Curveballs

I spent an hour last night rationalizing how I wasn’t going to buy the Christmas Surprise model unless it was Emma, and like the fool that I am I bought one anyway.

Ugh. 

My rationale now is that since it’s Huck Bey, he’ll be easy to sell if I don’t happen to love whatever one I get. And since I am also going to attempt (AGAIN) to go on a budget diet next year, I figured this is going to be my last “wild and crazy” splurge for a while. 

I don’t know why they’re doing it this way this year: early, and without pictures. I am assuming it is both inventory- and staff-related: I used to work in the inventory services industry, and a lot of companies do their physical inventories at the very end of the year, and the more stuff they can get out the door before December 26th, the better. 

Reeves doesn’t directly employ as many people as you think they do, and most people do not particularly enjoy doing inventories, even if it is their job, or part of it. (I did but, well, it got complicated at the end.)

No selling scenario Reeves can come up with can be entirely fair, no matter what any hobbyist out there thinks. Every scenario can and will be gamed, and not everyone can have equal access or equal luck all the time ever. (Yes, even random draws!)

I’m annoyed as heck that I struck out all three times with the draws for Garret – a model I personally campaigned for! – but I accepted my fate and moved on. 

You either choose to play, or you do not. That’s all there really is to this. For some strange reason (I blame both the back pain and the weather) I decided to play. If there is any silver lining to this, it’s that this marketing changeup will allow more people time to participate, and the ability to consider the purchase, rather than simply relying on impulse and timing.

I spent a lot of time last night considering the purchase and did it anyway. I’d like to think that was my intuition talking, but let’s get real here: even this year, my luck has not been that good. If it was, I’d be hanging out on Fiji like the guy who won two billion dollars in the lottery, and not giving two thoughts about a plastic horse on the Internet.

(Other than shopping for a BreyerFest Party Bus because really, what’s the point of having all that money if you can’t just randomly rent a party bus for all your friends?)

I take a little grim amusement in the fact that people were mad when Reeves first started selling special items on Christmas Day. And now they are mad they are not. And entertaining some odd fantasies that it will not sell out because of their ire.

There are far better things to direct your anger towards. 

Desi, The Rare Gem Twist

I really like the Open Show Reserve Prize this year, the Gem Twist Desi in Dark Bay Appaloosa:

While there are some scarcer-than-average Gem Twist releases – the Dark Dapple Gray 2002 QVC release, and the 2006 USET Special Run Exclusive Authentic come to mind – there aren’t a lot of rarities. Until the addition of Desi, the mold was a relatively easy one to collect.

It’s a moderately popular mold that I thought might have been a good candidate for the BreyerFest Surprise model this year, since there is hardly anything “colorful” in this model’s production past. Lots of room to experiment!

There has been only one other production run in Appaloosa (the #726 Gray Appaloosa Sport Horse in 1998-1999), and one in Pinto (the flashy #1705 Pinto Sport Horse 2013 Mid-Year release). The closest thing we’ve gotten to a Decorator was the very pearly Petsmart Special Run of Snowman, from 2005.

(My personal favorite!)

There has been a fair smattering of Test Colors, though.

The only other thing worth noting today – aside from the mold’s obvious USET connections, as a portrait of the legendary show jumper Gem Twist – is that when it debuted in 1993 it was the first Kathleen Moody mold designed for injection molded plastic. Kathleen’s earlier molds for Breyer included pieces in the Porcelain Evolution of the Horse Series, starting with the Icelandic Pony in 1992.

It’s hard to believe that Kathleen’s been doing molds for Breyer for 25 years now! And me so old I can remember when she was a mere mortal, like the rest of us.

Wyatt and the Premier Club

Aside from the fact that it was October, and kind of miserable weather-wise (there are no "good" days with sleet in them!) the events of the previous 24 hours highlighted the stark contrast between the different parts of my life. And the realization that there’s nothing I can do, right now, to fix the parts that don’t work without also messing up the parts that do.

I guess this is more of a fair warning in case the tone here gets a little more melancholic over the next couple of weeks. I’m dealing with some heavy stuff again, people.

Don’t worry, the model horse stuff is mostly working. Some parts of it are actually way fabulous, but we’ll get to that a little later in the week. First up: let’s talk about the Premier Club.

I haven’t talked too much about the Premier Club, for a couple of different reasons. First, it’s a club all about first releases on brand new molds: there’s not a lot of history there to talk about, yet.

Second, it’s the drama: gosh-almighty, some of the online arguments about the latest Premier Club releases make the goings-on on the NAMSHA-Discussion list look quaint and dignified.

I know I’m going to sound like a total tool for saying this, but Reeves really does care about the quality of the product. They have a problem not dissimilar to mine: the different parts of their company "life" are in conflict, and there’s no good way to disentangle the two without one or the other suffering.

As important as the hobbyist market is, the general retail market will always come first. It has to: that’s where the bigger money is, and where new hobbyists come from.

Brishen might not have been a success in the niche of a niche market that the Premier Club is, but the money that they invested in that mold will pay off for them in the long run in the retail market. Little kids who love horses don’t love them for their anatomical correctness, they’re buying the fantasy of a horse. And like it or not, the more recent Moody molds like Brishen are the epitome of little-kid fantasy horses.

The profits of molds like Brishen end up funding molds like Latigo - the third release in the 2013 Premier Club - and Wyatt, the first release of 2014. And look at him!

(Note: It’s a photo taken from the web site, slightly reformatted to fit here. Copyright and all that Reeves International. The mold was sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn, if you didn’t already know.)

He’s so awesome it’s making ME contemplate signing up for the Premier Club, which is crazy. I still haven’t completely finished the herd culling to accommodate this year’s acquisitions. And next year’s Vintage Club. And some of the just announced 2014 releases, and the new Appaloosa Performance Horses, and…

As big as a hit as he appears he will be, Wyatt is not going to be as profitable a mold as a Brishen, at least in the short term. He’s on a base: bases cost money, and they get lost, warped or broken. The parents of our hypothetical nine year old proto-hobbyists are going to look at a future Regular Run release of Wyatt and find themselves thinking that a Regular Run Brishen might be a more sensible choice - with his thicker legs and lack of a base. (The Wyatt mold strikes me as a fancier kind of thing that Grandma or Santa would bring, anyway.)

Loving Moody molds isn’t going to damage those budding hobbyists later on in life. Most of us grew up in the Hess mold era: frog eyes, sketchy genitals, bowed tendons, and husky-looking Palomino Arabians. We turned out fine, in spite of it all.

Getting My Horse Fix

I suppose you’ve either heard or gotten the e-mail by now that Reeves is offering BreyerFest Special Run leftovers to this year’s ticket buyers, including Laredo, Twill, Short Ribs, Two Step and the adorable pinto Haflinger Buckaroo. (Not trying to "sell" him; I just happen to have mine on my desk right now and happen to think that he is.) If bling’s more your thing, other merchandise is being offered too, including mugs, t-shirts and pillows.

I am mulling over getting a Laredo, just for the sake of having an example of that mold variation in the collection. One of the bigger projects I had planned - that I hope to get to after some of the more space-eating things are under control - is creating vector clip art/line art of every known Breyer mold and major mold variation (Halla and Boyla = Yes. Old Mold Mare and Proud Arabian Mare = Probably not.)

Aside from the fact that I love playing around with vector drawing programs, having a library of scalable art of every Breyer mold, all in the same style and format, would be pretty darn useful for a whole assortment of reasons. For the blog, for my research, for Sampler illustrations, maybe even for crafting. (A redwork quilt of Breyer molds, anyone?)

I already have tons of vintage clip art, both stats and originals, but none of it is consistent in terms of style, scale, or format. Some of it was even done before the molds themselves were finalized, like the very early clip art for the Classics USET Gift Set:

I know I've had it up here before, but it just fascinates me for some reason. It's like I'm looking at Breyer molds from an alternate reality. (Is it the reality where Palomino Family Arabians are super-rare, Khemosabi is awesome, and Decorators are no big deal?) My "style", such as it is, is more like this:

I was kind of hoping I could hold off getting a Laredo until next year, after the collection culling. Not that I’m expecting a huge run on him, but it’s so convenient to let my fingers do the clicking…

No, I already bought a few horses this week.

I had to stop at the store yesterday on my way home from work to pick up a few odds and ends, and I saw that said store had just gotten in the new assortment of Stablemates Mystery Foal sets. Since I am a sucker for anything black pinto, and anything roan, and I am not immune to needing a horse fix every once and a while, into the cart they went.

I’ll open them up as a reward when another one of my multitudinous projects is done. (Sunday, I hope?)

Moody Molds in Basic Black

Vita is basically back to being her usual pain in the butt self. We finally figured out the secret of getting her to stop making her "yucky" face at dinner time: chicken broth. She hasn’t been begging so much at the table, either, which we think is because she now thinks she’s already getting table food. (To be honest, it almost is.)

Looks like it’s my turn to be sick today: my back hurts, I’m nauseous, and I have a migraine. I have tomorrow off, so I can (I hope) sleep most of my aches and pains away. (I’m blaming any typos today, most justifiably, on the migraines.)

Reeves finally got around to mentioning some of the Reissues on their Facebook page - four days after they appeared on the web site, and three days after I mentioned them here. Who needs Facebook when you got me, right?

(A big portion of the hobby, still, and a couple of friends who have completely abandoned me. Didn’t they all get the memo that Facebook is like totally uncool now? I heard it on the radio, so it must be true.)

There are also a couple of (apparently) unauthorized photos of some 2014 releases floating about the Internet, including one of a Black Big Ben as an Royal Canadian Mounted Police Horse. He looks great in "basic black", but then again, most Moody molds do: whatever their anatomical or stylistic issues, you can’t deny they all have beautiful silhouettes - and black paint jobs do a good job of accentuating them.

I don’t have a lot of Big Bens in my collection - not for a lack of trying, but most of the ones I really love I can’t afford. Like the 2005 FEI Gift Model in Dark Bay, the 2006 Volunteer model in Gloss Dark Bay/Brown Sabino, Nautical, 1998 BreyerFest Copenhagen Serengeti…

I didn’t have an original Big Ben until recently, and I’m not so sure he’s an "original" either:

He’s another one of those things I found in the Sample boxes at BreyerFest. At first I thought he was a Sample for the WEG Reissue of the Big Ben, but now I’m not so sure. He could have been an ordinary, later run Big Ben that someone bought or brought into the offices, for whatever reason. Other vintage (sometimes, pre-Reeves!) models have made their way into the Sample boxes before, so it's not as far-fetched an idea as it seems.

I don’t have either the WEG Reissue or an off-the-shelf original, so I can’t verify his status one way or another.

Regardless of what he is, I like him and he’s staying.

More BreyerFest 2013 Releases

I did get the Vintage Club "Ephemera Extra" the other day: it IS the 1961 Duotone Catalog Insert pages that most of you should be at least vaguely familiar with. And which was used as one of the illos in my original article.

I’ll work around it. As for any further commentary on the Extra itself, I’ll leave to private communications. (Nothing racy, just unduly speculative.)

Reeves also released photos of three more BreyerFest releases - a Decorator Blue Bandana Bucking Bronco named Rock-a-Billy for the Boots & Bling Store, a Decorator Blue Overo Pinto Lady Phase named Twill, and a "new" Moody Iberian Horse named Laredo, who’s pretty over the top - even for a Moody. He’s apparently a reworked Brishen, with multiple swapped out parts, so he's only partly new.

I’ll reserve my final judgement on him (as always) until I see one in person. There are a few photos of a sample from Equine Affaire last weekend, but they’re taken at a weird and difficult to judge from angle.

I’m also going to assume - until the artist issues a statement otherwise - that the increasing over-the-topness may be a Reeves directive/suggestion, and not artistic derangement/degredation, as some people seem to be suggesting.

Wild, crazy horses with big hair sell better - not to us, maybe, but definitely to the rest of the world. Anatomical realism? Not as much as we might think, outside the live showing niche.

As for as much attention as they lavish on us, we have to be reminded of this simple fact: we are not the center of Reeves’ universe, or at least as much they are of ours.

The front leg does bother me a bit, but I think it’s more because I’m used to Breyer molds having abnormally short raised forelegs, like the Western Prancing Horse, the Running Stallion, the Belgian... It’s almost like an artistic marker/tic for Chris Hess’s work, the more I think about it. It makes me wonder if it was also related to any molding issues.

I suspect that Laredo’s funky foreleg may be the victim of a similar problem, though from the opposite direction: instead of erring on the side of caution, I have a feeling that Reeves is pushing the molding technology a little bit too close to the edge of what’s possible.

I do like his hair. And the paint job is very pretty. Like some commenters have been saying, I think some of the people making yucky faces over him now may be swooning over him in the future, once they get to know him.

Or not. He’s not really designed for "us", anyway.

Twill was the one who finally pushed me over the line in ordering another BreyerFest ticket, though. Not because I’m a huge Lady Phase fan, but because she’s painted to resemble denim - like the Fighting Stallion centerpiece for the original "Denim and Diamonds" Exclusive Event in Texas.

With overo pinto marking that look like (to me!) holes ripped into those jeans. Which, duh, obviously means something to me, in light of recent events: if I manage to snag one, she is so going to be called "Vita’s Fault". (She was a bad girl again, yesterday, though not for me.)

Lest you think we’re running out of surprises, other models we can still speculate about include: the Stablemates One-Days, the Live Show prizes, the second day Raffle horse, the Volunteer Model, all of the Auction pieces, and possibly a few more Store Specials.

And who’s going to be the Glossy/Matte Half and Half SR. Because if they’re doing a Gambler’s Choice model, they’re doing a Half and Half. (My current bet? The Haflinger Buckaroo.)

Next up: another "secret" project, you say?

Monsters, Monsters from the Id!

(Caution: This post was composed while being very light-headed from an epic nosebleed. Which is nothing serious, BTW, just a consequence of a childhood’s worth of bad allergies. It’s not my blood pressure. No, really, my blood pressure is actually low.)

(Oh. Reader discretion is advised.) 

My first reaction to the newest Premier Club release, Brishen, was "Wow, that’s a lot of hair. It’s like Othello and Ethereal had a freaky love child."

(Yes, I know they’re both stallion molds, dearies. That’s what the "freaky" is for.)

I don’t dislike it, not at all, but like a lot of folks I am a bit bummed that it’s yet another Big Hairy Stallion. Nothing wrong with Big Hairy Stallions, per se, but sometimes it feels like the gender diversity of Breyer molds is about equal to that of your average Smurf village.

At one point during the latest epic "future of the hobby" thread on Blab a few weeks ago, the observation that our Sire/Dam lists back in the old days were pretty heavy on the Sires, not so much on the Dams.

Horse-obsessed teen and pre-teen girls bragging about the breeding prowess of the multitude of stallions under their stable’s banner? Boy, mental health professionals could have mined those old newletters for a half-dozen research papers, at least.

Thus giving context to my second reaction to Brishen: "About the only think missing from this package is a unicorn’s horn and a pack of cigarettes".

I mean, really. Brishen is like the hobby’s id, made manifest. You know, just like in the movie Forbidden Planet. And not as scary. But the Monster from the Id in the movie was animated by someone from Disney, and Kathleen Moody did work for Disney at one point. So, draw from that whatever you will.

(Okay, that was weird. Even for me.)

Judging from the commentary I’ve seen on the Breyer web site, he seems to be going over fairly well with the same kinds of kids that populated the pages of The Model Horse Shower’s Journal back in the day. Except that most of those kids today like their Big Hairy Stallions with unicorn horns.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that either, but, you know…

(Now going upstairs for a glass of orange juice and a good night’s sleep.)