Anthem

While awaiting those decisions being made about me (still a work in progress, grr) I spent most of my weekend gorging on Easter candy or sleeping. I also made significant headway on the old tax paperwork, too – it’s on track to be finished by next weekend! (I need to get some office supplies and double check some items now in storage, that sort of thing. You can never have enough sheet protectors and binders in the house, apparently...)

Except for the Stablemates, because they’re Stablemates, I haven’t bought most of the patriotic-themed Decorators. Either they haven’t been executed all that well thematically – bloody red points on blue bodies doesn’t exactly scream “America” to me – or the selected molds weren’t must-haves (I’m not a huge fan of the Clock Saddlebred, for instance). 

But this new model Anthem? I think I dig him. Maybe because he’s more of a personification of American Patriotism than a literal representation: there are no stars, stripes, or actual flags arbitrarily slapped on him. I think that’s where a lot of patriotically-themed artwork falls flat: it’s not enough to simply include the elements, you need to integrate them into a design that makes sense both artistically and thematically.

Either that, or you have to do something so over-the-top that you have to admire the audacity of it. Kind of like one of my old favorites, the BreyerFest 2007 Special Run Times Square, also on the Ethereal mold:

I cannot wait until Reeves finally has the gumption to release a Mini Me of Times Square in a future Best of BreyerFest Stablemates Set!

Anthem is just pretty, all dressed up in that funky metallic pearly automotive-style paint they introduced on the Red Pinto Auction piece Georg last year, and executed on a production run with the Christmas Clydesdales a few months later.

The precursor of the American Flag Series was the 2012 BreyerFest Special Run Union Jack, on a translucent Classic Ruffian. She’s got a few design problems herself – the flag sort of blends into her base color, and she’s got those weird red points – but I was kind of hoping that she’d lead to other “Flag Horses” of other nations, but that hasn’t materialized yet, beyond the American Flag Horses.