Animal Print Decorators

I love Okapis, so I kind of dig the premiere model in the Wild Animal Series, Kehinde:

The Wildlife Animal Series is an obvious replacement to the annually-released Big Cat Series, which had run its course – and out of “Big Cats” to depict (even though it’s technically not a “Big Cat”, I was kind of hoping they’d manage to work a Caracal into the mix.)

Like the Big Cats Series, which was inspired by the 2012 Passage to the Pacific Stablemate Hear Me Roar, the kernel of the idea for the Wild Animal Series was undoubtedly another Exclusive Event model, the 2011 Sunshine Celebration Everglades on the Nokota Horse mold.

I thought he was kind of neat, but he was definitely a polarizing release: either you loved him, or you hated him. Another animal-themed Traditional release a year later, the Passage to the Pacific’s Fighting Stallion Star of India, left me cold. I liked the general concept, and wanted to love the model, but the execution just didn’t work for me at all.

I am assuming that, like the Big Cat Series, this new series will be an annual one, with releases timed for early Fall. The theme is sufficiently vague enough to allow for a wide range of releases: pretty much any animal print you can think of, from birds to snakes to fish…

… though it seems pretty obvious (or should be) that the next release should/will be a Giraffe on the Forever Saige mold. Technically her neck isn’t as long or out of proportion as a lot of people say it is, but the pose itself is very giraffe-like, so I wouldn’t necessarily object.

Though I’d love to see a Blue Jay-themed Silver/Pegasus, an Oryx on the Unicorn version of Yasmin (obviously!) or a Koi Fish anything.

Kehinde is a really unusual concept, well-executed, and I certainly wouldn’t mind adding one to my herd. Props to the designer Karen Williams for making me seriously want a release on a mold (the Clock Saddlebred) that I am not predisposed to liking in the first place!

But my office is still a mess and I still haven’t gotten around to finishing up my BreyerFest paperwork, so I am okay with not getting one: I am all about minimizing my workload this Fall. I will probably just put in my obligatory single entry and see what happens.