In A Gadda Dag Dia

I’ll admit I’ve been tempted to put my Novelisto D up for sale; the resale prices for that release have been impressive, to say the least. But now I know why I hesitated: I now have to complete a matching set with his Evil Twin, Dag Dia!

Think about it: Dag Dia is Listo’s opposite in every way -

• Solid Black, instead of Solid White
• Mane Down, instead of Mane Up
• Tail Down, instead of Tail Up
• Feathered Legs, instead of Clean

Did you know that there are 8 different possible mane-tail-leg combos for the Brishen-Laredo mold? I was curious one day and plotted it all out, labeling the parts that first appeared on Brishen as “A” and what appeared on Laredo as “B”. (Brishen is “A” because he came first, naturally.)

Most of the previous production releases on this mold have stuck to the same two combos: the upswept mane, tail and feathered legs of Brishen (“AAA”), or the braided mane, lowered tail, and clean legs of Laredo (“BBB”).

Using this system, that makes Novelisto an “AAB” and Dag Dia a “BBA”. Four down, four more combos to go! (Illustrating all eight combos might make for a fun Photoshop project for someone. Just saying.)

The other two known BreyerFest 2016 releases aren’t too shabby either – the Celebration Horse is a new sculpt by Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig, and the Early Bird Special is a Smarty Jones Polo Pony in what I think is supposed to be a cornspotted Bay Roan.

I’ll reserve judgment of the Celebration Horse until I see one in person. Breyer photos, as you all should well know by now, are a terrible indicator of what the production pieces will look like: the color is usually wrong, and sloppy Photoshop clipping paths (used to cut the model out of the background) end up distorting the model’s actual contours beyond the point of usefulness.
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It is interesting that the third release of the Smarty Jones Polo Pony Mold Variation is another very limited BreyerFest Special Run, with the previous being the 2012 Saturday Raffle model Carlisle. There are even fewer of Polomar (3) than Carlisle, so I’ll likely have to wait a little longer to add a Smarty-Pony to the herd.

(My standards may be more lax than most, but even I had a hard time finding a Santiago that didn’t make me sigh deeply and walk away.)

BTW, for you whippersnappers who don’t get the title reference, grab yourself a bag of chips and a cold beverage of your choice, and enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIVe-rZBcm4

Tesoro de Oro

Another day, another Special Run on the Breyer web site …

Tesoro de Oro is not really a surprise; we had a sneak peak of him in July, at BreyerFest. I’ll probably take a pass on his very shiny self, especially since I’m in the middle of another hobby transaction that’ll tie up my "discretionary income" in the short term.

The Sample I saw in Kentucky did have - as the web site copy says - "a heavy high gloss finish", and I like the braided Laredo mane more than most do, so that could very well change. For the time being, however, I am content with just the Novelisto D, who is all kinds of fabulous:

Lots of other people thought so as well; he was by far the most popular of all the Store Specials, selling out quickly every day he was put out. My only disappointment with the Novelisto D - if you could call it that - is that they did "pearlize" the finish on him after all. I had gotten my hopes up that he would be a plain Gloss Alabaster, based on the initial photos. (Silly me. Of all people, I should know better than to do that!)

I still have hopes that Reeves brings back the Gloss Alabaster finish on something someday soon. For instance, when the Weather Girl mold comes back, I think it’d be a fabulous idea if they released them in the original "Old Mold" colors of Gloss Alabaster, Gloss Honey Bay, Splash Spot Gray Appaloosa and Woodgrain.

This would require a matching Foal and Stallion, naturally. (Ashquar and a new Arabian baby? Please?)

That’s all for today; other commitments will be leaving me short on time all week, so to make up for it you’ll be getting a smattering of short subjects I've been saving up for just such an occasion. Starting tomorrow!

Vanilla is Good, Too

That’s all I’m saying about today: that box of Reissues can’t arrive soon enough. I’m so opening all the boxes and going full carpet herd with them.

Anyway, happier thoughts. Like the latest in what appears to be an unending stream of Store Specials - Novelisto D!

It’s yet another variation of the Brishen Multi-Mold, with the original Brishen mane and tail, but the Laredo legs.

And I like him. The front legs still give off that "Barbie Horse" vibe, but the combination of the various parts, with the plain - yet elegant - glossy White/Alabaster paint job is wonderful. It appears that I’m not the only one who thinks so. He seems to have jumped (or flown?) onto a lot of hobbyists’ To-Buy lists, too.

We haven’t seen many plain, unfancified White or Alabaster paint jobs in recent years; most Aged Gray or White models nowadays have some embellishment to them. They’re Chalkied, Pearled, Dappled, Shaded, or some combination thereof.

Some of them have been quite beautiful; the BreyerFest Pecos and the Gladwin Lucky Lady are both big favorites in my barn.

But sometimes, plain old vanilla is good too. The first "Vintage" model I ever saw - one that I hadn’t seen in a store or in a catalog - was a Matte Alabaster Family Arabian Stallion. A classmate on the bus took one to school one day, and I was entranced. Shortly afterwards we struck up a conversation, and many entertaining lunch room conferences were had, often spend ogling over the latest Breyer Collector’s Manual.

She and her friend even showed their models, which blew my mind and led me to finally subscribe to Just About Horses, which led me … here. So I guess it shouldn’t shock that I have about a half dozen variations of that model now: Gloss, to Matte, to Special Run. It wasn’t intentional, not at first.

Novelisto D is the horse that played the part of Athansor, a mystical, time-traveling flying horse in the recent film adaptation of Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale.

I read the novel not long after it came out - because it was a fantasy novel with a horse in it, duh! While I was impressed with the beauty of the language and the scope of the story, the novel I read shortly after - John Crowley’s Little, Big - had a much bigger impact on me, emotionally and artistically. Even if it did have fewer flying horses in it.

The Winter’s Tale film came and went, which is what I expected to happen; it’s not the kind of book that’s easily adaptable to a compact two-hour theatrical release. Genre fantasy is a tough sell cinematically, but literary fantasy even moreso. Because of my schedule, I didn’t get a chance to see the film in its brief theatrical run, but I’ll be more than happy to add the horse to my herd in the meantime.

The Revenge of Lisa Frank

Just took a look at my work schedule this coming week: yikes! If you think I’m hard to get a hold of now…

By request, I’ll hold off on the Mystery Regular Run Reissues and focus on that beautiful boy from the group shot:

Like a good portion of those goodies, he’s a Sample: there is no VIN number that I can see. As I haven’t seen enough of the Gypsy Vanners live and in person, I cannot tell if he is in any other way different from the standard ones you’ll find on the shelf, other than his slightly better than average painting and masking.

When I found him in the sample boxes, I figured he was a fairly safe bet: even if I didn’t like him, he’d be an easy sell, judging from the reaction I’ve been seeing to him online. Like selling an Othello or Silver easy.

If you know me, I’m not particularly girly. I drive a station wagon, own a Wire Fox Terrier, and have feet the size of small oven roasters. I do have a decent sized shoe closet and can clean up admirably when the need arises, but most of the time I’m a jeans + comic-book-themed t-shirt kind of girl.

But this Vanner. Jeez.

This has to be the most gosh-darned-girly-in-a-Lisa-Frank-kind-of-way model horse ever. He needs to have a base made out of clouds, rainbows and glitter, and be ridden by a shirtless Legolas holding a bucket of pastel-colored puppies and kittens. And silhouetted against a diecut, holographic sky full of rhinestones-encrusted butterflies.

I am smitten.

His doppelganger, the BreyerFest Laredo, did not inspire the same reaction when I finally saw him in the round. His color was beautiful, and I liked his braided/plaited/beribboned mane, but I had a hard time getting past his strange legs. His proportions reminded me of those oversized toy horses sold as accessories to Barbie and all her frenemies.

Maybe he’ll grown on me a little more as time goes by. I’ll have that time: there were some leftovers on Sunday at BreyerFest. Not as many as you might think - although he did sell fairly well, it was difficult to judge just how well, because they made way more of him than any other BreyerFest SR other than the CC Shuffles: 1500 pieces. By comparison, the Sucesion & Le Fire set Naomi and Wynonna had a 1200 piece run.

They could have sold as many or more of Laredo as the Naomi and Wynonna set, and still have a couple hundred pieces left over. (NOTE: For speculation purposes only. I have no idea exactly how many Laredos did sell.)

Just like the Black Appaloosa Hackney Special a few years back, that was adjudged a failure. The story’s a little more complicated than that.

Oh great, now I’m imagining the Vanner in a Silver Dapple Pintaloosa paintjob. Glossy, of course. Or maybe a Glow-in-the-Dark Overo with masking in the shape of fairies, flowers and hummingbirds.

Gag. I think I need to go watch some movies with car crashes, explosions and killer robots now.