The Story Behind The Model

When I started out in this hobby and joined the Swedish Model Horse Society I saw a picture on the webpage of a North Light New Forest in chestnut and I kind of fell for the mold. A year or so later I saw an ad in the Swedish Model Horse Society's magazine for Epsilon, a grey North Light New Forest. I emailed the owner with a bid on him.

I didn't have much money back then and I would consider the bid a little low but I thought, why not give it a try. I was so excited when the seller accepted the bid. But she had a few conditions. He was not to be used as a body and she wanted me to contact her if I considered selling him. Lastly she wanted his pedigree to come with him.

Best Novice-owned Pony at a live show

These were no hard conditions as I wanted the model to stay that colour and as I was into pedigree assignment I was happy to take his pedigree as well.

Champion Pony at a liveshow

When he arrived I was thrilled! He was even more beautiful than the pictures showed! And he came with his pedigree, show photos, my first ever Swedish Nationals qualification card and a LONG show record! (I believe it was atleast 3 or 4 pages, of small handwriting in a computer-made table). I still have all of his papers in a box where I keep most of my model-related papers.

Epsilon is a joy in my collection and I really like him. He's kept on doing well at shows under my ownership and some older hobbyist here in Sweden actually remembers him from when he was shown by his former owner. This is a model I would have a hard time parting with as there is just something about him that is so loveable! Even my mother (who usually don't like greys (model or real)) likes this guy!

Beginning of the tails

This is my first time sculpting tails from scratch so we'll see how they will turn out when done. I needed an armature to sculpt the tail around so I found some rather thin steel-wire, pliers, a wire cutter, a lighter and a candle.

I wasn't quite sure on how to attach the tail to the horse but the baking soda and superglue method seemed like a good idea. Only problem was I have neither and I didn't really have an opportunity to buy it so I had to do it some other way.

I twisted the wire so that it would be sturdier and I told myself that the apoxie would stick better to the wire if it was twisted. I then lit the candle and held the twisted wire with the pliers over the candle until it was warm. I then pushed it into the backend of my poor model where I wanted the tail to sit. 

I had some stupid idea that I was going to try and bend the wire a bit after I had attached it. Stupid idea since the wire was still quite hot... Oh well, at least I learnt not to try that again :) 

So instead I let the wire sit until cooled (by then the plastic around the tail had cooled too) and the tail  seemed to sit quite secure.

I then used a few reference photos to help me get the wire in the right position for the tail I was after. When the wire was in the right position I strengthened the attachment with some apoxie, as seen in the pictures. 

I used pretty much the same technique for the paso mare but used a much shorter piece of twisted wire and warmed one end to push into the tail and the other end to push into her bum. I had to be careful while warming up the wire after I had attached it to the tail so I wouldn't melt the plastic on the tail. I put some apoxie to the gap between the bum and the tail to strengthen the attachment.

Unfortunately I noticed that the apoxie had cracked a bit when I unpacked her back at uni so I guess that I have to sand it off and do it again...

Oh well, at least I can start sculpting tails for the rest of them :)