I Didn't Do It

I had high hopes to post my I Did It photos today. However that is not the case. My model is not done yet.

Bad pictures but I love him and I will finish him in the next couple of days.

Progressnotprogress

My NaMoPaiMo model is coming along.

Although progress is really, really slow.

And I've encountered a problem I haven't had before.

Normally my models go much darker than I plan. But with this guy it's quite the opposite, he just won't go dark enough for me!

I still have quite a bit left to do and I'm not sure I will be able to do it in time.

But that doesn't mean I'll give up without a fight. Just keep swimming painting, just keep swimming painting!

In the spirit of NaMoPaiMo

In the spirit of NaMoPaiMo I've prepared several other models for painting. Mostly prepping and priming but some slight resculpting on some has also been done.

The two guys below are CollectA Hanoverians and will be painted dark chestnut and buckskin going grey.

These three girls are planned to be medium-dark dapple grey, dark bay and bay leopard or blanket.

This little shire foal will be baby black.

I gave this thoroughbred boy-parts and he will be a buckskin dominant white.

These two girls will be silver bay and chestnut perhaps with rabicano-like markings.

This guy is still undecided but I think I might resculpt his ears a bit as I'm not too keen on their look.

This tiger mommy will be painted a white tiger.

Her cubs have had some work done. They were separated from each other and the cub below got a new tail sculpted. This one will be painted as a white tiger.

The next cub got his back lower leg and paw sculpted. Will be painted in "normal" tiger colour.

And the last cub got both back lower legs and paws sculpted. This one will be painted as a golden tiger.

This is what they originally looked like:

As you can see they are all molded together.

Here's the first cub original vs. separated with new tail.

Here's the second cub, separated with sculpted back leg and paw vs. original.

And last but not least, the last cub with his "middle" counterpart.

Can't wait to get some paint on these guys!

First attempts at dapples

Dapples have always been something that I have seen and admired on models painted by other artists but I have never dared to try them as I haven't figured out a technique that I think would work.

At least not until I joined NaMoPaiMo and saw a video tutorial on how to use Faber Castell eraser pencils to achieve dapples.

I was able to find the eraser pencils at an okay price at a local craft store so I bought 3 of them as they can be sharpened to get a finer point (I wasn't sure how fine the point needed to be so I bought more than 1 to have extras if I needed to sharp it often).

I tried them out on a model in my bodybox who was intended to be a dark dapple bay with pangare. This is my first attempt at dapples and this is the first layer. It looks a bit too stark but I think that I can make it more subtle with the next few layers.

I'm quite happy with his look for being my first try.

This is one of my "unofficial" NaMoPaiMo models but at the moment he's come so much further than my official model...

Here he is in still wet sealer after another layer of pastels. I can't wait to see his progress!

Another one for the conga!

Although this time it's not a model for my Strapless conga. It's for my G3 Warmblood conga. I've been wanting this model for a while so I was quite pleased when a fellow collector here in Sweden was selling one.

This particular model is from a 4(?) piece gift set from a few years ago.

She has a really nice colour and markings. I'm happy with her and have named her Quinette D.

She does have a couple of small marks that only makes her PSQ if not touched up but I like her and think she'll do great in photos.

Raven, Rivendell, Vilya, Espri, Arielle, Adelaide, Asteria, Lady Nimrodel, Nenya, Symphony D and Quinette D

And of course a small, updated conga picture :)

Painting Progress

I just wanted to share some quick pictures of another horse that is making progress this month. He's a stablemate G2 Warmblood. I redid his mane and ears. He has been in the works for a while but now I can see the light in the end of the tunnel and hopefully he'll be done by the end of February.

I did plan for him to be a shade or two lighter than what he actually turned out to be but I quite like his colour so it's okay.

Now I'm just contemplating whether or not I should give him some white markings. I had plans on giving him a bullet-hole blaze but to me a blaze means that he also needs some socks/stockings and I'm not sure how that will suit him...

Procrastinating

Thursday was my day off and I had plans to paint, paint and paint my NaMoPaiMo model. But the arrival of a grail demanded pictures. And the fact that it was snowing made the light good enough to take some more pictures.

So instead of painting as I had planned, I took photos.

Chester VS

Gold Rush

Elessar

Why must I be so good at procrastinating?

Grail!

Back in 2003, before I had even found the hobby, Breyer released the first model on a new mold.

I found the hobby about a year later and instantly fell in love with that model when I found her in a year old Breyer catalouge. Unfortunately the model wasn't produced anymore as she was a limited edition of 10.000 models. I had yet to find the second hand market so it took me a few years to get a hold of any models on that mold.

Breezing Shadow (Appaloosa Sport Horse Mare OF), Anything But Mine (Strapless OF), Imperia (Sidesaddle Strapless OF), Destiny (Headley Britannia OF)

I love the few models I managed to gather on the mold but in 2009 Breyer released a new model on the mold though Pottery Barn. It was a model with a loose mane and tail instead of the braided that the original mold had. She was, to me, the most beautiful of the releases to this date, she was the 2009 Pottery Barn Strapless in a gorgeous bay. 

I missed out on the release and tried to find her on the second hand market without much luck. And I have been looking for her since. She became my grail when I realized just how hard she was gonna be to get for me.

I have been searching for her ever since she was released, but the few times I've seen her offered for sale, I've either been low on money, too slow to actually buy her or she's been shelf quality only. The last 2 years I've had some luck in finding the model for sale and on three different occasions, contacted 2 different sellers inquiring about the model. At all three times we've talked and they've agreed to sell her to me, asked for my address to give me a total to pay but never gotten back to me with a total. I tried emailing them, even from different email addresses but still, never heard back. I was quite bummed by this.

Last week however I found an ebay auction of the model and emailed the seller. She would gladly ship international and provided me with extra pictures and description of the model when I asked. I didn't want to risk missing out on the auction so I went for the reasonable buy-it-now option. I payed the day after and the seller must've shipped her that same day as she arrived at the beginning of the week. Barely a week after I payed!

I'm so happy to have her in my collection and can't wait to get her out in photo- and liveshows. She will be shown as a Swedish Warmblood Mare named When I Hear Your Voice.

Breezing Shadow, Anything But Mine, When I Hear Your Voice, Imperia and Destiny.

Of course I had to have an updated conga picture!

Photoshow Results

In January, Chestnut Ridge held a Warmblood photoshow and since Warmbloods are such a big part of my collection I thought that I needed to enter. We were allowed to enter 5 photos and we were showing in age categories. I showed in the 16-24 age and I entered 4 models.

This is the first photoshow I've entered this year and my models did quite good. Taking second and fourth :)

Chester took second place.

And Belize took fourth place :)

I can't wait to enter some more photo shows!

NaMoPaiMo Progress - Basecoat

On Thursday I worked the late shift so I took the liberty of spending my morning on my NaMoPaiMo model. I plan to give him a basecoat in acrylics and then build up the colour with pastels. I usually try to find the lightest colour on my reference photo and mix colours to get a shade lighter than that to basecoat my model in. For this model I mixed white, yellow ochre, raw sienna and a few drops of water to thin the paint.

I painted one layer:

Let it dry, and painted another layer:

Third layer:

Fourth and final layer:

After the colour had dried I realized that it is a bit too dark to start with for my reference so I need to lighten it up a tiny bit, I'm not yet sure if I'll do it with acrylics or pastels but I'm confident I'll make it work either way :)