after month and that's really great to see.

Ayers Rock Brigadör took first in his class and was division reserve champion for the third month in a row! Making me a very proud owner :)

Ayers Rock Brigadör, a MM Brigadier painted by Swedish artist A. Gustafsson.

But the one that did best, again, is my beloved Athame.

In January she took first in her breed class and was division reserve champion.

In February she managed to do it again.

And now in March she did what I never expected.

She took first in her breed class and her mold class.

She was division champion in both her breed and mold division. But it didn't stop there.

She also went on to be the Overall Reserve Champion in her breed show.

Athame, AA Sabiha 

I'm really happy that she shows so well in photoshows! She's done good but never great in liveshows so that makes it even more exciting to see her do so good. Although it wouldn't matter whether she showed good or not, she'd still be one of my absolute favourites =)

Packing up

During my short visit at home over the Easter holiday I packed a lot of model horses for an upcoming liveshow. The show is on the May 10 but since I have to return to my apartment and go to school until the 9th of May I thought it'd be a great idea to pack them when I had enough time.

The models are not the only thing I need to pack at the moment. Because when school ends in May I'll move out of my apartment and back home (for a few months before moving again since the university I attend is moving the Veterinary Technichans programme to the same city where they have the Veterinary programme).

That means that I need to pack up my entire apartment. Not that I was particularly happy with the move anyway (it's harder to find somewhere to live in the other town, although I've managed to find a studentroom, and it's now more than 400 miles away from home... compared to the almost 250 I have now...).

All my things are to be moved home on the 9th May and before then (except for the apartment packing and a projectpaper for school) I also need to have no less than 5(!) model horses finished for the show... Good luck with that... Especially since I wont be able to paint for a week when two of my classmates are staying with me before moving in with another classmate...

The horses I need to paint:

Wherever You Go needs an update with pastels. She's painted in acrylics right now but the paintjob is not very good so hopefully I can improve her a bit :)

This little guy is called Splinter In My Soul (after a song by a band I like). And he is to become a black overo with one, perhaps 2 blue eyes.

This is Lacoste and he is almost finished colourwise. He's got some problems on his flanks that I need to fix but besides that I only have some very slight shading to do on his legs and the details (hoofs, eyes etc.) left.

And my MHL Painting Contest Stablemates are still unpainted. But atleast they've got names now :)

The thoroughbred is called Midnight Queen and the Paso is called Adria.

So I have ALOT to do right now but I have some small blog posts finished to be posted during this time so that my readers wont notice my abscence too much :)

And of course I will give you a show report after the show!

MHL Stablemate Painting Competition

One of the model horse forums that I'm a member of is the Model Horse Love forum. Recently they announced a Stablemate Painting Contest and I thought that might be a great opportunity to actually get something painted.

I love to paint, I really do, but since I'm not very good at it I have a hard time finding the inspiration. But since I like working on a deadline and can be quite competitive I think this is the perfect way to motivate myself.

My victims arrived last week and I had to pick them up at a postoffice...

This is what the package looked like...

I have no idea what the postal system has done to it, and I'm not sure I want to know either... Anyway this is NOT the first time I've had a package look like this... And I get just as mad every time since I know that this is not uncommon... Compared to some boxes I've seen this is a mild case but still this is not how it is supposed to be. This time it was "only" a couple of unpainted Breyer stablemates and they made it anyway (thanks to safe packing) but next time it might be very expensive resin that won't make it. 

Enough of the negative rambling, these are my two intended victims:

I got the stablemate G2 Thoroughbred and the stablemate G2 Paso molds. I really like the TB mold but I'm not a huge fan of the Paso (mostly since I'm more of a sporthorse person and I'm not sure about breed assignments for the Paso, which means I'm not sure about colour choices).

Since I'm into pedigree assignment I'll take the chance to give one of my pedigrees a new model which means that I'll probably try to paint her a palomino dominant white, a buckskin dominant white, a dark dapple grey or a chestnut. I've only painted one palomino and one buckskin (both turned out VERY yellow =P), three chestnuts and no greys so what ever colour I decide to paint, it'll be a challenge =)

I'm not sure what breed to assign my Paso and therefore I'm not sure what colour to paint her. I don't know why but some kind of brindle or silver bay/silver black came to mind. Never painted any of them so it could be fun or it could be a total disaster, we'll see :) Another thought is to paint something spotted or pinto coloured and show her as a Spanish Jennet.... Hmmm... Decisions, decisions...

I did actually find a Breyer Sm. G2 Appaloosa very far down in my bodybox and I'll paint all three of them and the two that speaks to me the most and turns out the best will be entered in the competition :) the appy already told me that he doesn't want to be an appy anymore, he wants to be an overo paint instead (if he could just decide what base colour he wants all will be good...).

Now to find some references and get started painting :)

Not according to my plans

The goal for this year was to focus on portrait models. And that should be quite easy but on my want list there was one particular model that would go out of production on February 12. I know it will be possible to find this model on the secondary market but I like to buy them from the source if possible =)

So I kind of took a little step out of the line and bought him. And he arrived about a month ago :)

  He is the Sarah Rose Tiny resin. He is my first Sarah Rose model and he looks great!

Hopefully he won't be unpainted as long as some of my models have been... I almost know what I want to have him painted as. I'll show him as a North Swedish horse.

I actually have two ideas for him. I either want him as a light, flaxen chestnut stallion or a typical bay with pangare (mealy bay) mare.

And of course a size comparison :)

Documenting the collection

One of my model horse goals this year was to document my entire collection, their general info, pedigrees, offsprings and show results. I originally wanted to organize this in binders (since I love to be able to flip through it and have a good overview). But I realized how many papers that would be and I try to do my best to not waste natures resources so I've recently scratched that plan and now I'm documenting them on my computer and saving them in neatly organized files on my external harddrive :)

It works quite well and I've found a template that I really like and can use for almost any breed or horse with just slight alterations.

This is an example of how it will look:

     

The first page consists of general information;
Name
A picture

Name
Date of birth
Breed
Bloodline/Mare family/Breedpercent - For bloodline for arabians to separate the Egyptian Arabian from the Russian Arabians and so on. Mare family for the Swedish Warmbloods and breedpercent for crossbreds or riding ponies.
Sex
Height - "Real" horse height, not height of model
Colour
Genetics - Colour genetics
Markings
Model
Breeder
Registration number
Other

And the second page is a 5 generation pedigree.

Page 3 is where I'll list the offsprings. I'll list the information on the foal as follows:
Year of birth, name, breed, colour, sex, sire/dam (depending on if the documented horse is the father or the mother) and breeder.

Page 4 (and more if I have a horse that gets to show a lot) is for showresults. I'll list the date of the show, name of the show (and if it is a photoshow or liveshow), class and placing.

Documenting the collection is a HUGE job and it will take me a lot of time to do but slow and steady wins the race so I'll get there sooner or later :)