Peeling Away

Well, the stuff I had wasn’t working so great on the rash, so I had to take a trip to Urgent Care yesterday to get something stronger - a shot in the tuches and some nasty-tasting medication. I’m already feeling better; luckily for me, I have an extremely efficient metabolism when it comes to drugs.

(Almost too efficient, actually: I used to think it was because I was very fond of grapefruit juice, but cutting them out of my diet didn’t help one way or another. Fortunately, I have a couple of days off here to deal with any additional weirdness that may come up.)

Yes, purple horse is awesome. Normally I’d already have it stripped and evaluated by now, but I really am taken by the idea of incorporating him, as-is, into a Joseph Cornell-style assemblage. Here are a couple of links to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, if the name still doesn’t ring a bell:

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/

By collecting and carefully juxtaposing found objects in small, glass-front boxes, Cornell created visual poems in which surface, form, texture, and light play together. Using things we can see, Cornell made boxes about things we cannot see: ideas, memories, fantasies, and dreams.

And also (warning: the text here is a bit overripe - a common problem in art history writing):

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=48419

The Family Foal that needed to be stripped already is; the paint job underneath is rough enough that I’m considering stripping it to the bare plastic for research purposes. You can see so much more of the molding history of a model once the distraction of the paint job is eliminated, and as I’ve discussed before, the Family Foal has an fascinating and complex history of mold revisions.

The chance of finding a true factory original blank of this vintage is very, very slim, and the painted versions are just common enough to not bother me "destroying" one. Not in the same way I get squicked out by some hobbyists going to town on limited release models that haven’t been released as regular runs yet.

Someone wanted to see the "Neiman Marcus" Longhorn, and here he is:


Just a #384 Texan Longhorn Bull with his brand marks removed, and a Neiman Marcus logo handpainted on (in black enamel). It’s not real obvious in the picture, but it’s very obvious in person. It’s another excellent example of why you shouldn’t base you buying decisions solely on photographs. As someone who was once considered an expert-level user of Photoshop, take it from me: you should be very wary of trusting any online photographs, period.

(Note: I try to keep my digital manipulation to a minimum here - basically to compensate for my complete and somewhat ironic lack of actual photography skills. I'll lighten for detail or contrast, color correct to compensate for inadequate lighting, or add a little extra sharpening for my shaky hands.)

And which is also why I’m rolling my eyes at the kerfuffle on Blab over the photographs of the Fall Release of the Rocky Mountain Horse on El Pastor. How many times do we have to go over this? Fact: we have known for years that we can’t trust the photographs Reeves puts out ahead of their releases. If it’s not quality of the photo, it’s the quality of the editing.

I saw the actual, three-dimensional sample of the Rocky Mountain Horse at BreyerFest, and I thought he was beautiful. In fact, I think he was the only item on the table on Thursday that made me make "grabby hands" motions. Looked just like that Collector’s Choice Chocolate Ethereal, except for the absence of gloss. If they look like that, and I find a nice one at the same semi-local farm store where I found those Zenyattas, it’s coming home with me. This is coming from someone who’s not really "in the market" for current regular runs.

Time to lotion myself up and hit the sack.