All for G4

I am such a dork. Look at what just arrived in the mail:


NIP (new, in package) with a 1982 copyright date!

More proof that my obsession with Breyer History has probably ruined my ability to enter Collector Classes forever. ("Before judging, please note that the Corral is considered part of my entry. Five page dissertation and bibliography included.")

I love how the label mentions "HORSES NOT INCLUDED." What kind of horses would someone reasonably expect to find in such a package? Something inflatable? Paper Dolls/Standees? Those little spongey "grows in water" critters you find at the dollar store? Cellulose Acetate does absorb water, but not quite that much.

I did buy some actual horses recently: the WEG Stablemates. I bought them during the Black Friday Weekend sale on Shopatron a couple of weeks ago. $15 for a set of 8, including the itty-bitty blanket? Couldn’t pass that up! I bought a Cedric, too, because I still didn’t have a Show Jumping Warmblood in the collection. I know he’s a "regular run" item for next year, but I figured the $30 price tag was about the best price I’d find him at, at least in the short term.

(What I’d really like is an Inconspicuous, but that ain’t gonna happen. A Mon Gamin would be nice, too, but that’s someone I need to handpick.)

Back to the Stablemates. I had seen the G4s before, but I hadn’t had the chance to examine them up close, in person and out of package. After spending the day admiring them, I do have to wonder what all the fuss was about.

There are a few minor issues I have with them. The Driving Horse has thicker than necessary legs, the mane and tail on the Endurance horse are ropey and a little crude, and the barrels on the Dressage and Para Dressage Horses are a bit on the heavy and undefined side.

Other than that, though, these little fellows are really nicely modeled. Their hooves even have frogs! And they have so much personality - I just want to hug that big, drafty Para Dressage Horse:


The Vaulting Horse is much, much better in person too, like a lighter version of the G1 Love Draft Horse. And dare I say it - I think the G4’s head and neck are more expressive than the G1’s. (And before you get your breeches in a bunch, yes, I have seen crisply detailed, early run casts of the G1 Drafter. So there.)


The fault lies, as usual, with whatever photographer or photographers Reeves is utilizing. How they manage to capture the least appealing angle of every model is a wonder for the ages. I will forgive them a little on the Vaulting Horse: the bay roan paint job was a good idea on paper - and good on larger scale models, in practice - but that particular style of roaning just doesn’t work on Stablemates. The way it was applied obliterated some of his finer features.

Not his manhood, though. I certainly wasn’t expecting that part of the anatomy to be so, umm, detailed. Almost to the point of naughtiness. The fact that I opened them late at night, by myself, in the privacy of my basement office only added to my discomfort.

A Few Words about the G4s

The new G4 Stablemates have arrived - and they look better in person than they do in their photos. What a surprise! (Not.)

At least that's what I’ve been able to gather on the Internet. Since I’m not in the market right now, and they’re currently in short supply anyway, it’s probably going to be a while before I get make the more definitive in-person judgment.

I will be covering the leg and detail concerns some hobbyists have been airing about these new molds in the next week or so, but it’ll be in the context of a larger discussion about the injection molding process. That’s a topic I’ve been meaning to cover for a while now anyway; it’s been sitting on my upcoming topic list, just waiting for the appropriate lead-in.

I know some people are trying to read more in to the limited initial release, with some betting that they’ll get pulled like the ill-fated Play Mat Stock Horse. I’m not getting that vibe; I think any problems they’re having with the new molds are from them rushing them into production, not from anything inherent in the molds themselves.

And for the record, I don’t know exactly what was wrong with the original Play Mat Stock Horse, other than the original shipment also not being up to snuff qualitatively. I hope they’re able to resolve whatever the problem was, because I kinda liked him. He reminded me a little bit of the JCP SR resin "Piper," who is one of the few Breyer Nonplastics I wouldn’t mind adding to my herd in its original form. (The lovely Rose Hambletonian and Tally Ho are among the others.)

I haven’t picked up the original Play Mat Stock Horse yet either. There’s a local toy store that does - or at least, did - have a few of them in stock recently. I didn’t feel like spending all that money on the set, though, and I’m not one of those hobbyists who buys a gift set, takes the horse, and tries to sell off the "chaff" to make up for it. The purist in me likes to keep my sets complete, regardless of what I think of the accessories.

(The Elegance Set breakups I’ve been seeing really boggle my mind - any model I invest that much money in is keeping all the stuff it comes with!)

I know that’s not an option for everyone. The most logical solution would be to replace the models in question with a more common variation of the same mold and sell or give the "reconfigured" set away that way.

The only problem with that is that most charitable organizations won’t accept toys that have been opened. There must be a workaround somewhere; I know there’s been some effort to "pay it forward" at venues like BreyerFest, with the goal of rehoming otherwise hard-to-sell horses with younger hobbyists or potential hobbyists.

I’m not normally a big advocate of PIF (especially how it's been playing out in the model horse community - as an unseemly show of grabby hands) but anything that encourages more people to participate in the hobby is fine by me.

2010 Previews and Stuff

It looks like I'll start the year with a truly clean slate: there was honest-to-goodness dusting performed in the office yesterday! I have no idea what got into me; I'll chalk it up to work avoidance and the absence of a cat to vacuum.

The work avoidance issue: dealing with the big black hole that is my research data entry slush pile. I'm always incorporating new data into my files, but not at the same rate that I research it. Then I find some unexpected lead, and off I am again on some other crazy topic. I think I'll probably spend most of my free time in the beginning of the new year dealing with the consequences of that foolishness. (In addition to working on the nascent hobby advocacy movement that seems to be coming into being – finally!)

The new year is almost here, and photos of the 2010 releases are already being floated about, and analyzed to death. I'm not going to be one of those people today: we should all know by now that it's not a good idea to judge a Breyer horse by its stock photo. Especially the new G4 Stablemates; it's pretty clear that a number of those photos are of prototypes, and not to be trusted. The two resin prototypes we had a sneak peek at BreyerFest this year looked just fine and dandy in person, and I suspect that most of the rest will be, too. There might be a clunker or two, but it's nothing worth fretting over until we have them in hand.

I'm glad to see a new Nokota and a new Peruvian, though – now there's a couple of favorite molds that might make me break my vows of model horse austerity. The Treasure Hunt Othellos are very nice – I like the mold a lot, but I'm not sure I like him enough to participate. I may reconsider, depending on the color and quality of the redemption horse. (Gloss Charcoal = YES! Another shade of gray = meh, not so much.)

I have a lot of reservations about the Breast Cancer Benefit horse. Normally I'd be attempting cartwheels at the thought of a mass-market transparent Traditional-scale horse; one of my few, true model horse grails is to track down and possess the Transparent Belgian I once saw in Marney Walerius's basement. I have all of the other transparent, or mostly transparent Breyer releases, except for the unaffordable Connoisseur Tortuga.

Benefit horses of any kind are good; I just wish it could have been targeted towards an orphan cancer that doesn't quite get the same level of funding or media attention.

You know, like pancreatic cancer.

Hell yeah, it's personal. Some of you may know, but others do not: I lost my Dad to pancreatic cancer almost two years ago. PC has a 5% survival rate after five years; we had 28 days, which is not untypical. There hasn't been much research done, because there's no money in it: there are virtually no survivors to campaign for it.

Now that they have the painting template for it, we can hope that maybe the idea will carry through to other causes, in other colors. (PC's color is purple.) And at least with PC, there would be a logical connection of the horse to the cause: Patrick Swayze was an Arabian horse breeder and enthusiast. I think there's even some footage of him competing at the Kentucky Horse Park on YouTube somewhere.

(And intriguingly, the Tempur-Pedic company is also doing a PC fundraising effort with a limited-edition teddy bear: their headquarters just happens to be in Lexington, Kentucky. BreyerFest attendees would much appreciate some comfy mattresses in a nap station in the Covered Arena, dontcha think?)