(This week: Stablemates and Foals!)
Pictures of the Mid-Years are up on the Breyer web site, though nothing is officially for sale yet. Aside from the 70th Anniversary Stablemates – which are already sold out everywhere they went on pre-sale – the one new release that has me the most excited is Apparition:
The second was “I want it!”
Honestly, this is just about the perfect marriage of mold with an idea: a mold based on a cartoon with a Deco paint job based on another cartoon. Love it!
The “glowing in the dark” part is just a bonus.
Well, technically I was never a huge fan of Scooby-Doo (aside from those goofy “Scooby-Doo Movies” in the 1970s with celebrity guest stars, like Batman and Sonny and Cher.) But still, as an animation fan I adore it, and I’m glad that they’re “leaning in” to the Spirit mold’s aesthetic rather than trying to deny or downplay it.
Though it wouldn’t take that much to get the Spirit mold up to snuff conformationally, I’d rather they just leave the mold as is and find creative ways of utilizing it as is, like they did here with Apparition.
Just like I would have preferred they keep the original #54 Trakehner’s tail the same, the Stock Horse Stallion’s too, and the “bulldog” physique of the Quarter Horse Gelding.
The main problem I have with mold alterations isn’t the negation of history or the adulteration of the artist’s original vision (more the latter than the former with me, but let’s not go there today) but the fact that they are rarely done well.
In short, the alterations look like obvious alterations, and don’t blend seamlessly into the overall sculpt.
That’s my primary beef, for instance, with the Sherman Morgan. While I was perfectly fine with the necessity of changing his original tail – let’s get real people, the original was basically shaped like a turd – the style of the new tail doesn’t match the rest of Jeanne Mellin Herrick’s sculpture, either. I like it better, but it doesn’t quite… fit.
And just like the tail it replaced, it’s the first thing that draws my eye whenever I see a Sherman Morgan. That is exactly the opposite of what these kinds of alterations should be shooting for.
4 comments:
Was the Quarter Horse Gelding modified? I never noticed. What did they do to him, exactly?
At first I misread your comment about the QH Gelding, and thought you'd said the Classic QH Stallion, and my immediate reaction was "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Thankfully I was wrong.
I guess I didn't know you were an animation buff too! I loved "Scooby Doo" when I was a kid, but I find it underwhelms me now (although the "Scooby Doo Movies" are the best).
Sherman Morgan’s tail? My feelings exactly...they weren’t even trying to match his style. Might as well stick a Hartland tail on that guy. It’s getting hard to keep track of how many of the Hess models have been altered- Stock Horse Stallion, Halla, Lady Phase, Trakehner...who else? I noticed that the Running Foal (at least, Footloose) has a modified “horseshoe” copyright mark, which says Breyer Reeves. Was the mold altered otherwise?
I find myself wondering the same thing... i hope you get an answer
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