Finished portrait

I week or so ago I finally took the step and mixed up some pinkish colour so that I could paint the tongue and inside of the mouth on my Kandinsky Dino model.

That means that finally, my portrait of my dearly missed Hjalmar is finally finished! A picture of the real Hjalmar can be found on this page.

Since the model is in a running pose he'll need a base to stand correctly.

So far I've made a very simple base with only a piece of wood and some white apoxie (he is not permanently attached).

I will need to refine the base and make the "hill" under his right back foot a bit higher so that he'll get the right position. I then plan to cover the base with fake grass and the hills with small fake leaves so that it'll look like he runs through a pile of leaves and I'll also make him a ball of some sort (probably a deflated one as that's what he loved to run around with).

I'm quite happy with how he turned out and I think he makes a great representation of Hjalmar for my miniature herd.

The last picture shows how his pose will look when I've fixed the base to my liking.

Hopefully he'll show up in some model horse pictures some day 😊

Oreo part 2 - Finished

This little girl has been in my mind since I left South Africa in July 2015. While doing volunteer work at a farm I fell in love with a young, lanky female dog. She was a crossbred believed to have some Weimaraner, Greyhound and maybe some Great Dane blood in her. She had the very cute, and fitting name, Oreo.

Since I couldn't bring her home with me I started to make plans of having a miniature version of her in my collection, so that I would always remember her. And here she is, my miniature version of Oreo.

I think I did quite well for my first, finished, dog portrait. She is super cute and even though the mini version is a bit bulkier than her real counterpart I think it suits her very well as this is what I think she'll look like when she's older (she was like 8-10 months old when I got to know her). 

I just love how her eyes turned out (even though the pictures doesn't show them too well). 

I'm really happy with how she turned out and it was actually quite fun to paint something other than horses, even though I enjoy that a lot :)

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! :)

Sarah and Dino

I love to collect model horses but I also love to collect other model animals, especially dogs and cats. The latest addition to my collection are not horses, but dogs :)

I bought them from a Swedish sculptor, her facebook page can be found here. The one on the left is a standing labrador female (Sarah) and the one on the right is a playing/running rottweiler male (Kandinsky Dino).

They both came with a little "COA" in their bags. And the sculptor kindly filled in the pinholes for me (that's why there are dark grey areas on the white resin). Thanks to that there is less prepping work for me to do :) I'm not an experienced prepper so I'm glad it's only sanding and smoothing out seams left to do, before priming, as that is something I've done before and knows how to do :)

The sculptor has already started sculpting puppies for Sarah and whenever they will be ready I definately want them!

Pardon the unusual way to get him to stand but I wanted to show him as he is supposed to be seen :)

Dino's pose places him in the position that he will need a base or perhaps an acrylic rod to make him stand. I haven't figured out how or what I'll do for him but I'll find a solution.

Doesn't they look pretty together? I can't wait to get a new can of primer and sealer so I can get started on painting these beauties.

I haven't decided on a colour for Sarah yet but since I plan to show her as a purebred Labrador I can make her yellow, chocolate or black. I LOVE black labradors and I'm not a huge fan of the yellow ones (they are beautiful but I just love the dark ones) so right now it leans towards black or maybe chocolate.

Dino will be a portrait of Hjalmar, our late rottweiler/labrador/mastiff male.

I'll probably give him a ball (or two) to have in his mouth (probably something like a deflated football as that is was Hjalmar usually had). He loved to play with his deflated balls and always tried to have as many in his mouth as possible.

And one last picture just to show the size in comparison to a Breyer model.

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 :)