Color Shifts

We had the mold for the Pop-Up Store Stablemate figured out all along, but the color is an… interesting choice:

Color shifting purple and green? Okay, sure. I still think painting it to look exactly like a mini Alborozo would have been a better choice, but there could have been some legal issues that probably made it problematic, so I can respect that.

It’s funny, but I am not as enthused about color shift paint jobs as other hobbyists are. I don’t actively dislike them, but I find them kind of simplistic. There is not a lot of artistry to it: the fancy paint does most of the work of shading and color mixing on its own.

The first true Color Shift production run was the 2010 Just About Horses Special Run Gambler’s Choice Mirror Image/Reflector, on the Lonesome Glory mold.

My history with that release reflects (no pun intended!) my ambivalence about the paint itself. I bought one in the initial offering, and got Mirror Image; he really didn’t do anything for me, so I sold him a short time later. Not long after that, I found another boxed one in the NPOD at BreyerFest – and when I opening it up, it turned out to be Reflector!

I liked him a little bit better – if you’re going to go weird, go weird all the way! He hung around a little bit longer than the Mirror Image, but even he got sold, eventually.

When it comes to Lonesome Glory Special Runs, my heart belongs to more realistic releases, like Red Rum or Phar Lap. I suppose the Perlino version of the 2015 BreyerFest Surprise Model Quelle Surprise also falls into that category, though just barely. (The realism part, not the wanting part: I still totally want him.)

If I want something in the Decorator family, give me something straight up pearly or metallic! What’s nice about those types of paints is that they can be used either for the outright fantastical – like the current crop of Unicorn releases – or used to give an other ordinary color a wonderful extra pop, like that gorgeous light blue iridescent sheen on last year’s BreyerFest Celebration Horse Brass Hat.

While I will still be looking to add a “Sarge” to my BreyerFest tab, the way my schedule is shaping up, it doesn’t look I’ll be able to swing by a store at a time early enough for them to still be in stock at one of the Pop-Up Stores – unless they plan on making a boatload more of them than they usually do.