Smoking Hot

Another rough week, over with.

Finished doing the purge today - and it wasn’t quite as drastic as I thought, or hoped for. I did not expect to be so unreasonably attached to certain molds, for one thing (the Cantering Welsh Pony? Really?)

But the process is as done as it’s going to be, except for the selling. I am most definitely not welcoming that; I’m contemplating on the wisdom of getting a table at the swap meet this year instead of dealing with all the fuss and bother of eBay or MH$P.

Of course, now I have the immediate issue of where I’m going to store all of my "new" sales items. It’s only going to get worse, now that the flea market season is almost upon us, too. While I’ve been pretty good about staying out of the stores and off of eBay, I feel like I have a moral obligation to rescue any lost little equine souls I happen to find there.

I’ll just have to postpone worrying about it until it actually becomes an issue. I have enough real problems to deal with at the moment.

So Reeves announced the QuarterFest and BreyerWest SRs: the Gloss Dapple Gray Lady Phase "Smokin Hot Chic" and the light chestnut/dark palomino El Pastor "Escondido," respectively. They both seem quite nice, given the photographs they’ve provided. I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be adding either to my herd due to the ongoing space issues, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of the two, I’d pick the El Pastor over the Lady Phase; I have a soft spot for the Spanish Breeds, and I already have the earlier version of the Dapple Gray Lady Phase, with black points and the resist dapples. A second dapple gray would be nice, but not a necessity.

Here’s a nifty old file photo of the real El Pastor, from the October 1969 issue of Western Horseman. The similarity of the El Pastor mold to this photograph (right down to the swish of his tail!) makes me wonder if Chris Hess used this photo as one of his sculpting references.


I have to say I’ve been quite amused by the frenzied online reaction to the Lady Phase: it sort of reminded me of the good ol’ days of JAH, when they still ran classifieds. Whenever someone wrote an article about a particular mold or model, the next two or three issues would be filled with want ads begging for the featured model. (Sometimes quite literally: "If you have any free models, send them to me!" ads were just as much a nuisance then as now.)

It makes me wonder if one of the factors influencing the online frenzy is the same absence of information that drove the desires found in the JAH classifieds. You’d think that with all of the information available online, that hobbyists would be somewhat more informed about upcoming and current releases, but it’s just not the case. How many times have you seen some new SR or variation discussed to death on some online forum, only to see it brought up a few days or weeks later by a clueless someone who thinks they found something new and mysterious?

(Seriously people, would it kill you to do 30 seconds of research before you post something? Gah!)

The somewhat more muted reaction to the Escondido tells me that most of the crazy for Smokin Hot Chic is it being a combination of "Lady Phase" and "Gloss Finish." I like Lady Phase, but I’m not going to lose my mind if I don’t get one. A lack of space and money tends to reorder your priorities that way.