There Is Always Hope, I Guess

At first I was going to opt out of the Collector’s Club Appreciation Event because I have enough inventory issues of my own, thank you very much, but I found some Stablemate-y things I didn’t already have, so the order is now just sitting there, waiting for me to push the darn button.

(LOL they just sent me a “don’t forget your order!” notice.)

I kind of wanted an Adamek, but I’d rather handpick one than depend on the luck of the draw. There’s just something about that shade of Red Bay that I find really appealing, but I want to make sure when I get one, he’s absolutely “the guy.” If they have a bunch of them in the NPOD this year, I am definitely spending some time sorting through them. 

I’ve been looking a lot at the Classic Standing Morgan Fairfax in that regard, too – the current release is also in a nice Red Bay, but none of the ones I’ve seen in person have told me that they want to come home with me. I was kind of hoping he’d be my first on that mold, since all the original Silver Bays I found here had masking issues, and the Black one in the current Spanish Mustang Family does nothing for me, which is weird because you know rarely pass a Black Morgan by!

Anyway, that’s where I am at right now. Other than having kind of dark fantasies about what I want to do to the chipmunks in my garden. (Why do I even bother planting beans or sunflowers anymore? How does anyone grow these things where chipmunks even exist?)

In other news, they made the Exclusive Event news officially public, though they’re still being coy about when the entry window and drawing will be. I’m not trying to get my hopes up. Like the Web Specials nowadays, a lot of hobbyists will enter strictly for the financial windfall the models bring, and they tend to outnumber the folks who want to go because they want to attend the actual event. 

(Barbecue and Polo Ponies? Dang it Reeves, stop teasing me like that!)

The models are a nice bonus, no doubt, but most of the models from the recent events haven’t quite caught my attention as much as the Event Models like Phantom Face, Redmond (sigh), and Bondi. The Event Models used to be at least… kind of attainable before the market went insane? Heck, I remember getting to handpick a Like Thunder in the NPOD because everyone else was looking for something “better”! 

(Okay, I also wouldn’t turn down a Sonorah, either. Darn elusive Cremellos…)

I’ll still try to bank a couple of days of personal time from work just in case lightning strikes and I actually get picked. 

Getting Colorful

I hadn’t planned on saying anything more about the BreyerFest Auction pieces, but if a bag of money fell out of the sky RIGHT NOW, I wouldn’t hesitate to bid on pretty much on any of the ones in that last batch, up to and including the Metallic Red Pinto Georg everyone is dumping on because “there’s not enough paint on it”:

That’s another one of those popular hobby arguments I don’t understand either. I think he’s neat, and if that’s an idea they were pursuing for a future Christmas Day release, all I can say is: Keep going in that direction. I would definitely buy metallic red or green pinto horses. Basecoated or not. 

I am also really digging that new Fireheart mold – but I do prefer my Mustangs a bit on the “chonky” side. I’ve been trying to gently nudge my Mesteno’s Mother custom in that direction, too, but she’s being uncooperative at the moment. (She is looking better than she did a couple of days ago, though.)

Anyway, the Sampler is coming along adequately, and my garden is not an overgrown jungle yet, so everything is… more or less fine here? I am definitely in my “Wish I Was Doing Almost Anything Else At This Point” Phase, though.

I can’t remember if I ever showed you the Spectrum I bought last year when they were briefly available again on the Breyer web site. Originally I wasn’t going to buy her, as the Rainbow Decorators normally don’t do much for me, but the in-hand pictures finally sold her:

I think also the fact that the colors on this Bobby Jo are a little more intense than some of the previous Rainbow Decos, especially her screaming red-orange head and neck. Red-Orange was my absolute most favorite color when I was nine and I didn’t understand why everybody else didn’t love it too. And there’s a little part of me that still thinks that way. 

Bobby Jo is currently one of the betting favorites for the BreyerFest Surprise model, and I don’t disagree that it’s a contender with Desatado, Wyatt and maybe Bluegrass Bandit. But that’s as far as I’ll go in terms of speculation. My head is full of words that need to get committed to (virtual) paper, and I need to hop back to it.

Getting Around

La Molina and Masella are here, but I’ll open them next week; since I’m deep in a multitasking mood, their shipping box is probably the safest place for them to be for now.

I also succumbed to Breyer’s Black Friday Sale on Thursday, which means that I was actually logged on when they still had some interesting stuff for sale. So I bought the 2019 Premier Club Bonus Stablemate Charleston, because I really like that mold, and a Spectrum because it was back in stock and Rainbow Decorators have been on my mind a lot this past week. 

Probably because I am hoping or expecting more news about BreyerFest to drop soon, and curious if they’ll take the opportunity that’s sitting right there with the whole “Horses of Another Color” theme with a Rainbow Decorator as a BreyerFest Special Run.

(Any mold, I’m not fussy. A Rainbow Yellow Mount might be neat!)

Speaking of, this video has been circulating around the model horse Internet:

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialTerryBradshaw/videos/652770828729569/

The only comment I’ll add to this is utterly unrelated to any controversies – real, imagined or exaggerated – about the horse, is to express my amusement at the Bradshaws pronouncing Breyer as “Breyers”. Here in Michigan, we’re known for adding an “s” to the end of everything: 

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Michigan-Accent

Then there’s the Polygon article Reeves promoted on their Facebook page that gave a summary explanation of the basics of creating a model horse, from start to finish:

https://www.polygon.com/2020/11/24/21591409/breyer-horses-how-they-make-toy-horses

I know some of the nerdier hobbyists among us would have liked to see even finer details of the process, but as someone who spent five years working in an injection molding plant, I’m glad they kept it relatively simple. Because I probably would have started picking out the obscure technical bits that the writer might not have “translated” into English correctly that nobody but me would even care about anyway. 

Incidentally, when I worked at that plant the head of production was mightily impressed that I – just a girl! – knew anything about injection molded plastic in the first place, thanks to my involvement in the hobby. 

I get that a lot, about a lot of things; as I like to say to people, my resume tends to confuse people. (You did what? You worked where? You know how to do that? Yeah folks, I’ve been around.)

Magic

Irrelevant but short non-spoilery review of Shazam!: This is the comic book movie I would have written. In fact, after the first five minutes or so, some of the references and beats were so on-point I thought maybe I slipped onto an alternate Earth where I did!

Alas, no. That’s my only real quibble with it, aside from the lack of a few obscure and not-so-obscure characters that I am pretty sure will turn up in later films, regardless.

Other than going to see the movie on Saturday, the rest of my exciting weekend consisted of me sleeping off a rougher-than-average Spring cold and working on my taxes.

Pickings at the local thrift stores have been slender anyway, and I haven’t had the time to do much retail shopping, other than pick up the last two SR Spirit Gift Sets at the local Tractor Supply. (They were 75 percent off – basically body price – and looked lonely.)

The Collector’s Club Special Out of the Blue is apparently sold out; considering previous Collector’s Club Specials either took an extended period of time to sell out, or were quietly taken off the web site after a certain period of time, that was a bit of a surprise.

I don’t know what the magic ingredient or formula was to achieve the quick sell-out: a lower piece count, fewer-than-average reports of flawed models, or just the fact that the model + color combo was really photogenic?

But I am not entirely disappointed that she’s already sold out (I am still sorting out my current horse overage here) but I would not rule out putting her on my want list later in the year.

In BreyerFest news, the sneak peek of the Diorama Prize model tells us that it’s something Glossy Flaxen Red Chestnut… and I don’t know if I should even hazard a guess, other than it looks kind of Vintage.

To be honest, I’ve spent most of my creative “free” time working on my Costume Contest entry, and haven’t even thought about my Diorama. Try as I might, it’s obvious that my craft stash appears to be lacking the magic pixie dust that makes other contestants so successful.

I still want to do it, but it’s hard to get excited, you know? Kind of the same way football fans around here usually make the logical decision to invest more of their emotional well-being in the Wolverines or the Spartans, instead of the Lions.

To end on a cheerier note, here’s a semi-relevant Queen song, just because:

(And also: there’s a montage in Shazam! set to a Queen song, and I was like Aw yeah, this movie totally gets me.)

All In

Well, it’s official: in April, I’ll be attending my first live show (Pansies & Ponies) in 15 years. It’s something that I’ve been promising myself to do for a while now, and since I’m now in a place – more or less – that I can do it, I’m doing it.

Putting a show string together is going to be a challenge, though. Collectibility won’t be an issue (of course!) but everything else is essentially shiny, new – and a little bit terrifying, to be honest.

I think this is a good thing. Everyone needs to push the boundaries of their comfort zones once and a while. I think too many people define themselves by what they can’t do – or think they can’t do – and I don’t want to be that kind of person.

I definitely can’t snap my fingers, knit, dunk a basket, or parallel park. But I’ve gone rock climbing, travelled cross-country alone, officiated a wedding, and cosplayed in public. Those all took some measure of bravery, and I survived.

I’ll be fine. A little overwhelmed at first, but fine.

Second, I bought some costuming and crafting supplies for BreyerFest last week – new supplies, not stuff pulled from my already-voluminous stash – so I am now officially all-in on that endeavor, too. Even so, everything that was purchased was on sale, and can/will be used or repurposed for other projects. In other words, those purchases weren’t quite as existentially fraught as hitting the Paypal button on live show entry fees.

The final thing that I thought I’d be all-in for, but I find myself hesitating on – is the release of the Collector’s Club Special Run Out of the Blue:

(Props to their photographer for thinking outside the box for this shot! I love it!)

This release hits all my “marks” – the Bobby Jo mold, a relatively simple and well-executed roan pinto, a reasonable price – but I am hesitating. I haven’t finished my taxes yet, and I am still in the process of figuring out my new monthly budget with the new car et al. And I want to keep my new model purchases to a minimum as long as possible this year, because I still feel like I own just too much danged stuff!

Breyer introduced Red Roans in 1968 – on the Running Stallion first, followed by the Lying Down Foal, Scratching Foal, and Running Mare in successive years – but it wasn’t until the late 1980s that they finally attempted to produce Blue/Black Roans.

(Yes, some Tests and Oddballs existed in between, but are scarce even by Test Color/Oddball standards.)

The earliest examples were more like unusual-looking fleabitten grays, like the #830 Quarter Horse Stallion release of 1990, on the Adios mold, or the 1989 JAH Special Run Quarter Horse Yearling.

Neither one of those releases went over that well, so Reeves moved on to slightly-more-accurate (though still a bit greenish) interpretations with the likes of the JAH Special Five-Gaiter Moon Shadows and Stock Horse Stallion Shane. And so on and and so on, with Out of the Blue being just the latest iteration. A pretty attractive one, I must say.

Collector’s Club Specials tend to stick around a while, so I think I can afford to hesitate.