What’s the Fuss?

Is it the heat? I don’t normally expect a high level of discourse on the Internet, but dang it, it’s like everyone’s jacked up the crazy over the past few days. (The comments on Breyer’s web site forum and Facebook page … ‘nuff said, right?)

My theory: all the people who’d normally be outside shouting at random strangers on street corners decided to stay indoors and shout on the Internet instead.

I know I’m feeling a little more agitated than average today, but I’ve been chalking that up to a lack of sleep, due to the idiot neighbor who is abusing the recent changes in the fireworks laws around here.

(Vita don’t like it, either. Which contributes to the problem.)

My Salt and Pepper have arrived, and they are quite lovely. The packaging was a huge improvement - double boxed, individually bagged, and with a little extra packing paper, too. (See? Again, they really are listening.) I think mine have a touch more of the "fake overspray" than most, but I’m digging it all the same.

I also noticed that they might have done a little bit of tweaking on both the Mare and Foal molds; I can’t quite pinpoint the differences yet, other than the mold marks being switched out for the newer one, which might have happened earlier but I haven’t noticed since I haven’t bought a new Running Mare or Foal in a while.

(Note to self: I need to track these mold mark switches better. Also, work on my run-on sentence problem.)

And Reeves was most definitely trying to reproduce the Western Prancing Horse color on them; it even says so right on the Certificate of Authenticity:

"Our exclusive Club mare and foal feature limited edition glossy black and white pinto markings reminiscent of the retro Western Prancing Horse."

The gloss is a little bit thicker than the finish on the old Western Prancers, and there’s a little bit of body shading reminiscent of Charcoals in the black areas, but both of those changes were made, I think, to add a little bit of richness to the finish.

Besides, an exact reproduction of this finish would be pretty darn difficult, for all sorts of reasons. For instance, creating an old-fashioned painting mask, like they used to use (prior to the laser-cut stickers) would have been cost-prohibitive. There aren’t a lot people who can - or will - do that sort of detail work anymore.

(I wonder what happened to all those old painting masks/stencils? Another thing I haven’t given much thought to.)

I also consider the fact that they went with such an offbeat vintage color quite encouraging: I can only hope that one of my favorite vintage colors - the Black Splash Spot Leopard, also seen on the Western Prancing Horse - is somewhere on the horizon.