Showing, Not Telling

So I go away for a few days to deal with some stuff, and this is what I come back to?

Look, I absolutely detest the concept of both-siderism – the notion that in certain arguments and situations that everyone is equally awful – because 99 percent of the time, it’s not only is it intellectually lazy, it is also almost universally untrue. 

But let us all agree that both in-person and online BreyerFest attendees have the capability of being either terrible people, terrible to their fellow hobbyists, or both. 

I doubt there is a solution to the Special Run distribution problem that will satisfy everyone. We can make things better, but we can’t make it perfect. I’d like to think that what I proposed last time isn’t necessarily “the” solution, but might lead to some improvements. 

I am still working on my dissertation on the Best Customs Contest, but technical and work-related difficulties are holding me up yet again, with a little bit of bad weather thrown in. I’m hoping everything is better by Tuesday. 

(Laughs nervously.) 

To compensate, here’s a picture of the model that won me the Gloss RD Marciea Bey at BreyerFest Live this year: my Chalky Dapple Gray Hanoverian, who I bought directly from Horses International way back in 1986!

His name is Counter Espionage: that was his original name when I showed him in the 1980s, and I saw no reason to change it. I had gotten some advanced intel on him before he was officially released, and college-age me thought it was an oh-so-clever play on words.

(Countertops, get it? I know, just terrible....)

Since there are not any local live shows around here in the next couple of months, my heart wants me to enter the Online Open Show, but my brain is telling me otherwise; I’ll wait and see how this week pans out before I make that decision. 

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.