Ponies in Sweden!

I shipped some ponies off to Sweden a while ago, and they just arrived. That marks my first model horse sale out of the U.S.

Beauty Marked ponies in Sweden! :)

Meenah

It has a name!

In addition to the G1 QH stallion from the last post, I'm also doing a much simpler remake on a SM Swaps. She came to me rubbed up and with a broken ear. I have since resculpted the ear, and decided to give her a luxurious new mane and tail, and darling itty bitty eyelashes. Yes, stablemate scale eyelashes. WTF was I thinking, right? Well they're just as much of a pain as they sound. But I want her to be an Arabian mare and they often have very nice eyelashes. I might give her some big snorty nostrils tomorrow, like my reference photo:

Right now I'm thinking Meenah will end up being a bay, but that's undecided. I'm hoping the weather holds up this weekend because I will probably finish sculpting her tomorrow, which means I can prime her on Sunday.

Look for pictures soon. I'm too lazy.

Fun With Heat Guns

I got a couple of Stablemates in the mail that were supposedly "ready to paint". NOT. So since this little G1 Quarter Horse stallion (click the link to see what he looked like w/o any work done) would have to be re-prepped anyway, I decided to make him into a remaking project. I've only used my heat gun to fix warped legs so far, but I got adventurous with him and decided to move his head. Observe:

I know he's a stock type horse, but I don't want to give him the crazy low pleasure headset that is fashionable these days. I just want him looking like a casually working school horse. At first I was thinking walk, but one of the kind ladies on Blab pointed out that his diagonal pairs of legs are moving together, indicating a trot or jog. Um, then something is severely wrong with his left hind leg's position. It's so upright and "post-like". 

So I fired up the ole' heat gun again and proceeded to move the leg into a more correct position for a jog. Or at least, I tried to. I then accidentally broke part of his leg off. Whoops. Guess I'll be needing another one of those then huh. 

So last night, I sculpted a leg! Well, part of one. Basically it was a little prosthetic stump of Apoxie Sculpt from his hock joint down to a little nubbin that will eventually be made into a fetlock. Then the hoof. I wasn't genius enough to take a picture of that before I started on tonight's progress. Sorry!

Tonight, I sanded the leg stump so it's more flush with the rest of leg, and more... leg like. It was kind of lumpy. But stuff like that is so easy to fix w/ a little sanding it's not worth it to spend hours trying to get my stump to look leg-like while the Apoxie is soft. 

More sculpting tonight! I sanded the crap out of his hip/butt muscles and upper leg muscles on that leg, and started resculpting them to better depict a forward moving leg rather than a post leg. I also filled in his neck a little where it got squished when I moved it, and screwed around with sculpting his front leg's muscles too. Oh and I straightened out his tail a bit.

Ta-Da!

I don't know why that last photo makes his leg look more like an elephant trunk coming out of his hip. It doesn't look like that in person. Maybe it's the angle/lighting/shadow whatever. 

So far my method has been to smush apoxie sculpt onto him and then refine the blobs with sand paper. It's fun! I'm learning! lol...truth be told it's a little frustrating to not pick this up and immediately be good at it. It's been a long time since I've tried to learn something new. I don't care if he turns out perfect in the end, since he's a first try.

I do plan on re-working his raised foreleg a little (and the other hind for that matter), but for now I'm leaving it because he can stand on 3 legs, but he can't stand on 2 until I make a base. ;)

I'm hoping the end result will be a happy little school pony, jogging. Not too fast, and not too much action. Remember, school pony! And a stock-type grade horse. Therefore = lazy, somewhat slow moving. Not a high stepping warmblood or gaited horse. 

Reference photos I'm using for leg positioning:

This one has way too much extension/action for what I'm going for, but it's still useful to see muscles, shapes, etc.

It Has A Name!

I'd been lusting after this gorgeous little Appaloosa stablemate for the longest time, and once he finally came I had no idea what to name him. So he's been here, nameless, for quite some time. It finally came to me tonight...Warbird. 

I think it suits his tempestuous character quite well. Plus it's Star Trek inspired, so I get bonus points. Because I said so. Make it so, number one.

My Peter Stone Pebbles ASBs

I guess this is a mini conga of sorts... I love the Stone Pebbles ASB. She's such a pretty mold.

Marvelous Me - OF "Delmarva"

Isabella Aurelia - OF "Crocus"

Sugar Belle - OF "Sugar"

Sugar Belle is one of my cat Sienna's many nicknames. ;P

Hmm, I like palominos. :) Haha... I don't plan on going crazy collecting every single one of these gals (I'd have to spend a fortune, plus Stone has all those OOAKs!). I do eventually want to get my paws on more, if they come up reasonably priced of course. I haven't shown these ladies yet, but I will be showing them in IMEHA this month. Wish me luck!

The Mystery Arab

I jumped at the chance to win this Peter Stone Arabian on ebay because at this price he was cheaper than buying an unpainted factory second. I knew his paint job was jacked up but it would be unlikely I'd have issues such as warped legs/bad seams on a model who was already finished. And I was right! Except now that he's here, I see he has an artist's signature on his belly. I wouldn't feel right stripping him down to his paint skivvies without at least knowing his story. I've posted pics on Blab to see if anyone recognizes him or the signature. It's a shame he's in such lousy shape, as it looks like he used to be a pretty boy.

Interestingly enough, the seller included a couple of freebies as extras. One of them is Charity, the old original palomino Family Arabian Foal in glossy palomino/sorrel. She's also marked up pretty bad, but I'd been thinking of playing with customizing a FAF, so that's pretty neat. The other freebie is also in body quality... it's the first chestnut Swaps stablemate. Pretty cool, and thoughtful of the seller. :) 

Pamplemousse

Pamplemousse, Pamplemousse, PAMPLEMOUSSE!

(It's the new Beetlejuice).


I won him.

I WON a Pamplemousse on ebay! I'm extremely excited. I told myself I was only going to collect Stablemates. Then I got a couple Classics... then the Thunderstorm (also from ebay) that I just had to have...and GG Valentine & Heartbreaker...and Pierrot... and the JCP Holiday Trads... and now Pamplemousse. I guess I can officially say I do collect trads then huh?

But he's palomino, guys! Not just palomino, but the light, creamy, banana pudding palomino I'm sort of obsessed with. With dapples. In gloss. Here's a photo from the ebay listing:

I'd better get to work finding more writing gigs. Um, anyone wanna hire me? :)