Triton

The flea market yesterday was a bit of a bust, for a variety of reasons. The past few weeks have been pretty good overall, so I can’t complain too much. Take, for example, a recent Salvation Army store haul:

Yes, that Dachshund is a Hagen-Renaker Brunhilda – with a broken leg and tail, but still a keeper. It’s been a little while since I’ve found an H-R Pedigree Dog, in any condition, and she has a sweet and nicely detailed face. (FWIW, I prefer them “pre-broken” anyway: I am clumsy and it takes the pressure off.)

While most of my most recent purchases will end up on my sales list – because my other rationalization for shopping is “I need inventory!” – nothing I’ve purchased will make me any serious money. Lots of bodies and mid-range Traditionals and Classics; I think the best piece, aside from Brunhilda, was an early and near mint Kelso with no mold mark. (Also not a keeper, but not for sale, yet.)

http://www.breyerhorses.com/triton

Not that there hasn’t been temptation to buy strictly for myself: the Appaloosa Classics Draft Horse Triton who appeared on the Breyer web site recently is adorable. He reminds me a lot of another recent release, the Let’s Go Riding – English Set Appaloosa Pluto:

http://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/images/1409_2014.jpg

I call this painting technique “splash dotting” as opposed to “splash spotting” because the spots look like dots. Reeves developed this technique – basically a much slower and more controlled splattering – to reduce the incidence of streaky spots that used to plague Dappled and Appaloosa paint jobs in the 1970s and 1980s.

Unfortunately, it turned out that this technique wasn’t any more realistic that the original splash-spotting: streaks were replaced with a handful of randomly scattered polka dots.

It looks like with the release of Triton – who is also Gloss, with metallic blue ribbons – Reeves may be acknowledging and embracing splash dotting as another technique in their Decorator arsenal, just as they now have with the original Freckle Red Roans and the Matte Shaded Resist Dapple Grays of the 1970s.

Those latter two colors, incidentally, were among the earliest attempts by Breyer to create more “realistic” paintjobs, per hobbyist demand. While they might not be realistic by today’s standards, they are still appealing on both a decorative and nostalgic level.

So yeah, bring on the polka-dotted ponies! (Just not right now for me, I need to buy some new tires soon.)