Ugh, I am 100 percent over the weather this week. I am absolutely not leaving the house this weekend if I don’t have to.
(I don’t have to.)
The Volunteer application is up, and there’s only a twenty-day window to apply. So, go forth and apply, if you’re so inclined. Thumbs up, would recommend the experience…
Speaking of new experiences, after surviving my brush with death earlier this week, I decided to do this after all:
I went with a half table because of space issues: I still have a lot of sales stuff to bring with me again this year, so I genuinely don’t have the room for a lot of Traditionals anyway. It will also help keep me from blowing up my showstring beyond a manageable amount: I want this to be a fun experience, not a stressful one. (This is also why I chose not to do a Collector’s Class.)
As long as there are no other weather-related catastrophes, I should be able to go through my Stablemates stash for viable candidates for BVG Live over the weekend – and from there, I can figure out who and what to bring to BF Live.
(I already have the Collectibility stuff for BVG Live kinda-sorta figured out, except for the paperwork. You know that’s my happy place, yo…)
I need to get to bed early today – the chaotic weather and post-apocalyptic driving conditions ate away at my soul this week – but here’s a little model horse content: I finally opened up my Ponies & Palm Trees Strapless Sarong!
And as I feared, I got a real pretty one with nice dapples and everything. Nuts! I need less stuff, not more. Maybe I’ll show her at BVG Live and see how she does before I make a decision. I’m thinking Hungarian Warmblood, maybe?
3 comments:
Can I ask a question as someone who was out of the model horse hobby for two decades: why are people so enamored of models like Strapless, the Cleavland Bay and Geronimo? I admit to having purchased a TSC Blue because I don't mind the mold so much as a decorator but the other two aren't tempting to me at all, especially for the second hand prices they go for. All three molds come off as cartoony, not as cartoony as the Spirit mold but still, I don't get it. Do they look better in person? Do they show well? Is it just me that these models look off to?
Just out of genuine curiosity, what is it about these molds that seems "off" to you?
All three of these molds are relatively recent additions to Breyer's lineup, and as such they're stylistically quite different from earlier releases, especially when compared to the Chris Hess sculpts. I personally really like the Cleveland Bay. The Strapless is highly thought of as it was a portrait model of a Danish Warmblood mare, and frequently does well in performance; she can be successfully shown as any of several different breeds. Same with Geronimo, who can represent any number of stock breeds quite well.
A lot of it boils down to personal taste and preferences. I find Geronimo's back a bit too short, for example, and the mold just doesn't do anything for me, so I don't have any; the Strapless is lovely, but in practice she's extremely tippy and I try to avoid tippy models. On the other hand, the Cleveland Bay seems like a good-hearted sturdy fellow, and the variety of mane styles he's available in makes for a versatile mold. I also don't show performance -- I pretty much just collect and do some photo-showing, so that also colors my opinions.
For me, with Strapless it's all in the head, from her topline looking overly long at the poll to the general angles in the sculpt of the head. It almost looks as if her poll is in front of her ears. Without that I think the mold is lovely. With a nice elastic looking trot compared to most models I can see why she would be popular with the performance showers and maybe with a bridle the head is less angular in appearance? It's hard to find photos that aren't full profiles so she's something I would want to see and hold before I would commit to buying her.
For the Cleveland Bay all I can see are his proportions. His head and neck look too small for the body, his legs look too long, specifically the hind cannons, they just go on forever.
He's long in the toe too but that I can kind of overlook, some farriers do actually trim horses that way for reasons I can't fathom but it adds to the proportion problem in my eyes. He does look better to me with the braided mane than the loose and in general he looks better in darker, muted colors to me but overall the mold looks awkward.
Geronimo really only looks good from the front with his head angled toward you. For him it's an overall lack of definition I guess, the mold is almost too smooth to look real. I have Blue, and I like him but mostly because I like the paint job. He reminds me in a way of the Stone Ideal Stock Horse, looks fantastic on one side, looks weird on the other, actually a lot of the Stone models have the same problem. I love the Stone Irish Draught but only his left side, for some reason in right profile his legs look way too short.
I tend to wonder if these molds were sculpted from just one or two reference photos and the photos chosen weren't from the best angles themselves causing a warped frame of view. Not dissimilar to how stud photos are taken with the horse in profile but their hind end angled just slightly into the camera and if possible uphill from the head to make the hindquarters look larger and more powerful.
I will say that until I saw recent photos of Bolero on the Triple Mountain site I did not understand people's obsession with the Fireheart mold either. Maybe it's that paint job, maybe it was the photos Eleda took, but him I now get.
The old Chris Hess sculpts are hit and miss for me, I like the Classics better than the Traditionals. The Moody sculpts were just starting to be released when I stopped collecting and they're nice, less real than the Hess sculpts but with more soul for lack of a better word, Huckleberry Bey I love, Cigar has that same cartoonish, over exaggerated feel which saddened me because I was an enormous fan of him. I like most of the new Eberl sculpts, I think her Nikolas scaled up to full Traditional would make a perfect Cigar; I love Dundee, Theo and Adamek because I feel they perfectly blend realism and spirit in three different ways.
Post a Comment