Last Chance Photoshow

In about a month and a half it's time for the Swedish equivalent of the North American Nationals (NAN). And yesterday was the last day to enter the Last Chance Photoshow. 

This photoshow was as the name suggests, the last chance to qualify your horses for the Swedish Nationals. I do have most of my "good" horses qualified already but there were a few that I would've loved to bring with me as well.

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I haven't had a good photoshow-photoshoot with my models for... more years than I can count. That means that most of my newer horses doesn't even have decent show photos but I took a chance with what I had so I entered the following five models in the show.

Acuatico 

Chester VS 

Dunbar Prince

Epsilon

Viking

Dunbar Prince placed 4th and Viking placed 7th in their class so no qualifications for them. Epsilon took another fourth so another one that didn't qualify.

Chester VS took first in his class which meant that he had a chance to qualify (only champions and champion reserves qualify) and he took it with a champion title (with that lousy photo! Good boy!). 

Acuatico took second in his class which was good enough for him to claim a champion reserve title and another qualification for me! :)

And to top it all off, Chester went to claim the Best in Show reserve title! He is such a good boy! :)

The Story Behind The Model

It's quite some time ago that I did my first "story behind the model" post so I thought why not make another one.

This time I'll introduce a model that is kind of special to me.

So without further ado, let me introduce; Since You Don't Love Me

Since You Don't Love Me is a repainted Breyer Sm. G2 American Saddlebred. She was painted by the Swedish artist Annika Gustafsson.

The story behind her is quite special to me. My younger brother was also a part of the modelhorse hobby several years ago. He didn't have a large showstring but it did quite well for him and at one show he won a painting certificate in a raffle. The certificate was for a stablemate repaint by the Swedish artist Annika Gustafsson.

My brother quite liked the G2 American Saddlebred mold so he sent one of those to be painted. He wanted her to be a pinto colour, I belive he decided on bay too but pinto was the most important part and he wanted the ribbons to be painted red and white as that were the colours of his handball team.

Not long after the horse arrived, my brother left the hobby, so she just stood in the shelf (my shelf as my brother's models had their own shelf in my cabinet, and still do!) with no name and was never shown. I thought it to be a pity as he had a nice showstring and I thought that that mare could do really, really well for him but I never mentioned it. One day he came to me with the model and told me that I could have her. Just like that. I thanked him over and over and that's why she is extra special to me as my brother gave her to me.

I really can't remember where I got her name from. I think it was inspired by a song or perhaps a line from some film or tv-series. I just remember that I thought it would be a cool name and scribbled it on the inside of my wardrobe door to remember it for when the perfect model horse showed up. As American Saddlebreds often have these long, quite cool names I thought it'd be perfect for her.

She has proven to be an awesome show horse and have won a lot for me in the past years but she would be special to me even if she wouldn't win a thing. This is one horse that I'll probably never sell.

Apoxie adventures

Today I opened up my apoxie package! I actually thought that the containers would be smaller (since where I bought it from only stated it as "small container of apoxie") so that was a nice surprise.

My first victim test subject model horse to be fixed was this lady:

She is a Bat Girl resin that I won in a raffle at a live show years ago. She suffered a broken ear for me when my bodybox fell to the ground during my move. I could never find the piece so why not make her my first apoxie test? 

She also had another problem. She came to me with this problem. Her tail had been broken and glued back on but it wasn't perfectly aligned making a long gap in her tail. 

This is what she looks like after today's sitting:

Sorry about the light, don't know why it came out so yellow.

The tail looks dark and it still looks a bit like there is a gap but I think that's because the apoxie is darker than the primed resin.

The underside looks way better!

Her new ear seen above, I'm actually quite happy with how it came out. It still needs to be sanded but for now I think it looks okey. I also found a hairline crack in her lifted front leg that I reinforced and fixed with some apoxie (can be seen in the picture).

I thought that I only mixed a little apoxie but I still had apoxie left when I was done with Bat Girl. Even though my only real goal was to finish her (I didn't set any higher goals since I've never worked with anything like this) I couldn't stop, it was so fun! 

So my next model to be fixed was this girl:

She is a Quintessance resin by Liddy. I painted her a few years ago and updated her paint job for a live show before I moved back home for summer last year. I was actually starting to like the colour I got on her but unfortunately she fell of my table and her ear was lost in pieces. 

I was quite sad to have to reprime her and repair her but I hope I can do it even better when I get that far.

                       

This is what she looks like at the moment. Even though she needs to have her ear sanded I think I managed to do a pretty good match to her other ear.

I still had some apoxie left so I was looking for another body to do some work on. I found my G2 Stablemate rearing arabian. He will be my interpretation of The Silver Brumby's Tambo so he needed to loose the dished profile so I tried to even it out a bit.

He looks a bit more convex than he is but I think that it is the colour of the apoxie that makes it look like it. I will prime him to see if he needs more work but for now I'm happy with his look :)

My last project of the day was this guy:

He is the Breyer stablemate G3 jumping warmblood that I removed his mane and a bit of his tail to give him braids. They are far from perfect and they are a bit too big but I like them! I will show him as a pony so I can always blame it on his fluffy pony mane ;) Fluffy, unruly pony mane means big, not perfect, braids ;)

Anyway I'm quite proud of my first apoxie adventures and can't wait to do some more work!

All in all I think I spent 1½-2 hours on these horses (it was a little more than 2 and ½ episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) and hopefully I can spend some more time on them tomorrow!

Work in progress

My mother let me set up a little studio on her dining table (as we rarely use it, mostly we use the kitchen table) and she also lend me her special lamp and electric file (she's an educated nail artist but doesn't have the time or space to work with it at the moment so her stuff was just laying in the closet)! You can see the electrical file in the background of the picture.

These two are some of the MANY horses I have, to work on at the moment. I'm kind of excited about these two as I bought a tiny jar of apoxie (I'm gonna get it from my father's house tomorrow or on Thursday) and these two will be my first attempts at minor resculpting! They will have braided manes and tails. The plan is to make the mare chestnut and the gelding blue roan.

They still have quite some way to go, along with the rest of my "bodybox" horses but I will share any and all progress here with you :)

I'm Back!

Or well I've been back in Sweden for exactly 3 weeks today but I've had so much to do catching up to do with everything and I'm back to work. After almost six weeks in South Africa it feels both strange and great to be back home! :)

So at the moment I'm doing my best to catch up on everything from my normal blogs, forums, youtube channels, IMEHA and NAN results, Swedish Modelhorse Society magazines and more so I'm far from done yet but I'm working on it!

I will post a few of my favourite pictures and I might do a post later with some more picture and telling you guys what I've done! :)

This is Wettes (Wittes?) the lazy white lion male.

Sasha, a lurky and unpredictable young lioness.

Ceasar, an adorable and wonderful young tiger male.

A new little white lion cub.

Echo, the little lion boy that I got to help out bottlefeeding! My beautiful baby!

Liveshow Haul

Today's post will cover my "liveshow haul" from the show in April. These are the models I won in the raffle or as prizes for championships etc.

A G3 stablemate Warmblood Mare in a beautiful bay roan, originally from a Mystery Foals set. I have no name for her yet (thinking of Asteria) but she will stay OF and be shown as a trakhener mare.

This little G3 jumper will be customized. I have yet to decide if I want to customize him to be Arrow for my Silver Brumby project (in that case he will be a walnut colored chestnut with some resculpting) or if I want to give him a braided mane and perhaps tail, and make him a blue roan jumping pony with no white.

This little haflinger foal will be repainted. For some reason this schleich foal has always made me think that it would be a cute fjord foal so now that I won one that is exactly what I will repaint it to. Thinking bay, yellow or red dun for him/her.

This unpainted stallion will get some customization, mainly to his face to get rid of that dished profile as he will be my interpretation of the black overo stallion Tambo for my Silver Brumby project.

This little Swaps will be a mare but I have yet to decide if I want her to be my interpretation of Dawn from the Silver brumby series (and in that case she will be a light palomino, possibly cremello) or if I want to give her braids and a dapple grey, chestnut or possibly roan paintjob.

This guy will be repainted to be my interpretation of Steel in the Silver Brumby books and he will be grey. I'm thinking steel grey.

This guy will stay OF and his name is Lieutenant. He is a buckskin going grey Swedish warmblood stallion.

This little foal is absolutely lovely! It's the foal from the same mystery foal set as the warmblood mare pictured first in this post. She doesn't have a name or breed yet.

This set is one of the mare and foal sets I wanted most, 2 molds I really like and a bonus foal :) The stallion is called Talisman and is a Swedish Warmblood. The mare is now named Summer and she will be a warmblood of some kind. The foal is still a mystery as I haven't opened the box yet but as soon as I've opened it I'll show you pictures!

I'm really only interested in the horse in this set as I really like the G3 Cantering Warmblood mare and have started conga it. With the two mares from this post my conga now consists of 3 OF and 1 CM. I have plans to repaint the rider and obstacle, perhaps I'll do some custom work on the rider as well. As for name I'm thinking Titania and she will be shown as a trakhener.

Last but not least I got another horse. I didn't get a good picture of it but here is a picture of the same model as I got. I got her from a fellow collector on the show. She really liked my Belize (Eberl Genoveva rep. S. Nordström) who was Best in Show and decided to give the horse as a Best in Show prize. I think the horse is really cute and I call her Strawberry Girl. In the future I might consider sending her away for repainting/hairing but for now she will happily reside in OF on my shelf. 

Random live show pictures

Here are some random live show pictures I took in April. 

Customized Breyer classic arabian mare class.

A beautiful CollectA Tennessee Walking Horse repainted by T. Wolmer if I remember correctly.

A customized Classic arabian mare to an andalusian mare I believe.

A beautifully painted El Nathan. Seriously one of the most awesome dapple grey paintjobs I've seen in person!

Breyer Resin Totilas. I really like this one! I'd love to have one OF and one repainted.

My little CollectA Donkey Foal repainted by me and finished the day before the show. She took first in her class and made me proud :) She was also the only one of the horses I was supposed to finish before the show, who actually got finished.

One of the fjordhorse classes.

Another Fjordhorse class.

A fantasyhorse painted by the owner. This one had a really cool pattern,

Winged horses, one of the fantasy classes.

A Drafthorse class in the Breyer Stablemate and Peter Stone Chips show. I really loved these two!

A beautifully made Breyer G4 reiner cm. by S. Nordström. I'm normally not into stockhorses but this one, I really like.

Yet another fjordhorse class. Can you tell I was excited by all the fjords?

A Josine Vingerling Micro rep. S. Nordström. One of my favourites of the bunch. She was simply adorable!

A Maggie Bennett Arabian, another one of my favourites.

Another awesome Josine Vingerling mini. I believe he was painted by S. Nordström as well.

Customized CollectA Arabian Mares Class