The Expected, and The Unexpected

It’s interesting to me that of the two BreyerFest Raffle items, it’s the Duende North Star that intrigues me more – perhaps because it was slightly unexpected?

Only slightly – Straight Bet was one of the more popular items at BreyerFest last year. What I didn’t expect was that they’d follow up with another BreyerFest release of Duende a year later, also in a Glossy Solid colorway.

He reminds me of two previous BreyerFest releases: the 2011 Diorama Prize Model Happily Ever After, on the Justin Morgan mold, and the 2000 Raffle Model Showboat, on the Stretched Morgan mold. The previous I didn’t win, but the latter I did!

Will lightning strike again? Considering the two times I won the Costume Contest, both prizes were Solid Glossy Bays, it would be fitting and appropriate that the Glossy Dapple Gray North Star could be my second Raffle win.

But I don’t buy that many tickets, and I wouldn’t consider myself one of the lucky people who wins regardless of the number of tickets I buy.

Some folks seem to be a bit “meh” on his color, but like most of the recent solid releases, he’ll probably look amazing in person. It’s a modern, updated version of Smoke, but with Dappling, Gloss, and a Pearlized mane and tail.

(Yes, I know, there’s that Ranchcraft Gloss Smoke Belgian Lamp that proves that Gloss Smoke was once a thing! But it appears to have been a one-off of mysterious origins, so I still think the jury’s out on that one.)

North Star also appeals to me because I think I might have a marginally better shot at winning him compared to the Sunday Raffle pieces Valour & Honour, on the new (and not-yet-released) Premier Club Welsh Mare and Foal by Josine Vingerling.

That’s partly because that’s one that was… expected? A lot of hobbyists were speculating that this set would end up as a Raffle or Prize of some sort. The only really eyebrow-raising thing about them is that they’re Appaloosa.

Incidentally, both Raffle prizes are only tangentially related to comic books. Marvel’s Northstar was a Québécois superhero who was a member of the Canadian team Alpha Flight; Valo(u)r was a name Legion of Super-Heroes member Mon-el adopted after one of the team’s many reboots, though he’s since gone back to being Mon-el.

I doubt either one is intentional; Northstar’s never been seen on the big screen, and Mon-el’s stint at Valor was relatively brief.