Sunday, May 30, 2021

On the Hanoverians

I’m giving myself until the end of the weekend – in my case, that would be Tuesday at noon-ish – to “do” my BreyerFest diorama or forget about it completely. I’m limiting myself to bodies and supplies on hand, and the only purchases I’m allowing myself to make for it are paint, brushes, primer and glue, because those are just craft supply basics that are useful to have around anyway.

If something works out, great, if it doesn’t – no harm, no foul. June is going to be much too busy to bother with something that’s been – historically – a mostly futile enterprise for me.

I do really like this year’s prize “Stubbs”, though, a Dunalino on the Hanoverian mold:

I had just been thinking about the Hanoverian mold, and how I don’t actually have that many examples of him: just my original Bay, and the Horses International Chalky Dapple Gray. 

I did have the Your Horse Source Set in Bay, Alabaster, Black and Chestnut, but in addition to also being rather boring colors, they were also both tippy and Shrinkies. There were others, all of whom were deemed either too uninteresting, or too tippy to bother with.

There have been a few exotic colors put on him. Europa was an interesting idea, but one that (I think) ultimately doesn’t quite work, and neither one of the Appaloosa releases really did much for me either. The only one I plan on getting in the near future is the Spiegel Catalog Hanoverian, because if I want another Bay Hanoverian, he’s the prettiest of the bunch, by far.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck with acquiring Breyer Dunalinos – if they’ve been part of Gambler’s Choices I don’t get them, and if they’ve been Web Specials I don’t get drawn for them. And ultimately when I finally did get one – the Web Special Goddess Series Aphrodite – I was so soured on the experience that I eventually sold her anyway.

But I’m going into this contest with absolutely no illusions about it, other than the slim hope that (a) maybe the judges will finally “get” me this year, or (b) some hobbyists will be somewhat disinclined to enter because Stubbs doesn’t meet their expectations for what a Prize model should be. 

I’ve also been dealing with some – let’s call it interesting – drama around here, and the process of chopping and reassembling otherwise unsellable Breyer bodies has been rather liberating. So there’s that to it, too. 

3 comments:

Suzanne said...

His tail...?
The only Hanoverian I have is a Sheik af Hallundbaek that had been badly repositioned. He won't stand at all, and I've given up trying to restore him. I thought the previous owner had tweeked his tail to make it stick out more, but is this just how Breyer is trying to make him flashier?

Unknown said...

I probably won't be bothering to enter since the way they distribute the prizes is so heavily weighted towards the multiple children's divisions. I've seen some entries I'm not entirely certain were done by the age group they said. Of course Breyer has no obligation to hand out more prizes, but it gets expensive to put these things together.

Unknown said...

I just saw they changed up the age groups this year so that's a start!