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.

Orbit

I guess one could say I am officially back in the model horse hobby.

Opening up my boxes of Grand Champions (and scant few Breyers) during the house remodel became a pandora's box of sorts. I have gone model horse crazy since then, amassing quite the little herd of Stablemates and even a few Traditionals, a luxury I never afforded myself in my teenage collecting days!

Which brings me to this. I finally have my very own commission-painted resin. He's Morsel, sculpted by Kristina Lucas-Francis. It was kind of an impulse buy, but he was for sale unpainted on MH$P for just $35 (thanks Gail!), and KLF horses have a special place in my heart. KLF is actually a distant cousin. I've only met her once in my life though, when I was little. She was really sweet and showed me her studio, her sketches, and even took a look at some of my sketches. It meant a great deal to me, and still does.

And so, Morsel. I had him shipped to the amazing Sue Kern for painting. Originally I had envisioned him as a dark yummy bay with some pangare, but when I was browsing Sue's gallery I was awestruck by a white/grey horse she did, and told her I'd love my guy painted similarly to hers. By the way, can you believe that Lipizzaner started out life as a Breyer Zippo Pine Bar?! Sue's drastics are breathtaking. And her turnaround time is RIDICULOUSLY fast.

And so, Morsel. Or rather, as I have named him, Orbit. I'm so in love. Photos by Sue.

Is he not positively scrumptious?! He sits at the very top of my display, out of reach of kitty paws. I'd take him down and hold him at random except I'm too paranoid something would happen to him. So appropriate to his name, he remains up in the stratosphere of my work area. If I ever make it to a live show (I hope to start showing at some Region 2 shows next season since this season's almost over), I'm definitely taking this boy. I may show him in some IMEHA photo shows too if I can get my collective photography skills in order!