Seen and Unseen

I’ve spent most of my extended weekend off working on my taxes; it’s always a surprise to me just how many horses I buy and sell every year. Good thing I find so much of my stuff locally, and cheap. (Less than a month to go until flea market season starts, yes!)

Anyway, let’s get back to a topic I’ve been meaning to get to all week: BreyerWest. It seemed to go pretty much as I expected. I did think Reeves would throw in at least one little surprise – the intro of another BreyerFest SR, or maybe even a raffle or token SR of some sort – but they kept it fairly modest, with warehouse leftovers as various gifts and prizes, and a preview of most (but not all) of the up-to-then-announced Special Runs.

No sample of the new Mangalarga Marchador mold was present, painted or unpainted, which I chalk up to the fact that the mold is brand new and is likely still being tweaked a bit for production.

This shouldn’t be considered an unusual or troubling development; think about all the instances of “stand-ins” for new molds that occurred in holiday mail-order catalogs, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Thinking about it a bit more, the timelines aren't even all that different.

I’m not sure why the Dag Dia or the Hermosa/Corazon set weren’t there either, though. While most of us are quick to assume that technical issues may have been to blame, it could have just as easily been Oops, forgot that box.

The only true “surprise” of the event for me was that, upon seeing her sample, a number of hobbyists walked away with a much more favorable opinion of Namid.

A lot of criticism has been made of the Forever Saige’s neck, which has been described as “giraffe-like”. I didn’t recall getting that impression when I first read the article about her on the Breyer web site, so I went back and took a second look at the photos. Here:

http://www.breyerhorses.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=7832

Her neck doesn’t seem out of proportion in the original sculpt in gray primer. The proportions do seem a little odd in the Premier Club release, but I think that’s a consequence of the extended Appaloosa blanket. With Namid’s solid paint job, that consequence disappears.

Theoretically, every model horse should look equally good regardless of the “clothes” it wears, but any customizer can tell you that’s simply not so. Some models look better in some colors or patterns than others, and sometimes just the right markings or color can hide any number of conformational sins.

Think about all the times you’ve reconsidered a mold once the right color, finish, pattern or markings are applied. The San Domingo mold, for instance, looks better to me in a Pinto or Appaloosa pattern, while I tend to prefer solid colors for models with strong silhouettes, like Salinero.

All I hope for is that this reconsideration doesn’t translate into a “Sorry, no Namid for you” moment in July.