2016 Review

2016 has come to an end and has this been an eventful year or what!

On the personal plane I finished the courses of my last semester of uni, I lived through blood, sweat, tears and anxiety connected to the dreaded Bachelor's Thesis and graduated as a Veterinary Technician/Nurse. I got a job at a Veterinary Hospital for horses and worked a lot and in October I moved to an apartment with my boyfriend.

When it comes to model horses I've done quite well this year.

I had a few goals/plans for the year:
- Attend at least one liveshow.
I actually attended two liveshows this year. 
- Paint some of my bodybox models.
I managed to paint a bit this year. Unfortunately painting doesn't mean finishing so they are still not finished. However atleast I finished one horse this year :)
- Try my hands at some more extensive resculpting.
I resculpted a few manes, tails, eyes and neck muscles this year but nothing more extensive. However my mom bought me some tools for Christmas that hopefully will make extensive resculpting easier, so maybe next year.
- Paint my Kandinsky Dino as a portrait of Hjalmar.
Dino is not finished. However he's not far from finished. He just needs his eyes and mouth painted and a base for him to stand.
- Buy at least one model on my wish list.
This year was a far better year for buying model horses than last year. I bought no less than 14 models from my wishlist! 5 OF Breyer Stablemate Cantering Warmbloods, 1 OF Breyer Traditional, 2 Copperfox models, 2 painted resins and no less than 4 unpainted resins.
- Take photos for my website.
I actually bought a background for my traditional models so that I could start taking pictures. I haven't had the best weather conditions or light but I've managed to snap a few pictures.
- Keep blogging - Reach 20 000 views
For 2016 I wrote 85 blog posts and reached more than 20 000 views! I'm really, really happy about that! :)

2016 was a really good year for me both personally and on the model horse plane, hopefully 2017 will be good too :)

Happy New Year Everyone! :)

Secret Santa

This year's Secret Santa is over and all the Santas and gifts have been revealed, so now I can show you all. I recieved two models that has been on my wish list for quite some time:

A beautiful Sm. G2 Warmblood OF in black and an even more beautiful Sm. G3 Cantering Warmblood OF in chestnut. Both from the Breyer Sm. Competing at the Games set. I was so happy to receive these two as they are great additions to my collection.

I had already had some thoughts of painting a horse for my giftee and when I found out who I was going to be the Secret Santa for I placed an order with MPV. I mostly bought stuff for myself but I bought a few things for my Santa. My giftee likes Akhal-Tekes and have quite a collection of different models so I decided to buy a CollectA Akhal-Teke mare and paint it for her. I also bought a Bella Rose model as part of the gift.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish the model as I'm quite a slow painter and I only had 10 days from prepping to sending it to my giftee when it arrived at my house.

I managed to finish the model the day before I needed to send it out! I however couldn't send it out the day before the deadline as the sealer needed to dry.

I'm really happy that I managed to finish the model in time as I am very pleased with how she turned and my giftee liked her too! :)

Pardon the bad pictures, I only had time to snap a few, very quick photos before wrapping it up and rushing to the post office :)

Growing Conga

Recently my Sm. G3 Warmblood Conga grew to more than the double!

I won an unpainted Sm. G3 Warmblood at the Swedish Nationals back in late October and not too long after I found an ad at the MHSP for several of the mold. I was kindly allowed to buy five of them to add to my collection.

At the moment most of the new ones (all but one) are still unnamed and has no breed assigned to them but I'll hopefully be able to work on that in the near future :)

MPV Haul

I joined a Secret Santa at one of the model horse facebook pages I'm on and that meant I needed to do some shopping for my giftee. Model horses and model stuff is a bit harder to get a hold of in Sweden so I turned to Modell Pferde Versand to do my shopping. They were super fast at helping (as I had quite some unexpected issues with paypal) and shipping when problems were resolved.

While I was at it I ordered some stuff for myself that I've been wanting for a while. For obvious reasons I can't show you what I got for my giftee but here are some quick pictures of what I got for myself :)

I first and foremost collects model horses but I also have a small collection of dogs, cats and wild animals. The three above will be added to my collection. 

As will the three above.

The rest are intended to be repainted. The two CollectA's will be a dark chestnut and a buckskin going grey. The three Bella Rose's will be a dapple grey, a dark bay and a leopard or blanket knabstrup. The dog is yet to be decided and the tiger will be repainted to a white tiger with a white, a golden and a "regular" tiger cub. I can't wait to get started! :)

Another mini

A few days ago I recieved a notice that I had a package to pick up. The notice didn't say who the package was from but I thought it was one of the Christmas gifts I had ordered from overseas. I got to the post office and picked up the package. It was not the Christmas gift I thought.

It was the model I ordered as a reward for myself for finishing my Bachelor's thesis in time.

Another Sarah Rose Mini for my naked collection. A Moxie. This girl is beautiful and petite.

She features exquisite details and such a wonderful face. 

I'm not a huge stockhorse fan but this girl is lovely!

I could totally see myself gathering a conga of this girl!

Comparison to a stablemate, as you can see she's slightly larger than stablemate scale. For now she's joined the other naked resins on my shelf and it will probably stay that way for a while but I do have some loose plans on having her painted as a grullo overo.

New Pictures

I've finally gotten the backdrop to go with the base I made some time ago! This means taking new pictures. 

Acuatico

I'm quite pleased with the setup but light this season is horrible so I need to work a bit more on that.

Fandango

But so far I have at least gotten a few decent pictures. But I still need to do something about the light before I'm really satisfied.

Shaniqua

Maybe I will actually get some pictures for my website this year, as I had planned.

Conga lines

I'm not sure of the "correct" definition of a conga line, but my definition of a conga line is a collection of at least three models on the same mold.

The only molds I actively conga is the Strapless mold and the G3 stablemate cantering warmblood mold. I am not trying to get a hold of ALL models on the Strapless or warmblood mold, only the ones that appeal to me (which generally is the solid coloured ones). I kind of also conga the G2 ASB Mare but not as actively, I mostly conga that mold when something interesting comes my way :)

At the moment I have 4 models in my Strapless conga. the appaloosa mare (she was actually bought intended to be a body but she was in such nice shape I just couldn't make myself repaint her :) ), Strapless, the Side Saddle Strapless and Headley Britannia.

Breezing Shadow, Anything But Mine, Imperia and Destiny

And 4 models in my warmblood conga, a regular run fleabitten grey, a bay roan from a mystery foal set, a red roan from a horse and rider set and a cm by S. Nordström

Espri, Adelaide, Asteria and Symphony D

In my ASB conga I have 7 models. A regular run black and white tobiano, a bay tobiano cm, a chestnut tobiano custom, an etched chestnut, a regular run chestnut, a regular run chestnut sabino and an OF bay.

Nova, Since You Don't Love Me, "Madonna", Phantom Jewel, Irish Jewel, If I Never Knew You and Diamond

Although I don't actively conga any other molds, I have managed to gather a few more conga lines. Most of them stablemates. But they are unintentional and will be shown in another post :)

Swedish Nationals 2016 Random Pictures

Some random pictures from the Swedish Nationals.

A beautiful Hackney.

More beautiful models.

My table.

A beautiful Indian Silver.

A very dramatic grey.

Beautiful appaloosa colour. 

Another beautiful appy colour.

My favourite mustang!

Beautiful fantasy models.

Cute CollectA model.

A beautiful classic arabian that I wouldn't mind owning.

A really, really tough arabian class.

Custom mini Ziryab.

Awesome performance entry. 

Gold Rush winning his class.

Vintage Lusitano, CZ Aurora's Carnival

Brioso

Bitty Bosco custom.

The callback table for the Best In show voting.

The callback table for the Best in Show voting. 

The callback table for the Best in Show voting.

The callback table for the Best in Show voting. 

Custom fantasy horse

Hippogriff

Performance entry.

Close-up

Swedish Nationals 2016 Haul

No liveshow is complete without some addition to the collection. Below you can see my haul from the show. I got 3 rosettes, 2 champions and one reserve. I also added no less than seven models to the collection (4 won by my models, 1 bought from another collector, 1 bought at the auction held and one won in the lottery). I also won a gift card on a stablemate repaint from a Swedish artist in the lottery. I haven't decided what model I want painted yet but I have some ideas :)

The three models below will be painted/repainted. The shire foal might be baby black but I haven't decided yet :) And as for the other two I'm not quite sure on colours yet.

These two models are a bit special to me. The one on the left (Sm. G2 ASB rep.) was in the auction held during the Swedish Nationals. I have seen this model at shows before and always wanted to add her to my collection but never had the money to do so. So when I saw her in the auction I decided that I would get her. I obviously did :) The thoroughbred is made by the same artist who painted the ASB and I saw her at the sales table and early on decided that I would buy her.

The ASB has formerly been known as "Madonna" and the TB has formerly been known as "Qul's Achtung Baby" 

The little jumper I won will be kept OF and added to my unintentional G3 jumper conga.

The model I won in the lottery was also one I had my eyes on one time. I saw this model at my very first liveshow back in 2006. She won the bendables show (picture below) there and I thought her to be supercute. I thought about her, from time to time but haven't seen or heard about her since that show so when I saw her on the lottery table I hoped that I would get her, I was so happy when I did!

She is formerly known as "Tess".

"Tess" winning the BIS of the Bendables Show at the Waterfestival Live in 2006.

Next post will be some random liveshow pics :)