This year I’ll have at least two, including this rather typical specimen (the little girl above) I found at a local Salvation Army a little over a week ago.
It always surprises people when I tell them that she was one of the most popular releases of that era. Somehow she managed to hit the sweet spot – color, mold, breed, pattern or je ne sais quoi – that lead to a rather remarkable 18-year production run.
The mold itself intrigues me just enough that I think I might be able to do something with her, but I haven’t been motivated enough to set one aside for my personal stash of experimental bodies. I still have a couple of Duchesses, Performance Horses, a Mesteno body and an entire herd of Family Arabian Mares to “play with” before I’d get to her anyway.
I keep hoping that one of these years Breyer decides to either add a “vintage body/Hess mold” class for their Customs Contest, or use that concept for their thematic class.
Just as long as the mold is still somehow recognizable, none of this “I’ll just use it as an armature anyway” kind of extreme custom that kind of bores me to tears at this point and really isn’t as clever or creative as everyone seems to think it is.
(Whenever a conversation starts with “You’ll never guess what mold I used….” It’s a Touch of Class. Seriously, it’s almost always a Touch of Class….)
(And yes, I am vaguely aware of the Sarah Mink’s Vintage Custom Month thing. Not on Facebook, blah blah blah, etc.)
I am at the point of my BreyerFest prep that I’d rather hide in the basement and just work on my quilting instead, so any thoughts of firing up the Dremel drill and having at one of my partially finished projects will have to be put on hold for the duration.
Speaking of… time to log off to do more prep. Since I abandoned my diorama idea, I’ve decided to go full bore with a completely different something I’ve had rattling around my head for the past couple of years. More on that next time, when I’ll have an actual sample/test piece to show you what I’m going with.
(Not trying to be sneaky or anything. Nothing is actually completely done yet!)
2 comments:
I am also not enamored of the "look, you can't recognize what this used to be!" customs either. I like the personality of the old molds.
I love this mold. She was almost my first Trad, but I went with the black Appaloosa Scratching Foal instead. My Appaloosa QHY is a light-colored late-run one but I'd like to find some earlier, darker, variants. (I also have the palomino and liver chestnut, and a few of the later colors. And my first CM was a QHY by Jan Stevens.) I wish Breyer would use her more.
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