Close To Home

The diorama is… getting there. All of the components are (essentially) done except the body; all I need to do now is finish the horse itself, and then glue everything together. 

I am surprised at how well the customizing is going, especially since it involves a lot more sculpting than I am normally comfortable doing for a diorama project, especially in such a short period of time. Here’s the only clue you’ll get before the big reveal:

And also a bonus, this was the other project I have (temporarily) abandoned – a FAM that was going to be a Staffordshire Pottery Horse:

I have a bunch of Family Arabian Mare bodies that I will eventually turn into an assortment of art projects – this was a plan well before the announcement of this year’s BreyerFest theme – because those bodies are cheap and nobody does anything with them except as armatures, and I think that’s a darn shame. 

There is a lot of potential there that just needs a little imagination to realize it.

Regardless of the outcome (I haven’t consulted the Magic Eightball yet!) this diorama project has been a very therapeutic creative distraction. And there are only so many weeds to pull in the garden.

I know a lot of hobbyists are a bit bummed that there won’t be much to do during the second virtual BreyerFest except sit in front of a computer screen and watch videos. To be honest, I’m kind of looking forward to luxury of a couple of obligation-free days of doing mostly nothing. I might even bake a cake!

Then there is also this sad news to deal with:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/blogs/news/my-collector-story-janice-cox

When you consider just how large and complicated a topic as Breyer History is, it is both surprising and unsurprising that there aren’t actually that many of us doing the legwork of uncovering, analyzing and publishing Breyer History.

The loss of any hobbyist – whether we’re someone well-known, or unknown – is always a diminishment. But this one hits close to home. 

Kings and Queens

Tosses two more bodies back into my project box, waves goodbye to my Diorama Contest dreams.

I’ve just completely run out of time for them. I just have too many higher-priority projects to do between now and BreyerFest to be able to spend any more time necessary to complete them. 

My “clever” idea is turning out better than I expected, too. The only comfort I have with it is that if I take my time with it, maybe it can be salvaged as a Customs Contest entry for next year.

The other one, I dunno. It’s more of a craft project than an actual custom, but it involves solving a technical issue that’s running headlong into my poor spatial awareness skills. 

Think about it this way: I have an easier time folding a map than actually reading it.

Sigh.

(And another thing: I don’t want to hear anybody tell me they’re bored. Unless you can come over sometime this week and weed my flower beds, I just can’t even with you people right now, okay?)

Since I’m short on time, again, here’s another picture of another recent purchase: a Glossy King! No, not a vintage Bay or White Fighting Stallion (I wish!), but the Stock Horse Stallion from the Collector’s Club Appreciation Sale:

He wasn’t the most popular choice among the Glossies offered that year, but I still thought he was pretty neat. Like the Glossy Bandera, I was hoping to find one at a not-unreasonable price, eventually. And that eventuality was last week!

I’m not too keen on the long tail, though. I’ve never been a fan of the whole “short mane/long tail” look that’s so popular in the Stock Horse world: it reminds me too much of mullets. 

I don’t care that they’re back in style again, nobody looks good in a mullet. Not Superman, not David Bowie, and definitely not horses. 

UPDATE: I just did a slapdash, ten-minute mockup of the second diorama, and it looks like I’m being a drama queen. I just may have the time to finish this one after all. I’d still rather go with my clever idea, but that would necessitate the invention of a 36-hour day. In other words: toss it back in the box, Andrea. The Sampler is not going to write itself!

How It's Going

How’s it going on my new schedule?

I’m crushing it on my old paperwork, the garden is looking respectable, and the office cleaning and reorganization is coming along. Sleep is still a work in progress; the melatonin doesn’t seem to be working well for me, and I’d rather not keep relying on the Benadryl.

But the customizing is… a problem. The rest of the household is not too keen on my cracking out the Dremel drill and hacksaw during the small hours, so my diorama plans have changed a little. 

Idea One (the best idea) involves too much customizing for the amount of time left on the clock anyway, so that one’s on hold. The effort there has not been wasted: the mold involved is part of a larger project, and I will get back to it eventually.

Idea Two (my first idea) was supposed to be something quick and simple, but the mold I selected for the task is less amenable to customizing than I originally thought. I think I can still make it work, with some compromises. I’ll give myself until the end of the coming weekend to decide whether or not to abandon it.

Idea Three (the “clever” idea) is actually coming along rather nicely. But it’s also the one I think the judges will be least likely to “get”, and it also involves a painting technique I haven’t tried before. 

So that’s my conundrum. I’ve got several writing projects to occupy my time between now and the weekend, so that’s where my head’s going to be at for the next several days. I’ll probably hem, haw and peck away at the two remaining ideas in whatever down time I do have between now and then.

But as we head into BreyerFest season, let’s all take a moment to stop and smell some freshly unpacked Stablemates Unicorns:

There’s nothing special or noteworthy about any of them, other than the fact that I think it’s a little weird that the dark blue Warmblood Unicorn is named Topaz. While topazes can come in almost any color, they are most commonly some shade of yellow or orange; dark blue is usually only achieved via heat treatment. 

Inner rock nerd me isn’t a huge fan of stones that need heat treatments, other than Tanzanite. If they wanted a dark and mysterious looking stone, I would have gone with Galena or Hematite.

I suppose I should also mention the Limited Edition BreyerFest Stablemate Kaleidoscope:

Ooh boy, he’s something, ain’t he? Rainbow resist-dappled pearly blue with white points: the only thing missing here is the glitter. The 6500-piece count sounds like it should be enough, though I have no idea what they’re basing that production count on. 

The name Kaleidoscope, incidentally, has been used at least once before, on a Special Run Pinto Trakehner way back when. He’s always been one of my favorites among my Trakehner collection, partly because Pinto Trakehners are actually a thing.

Creatively Challenged

For all the people who are confused or frustrated by the rules for this year’s Diorama Contest and struggling to figure out what Reeves is actually looking for, Welcome to My World. 

I’m not trying to be (that) snarky: I’ve been struggling for years with this contest, trying to figure out what the judges are looking for, and obviously not succeeding. 

At this point I am just throwing caution to the wind: I want to participate, and I can’t participate if I don’t enter something. I’ve got some ideas, I got some bodies, and whatever turns out the best by the due date gets entered, and that’s that. 

(Though it turns out that I may have to rule out one of my ideas because the body involved might actually be salvageable as an Original Finish piece. It’s not a super valuable one, but if it looks like it can be rescued, I always feel obligated to make the effort.)

To be honest, though, I think they’re putting some serious effort into explaining what the contests entail this year, and I really appreciate it. Whether that means I’ll have a better chance this year compared to any other year is still questionable, because I’ve found that the way I see or interpret things is not the way most of the rest of the world does.

Sometimes to my benefit, but definitely not when it comes to BreyerFest-related competitions. 

I know some hobbyists are being very vocal that the artistic restrictions – only public domain images from three specific online repositories, and the artwork in question must have a horse in it – are too restrictive. 

Which… doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

If you’ve been to art school, or taken more than one or two art classes in your lifetime, you’ve sometimes been asked to copy – or at least emulate – the works of previous artists. It’s not to stifle your creativity, it’s about understanding how the original artist did what they did, and why. 

As the famous Pablo Picasso quote goes: Good artists copy, but great artists steal. Rote replication is not the point of the exercise, it’s what you learn in the process.

In other words, Reeves is using this particular contest as an Art School Lesson. The only difference is that in this particular exercise, you’re being asked to creatively insert at least one Breyer Horse into an artwork with a horse in it. As the horse.

That’s actually… a pretty sophisticated idea for a contest. (Claps politely.)

As someone who considers herself an artist in other mediums – primarily quilting – I’ve also found that there isn’t really such a thing as art without limitations: in fact, when presented with every possibility and every conceivable art supply, most people still end up retreading the same topics, techniques and tropes. You are in an invisible box, bound by your previous experiences.

When you’re faced with limitations, you are forced to think outside of that box. That is, to me, the ultimate creative challenge.

Feis

Part of the reason I am not all that into the Diorama Model Feis is that I have no current plans on entering the contest in the first place.

This cosplay idea I’ve been trying to execute is frustrating me literally every step of the way – supplies missing, orders canceled, pieces lost from patterns – and so throwing myself into another project whose end result is bound to frustrate me has no appeal at all.

Yes, the lineup is pinto-heavy this year, but the pinto part doesn’t bother me. The fact that it’s a Jeanne Mellin Herrick mold doesn’t bug me either – in fact, one of the articles I’m prepping to write for this year’s Sampler is a discussion of her work for Breyer.

No, I have two other, completely unrelated aesthetic reasons I’m not all that into the Diorama Prize model Feis.

First, as I’ve discussed before, I’m just not into Buckskin Pintos in general. I do admire how well done it is, though: instead of simple streaks, the intricate mane masking gives us a real sense of hair twisting and tangling in the breeze, and the color itself is very similar to the well-received Buttermilk Buckskin Bollywood Surprise from a few years back.

Second: it’s another Draft Horse, in a thematic year that should almost be pony-obsessive. I know there are still several more items to be revealed that will (or should) make up that deficit, but at this point it’s becoming almost comical.

As you might have noticed, Reeves has been using either older molds, or molds unsuitable for live showing for their Diorama Contest prizes recently: Haflinger, Buckshot, Boomerang, El Pastor. Many of these molds have been used for releases or entire lines designed to appeal to a younger crowd, which may be the point of selecting them for this contest, entirely.

But personally, if I had to go with an older mold, or even another Jeanne Mellin Herrick mold, I would have preferred Roemer or Pluto. (And I am extremely relieved it’s not the Fell Pony Emma. So, so relieved.)

So yeah, this one isn’t lighting a fire in my belly, and I am fine with that. I still might enter, depending on what shakes out with my plans for the next few months (i.e. if the Comicon the costume is for gets canceled or postponed), but I am definitely not going to sweat it, regardless. 

Cavalcade of Trivia

The Diorama Prize model is a Haflinger named Cavalcade:

Should have guessed when I saw it was Chestnut. The majority of the Traditional Haflinger’s releases have been some shade of Chestnut or Palomino! Some of them quite lovely, but still… some form of Chestnut.

Though this one does appear to be the same shade we saw on the generally well-received Clock Saddlebred Muir Woods last month.

It’s hard to believe, but Cavalcade marks the fourth production BreyerFest Special Run Traditional Haflinger. It’s had more BreyerFest releases than legit pony fan favorites like the Cantering Welsh Pony, the Pony of the Americas, and even Misty.

In fact, this marks the second time the Haflinger has been used as a BreyerFest contest prize, the first being the Gloss Red Dun awarded to the winners of a “Design a Breyer Sceptre” Contest in 2005, one of the early precursors to the Diorama Contest.

Back then they didn’t have age categories, they didn’t require a Breyer item incorporated in the final product, and they had only had a handful of rules that were mostly ignored anyway.

I also remember that one being judged in the dark. (Sometimes I still think they do…)

The Haflinger has also been a Live Show Prize (2012 Youth Show), and a very pretty Flaxen Chestnut Pinto Ticket Special named Buckaroo in 2013.

What the model is, of course, has no bearing on whether or not I enter the contest, though I am happy it’s not something that would make me really wince and try too hard, like a Fell Pony, or the short-tailed version of the Pony of the Americas.

As the BreyerFest blog post notes, the name Cavalcade is in reference to the “parade” aspect of this year’s contest theme. In fact, per the online Merriam-Webster:

When cavalcade was first used in English, it meant "a horseback ride" or "a march or raid made on horseback."

But wait, there’s more. Horse-wise, Cavalcade was the name of the 1934 Kentucky Derby winner and the name of a vintage horse-racing-themed board game (the latter is a steeplechase game, and doesn’t seem directly related to the former, but I am not a board game expert here).

Comic book-wise, there were two well-known comic book titles that used the name Cavalcade, both published by DC Comics. The first was Comic Cavalcade, which was a Golden Age anthology series that began as a mostly-Superhero book and ended in the 1950s as a Funny Animals title.

The second was the legendary/notorious Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, a two-issue “series” that was published in 1978 to maintain/secure the copyrights to a bunch of titles that were abruptly canceled (it’s a long story). Only 40 copies were published – a Micro Run! – and aside from its rarity, it’s best known for the first appearance of the superhero Vixen, a member of the Justice League who can conjure the powers of any animal past or present.

And here y’all thought the name didn’t fit the theme. With a little research, you can make anything fit!

Even More Bays!

And the Bays keep coming!

The second release on the new Spirit Boomerang mold, as the Diorama Prize called Win, Place or Show.

When they mentioned “little guy” in the teaser for the Diorama Prize they posted last week, I was expecting something more along the lines of the old #36 Racehorse mold.

That mold is actually “little”, relatively speaking, to the other Traditionals he usually gets lumped together with. And something I thought would make an ideal prize model, since as much as I want it, a larger release of the primitive little Racehorse mold seems unlikely. (Unless they have something Decorator-y planned for the Pop-Up Store. Perish the thought!)

On the other hand, I was just wondering when the next release of the Boomerang mold was going to be. I’m rather fond of him – he seems like a sweet and happy kind of fella – and was looking forward to seeing him in a more realistically rendered color. I have nothing against his cartoon eyebrows personally, I just wanted see what he would look like with a little more shading and detail.

Glossy Dark Dappled Bay? Why Reeves, why did you have to put one of my favorite colors on him? Just when I thought I could get maybe away with not entering the Diorama Contest this year!

You know my luck with the Diorama Contest in recent years has not been so keen. In fact, it’s been mighty terrible. I honestly think I have a better shot at the Early Bird Raffle Prize Riddle (3 out of 3000+ entries) than I do with getting this guy (7 out of 100-150 entries).

For most of us in the Adult category (20-up) the Diorama Contest is the most vexing of all BreyerFest competitions. I’ve been busting my behind for years with increasingly elaborate and detailed dioramas, all for naught.

If I had a dollar every time someone told me “But I thought for sure you were sure to win…” I might actually have enough to buy one second hand, if I did that sort of thing.

What BreyerFest prep I have done so far (not much, to be honest) hasn’t involved anything Diorama-related. I have ideas, but not the enthusiasm. As I have said before, I was toying with the idea of not doing it all.

I’ve had other things to keep me busy, too: for the next couple of weeks, in addition to finishing my tax paperwork, sentimental dork me will be finishing up several years’ worth of old BreyerFest memory boxes that have been cluttering up my office.

Like the Exclusive Event in Scottsdale, it’ll be a little while more before I can really put more serious thought into it.