Some kind of update from Afuze's model horse life

Some time ago, I wrote a news post about my model horse life. That post is filled with pessimism and includes things I probably don't want to publish... I'm not any less pessimistic in my life, but at least I can do things. I decided not to publish that text, so maybe it remains being read by us writers only. But long story short: I've cleaned the table and part of the room, I've started resculpting some horses and I even made another doll to my group.

I use these mostly for bits and metal pieces for tackmaking.

One sentence: I only wait when the table explodes again to a state I could swim on it and find treasures (read: missing metal pieces for tackmaking) from the leather/trash flood on it. Now I really have some space to use, at least... 

I recently finished a huge photoshoot that had about a month-long pause in the middle of it. I got over 1400 pictures that include dolls' debut rides, document photos of new horses, test photos, art photos, tack photos, at least one full photo story and a lot of random iammaterialisticsoitookpicofthis -photos. I tell this now before anything else because most of the photos worth putting here are from that stack, as many things happened while going closer to the goal of over thousand shots.

As said previously, some horses have been started. These are those two traditional scale flockies. They're both totally flayed and cut in pieces now - or at least the bigger one is, because the smaller, icelandic, is just good enough as it already is, just getting to do minor changes to it. I opened it's mouth, cut throat and am going to reposition his feet a bit. I had difficulty to resist tacking him up, so here we have a piece of photo stack:

Then he got blue silk clay around him.

The larger horse then, is... Well, a lot, a lot larger than the icelandic. Actually, he is huge, while the icelandic is tiny. This is what the giant looked like before I started modifying him (he didn't stand well so I had to hold him):

After flaying... At this point I have to say this horse reminds me of some Breyer, like being a bad copy or something. I like those wrinkles though! His back is way too short or legs long, so I already knew I'm going to lenghten his barrel - because that plastic was SO soft!

Just look at that size difference. It's not camera error, it really is that much.

And here is what he looked like after I fed my knife for him. I actually did a bit more than just cut his body to half... Scribbled with a ballpoint pen and stabbed the knife through that weird plastic. For first I guess I may have cut his nose off so it gets flatter and more horse-like.

...and with some clay. In the middle of resculpting I got a perfect idea to make him a walker instead of a suffering galloper. I have no idea how to put his halves back together, but I totally enjoy the easiness of putting clay inside a horse through it's tummy, knee, throat, butt, and so on. And yes the clay is silk clay, and some foamy too. I'm just testing those for customizing. If they don't work, I simply remove them and redo all that hard work with a lot heavier and slimier (when it's flooded with water I mean) Krea. Or then I try something else.

This is just ridiculous.

Ah how much I now want to put him under saddle and whack Kultis to ride him! Argh. That horse is so close to what I have drawn for years. I am afraid I finally start getting my rocking horses out from paper.

The original position was like this.

And now I want it to be more like this (meaning the gait).

Then there's one littlebit scale horse: Old Schleich hannover mare, chestnut, that I accidentally found from a local flea market/recycling store and had to buy. She lacks one ear and is greatly played with, but I like her. Old Schleichs are awesome, I can say. (The newer ones are not, yuh...) The price was about 20 cents. At the same walk I bought three mirrors to use for model horse photography.

The broken ear. Poor lady.

After the long photography pause I had a HUGE tackmaking inspiration, so I used it all for making halters. It was good, because I had to make halters for a stack that I had to mail for Kave. It happened. Hope they like the tack and all. I also did put a surprise horse in there - Schleich QH stallion. Hope he was well in the fabric-bubblewrap package I mummified him in. Kave got also thumb rats, a doll armature and a lot of more tack. I guess they can tell about this part more if they want? Still, some photos:

Pink halter with a yet more pink padding.

Pink halter with black leather piece for so-called decoration.

This halter was made for Kave's Valegro specifically.

Some of the thumb rats I made for Kave - a longer time ago already. As you see, pink is a thing with those - Kave likes pink so I make pink things for her... Happily getting rid of that color in clay- WAIT.

Ledi. Standard pet rat doe.

Cerise, a pink rex dumbo doe.

Pinkkipylly (literally "pinkbutt"), a rex buck with pink spot at his butt, hence the violet tail. This guy has no good photos taken by me, but I think Kave can take better and sent them to me (heh).

I got two new Breyers from Lahjakas.fi, a webshop specialized to animal figurines and mostly horses. The guys I got are Verdades and Celestine, who I renamed Rispetto "Rispu" and Catita "Katti". Both horses are totally nice and worth the money, I say, and even Celestine is close enough to the catalog pictures. As a orderer gift I got some miniatures - and a surprise pony! GAAAH so the world's best model horse shop!

A laptop, cutlery - and a surprise mini rubber pony that is smaller than thumb rats!

I'm crazy enough to document the opening process every time I get something from Lahjakas. This is so rare for me, that is why. I even photograph the Breyer boxes before opening them. EVERYTHING has to be documented! Yay. No. Yes.

Verdades was of course easy to unbox... I think I used cotton glove on left hand while doing that, so I don't hurt my new pony. Just like unboxing, this boy, now named as Rispetto, got a calm, sweet personality. No need to say that I also am a fan of Eberl horses... And with this plastic bay I like that almost watercolor-like paintjob.

Just like with Vissy, also Rispu's whiteless eyes allow him to change sight in them... Due to how light behaves on their glossy surface.

...but the stubborn lady called Celestine didn't want to come out of her shell. I had to force her. The box can suffer some damage, but the horse, no no no. Luckily nothing interesting happened, and I continued the fight when thinking how to free her legs from the wire ties. It needed some armpower and careful clipping with jewellery pliers, and she was free.

(Some detail shots of her costume.)

Next thing to wonder was her clothing - does it come off? I have a big urge to remove all tack from a new horse, and then try to put it back. This surely tracks to my childhood when I quite often got new Grand Champions horses, and they always had tack! Oh how nice it was. Katti's suit was and is damn difficult to get off and put back on her, but that is possible.

Here she is naked. I already realised that this mold looks best in this color; grey, or at least not with very complicated color pattern (spots... I'm not a fan of spots). She goes just fine with this 'icy grey' or pearly grey. In fact, it was good idea from Breyer to choose a Eberl horse for a 'winter model'. It totally looks a bit like it was sculpted from ice (have seen ice sculptures in this town few times). A winter freak from this cold Northern country likes! I also love all colors tinted with blue, heh. Blueish grey is one of the best colors I know.

And ooh loom at that! Blue eyes - and eye whites! Make this a habit, Breyer! Pliis. Katti's expression is perfect... When not seen from a bad angle (which I already found, haha). I could endlessly photograph her face, were there tack or not.

Despite the fact that Breyer tack isn't always the greatest in the world, I can happily keep my Katti with hers on most of the time. That because the costume protects her in the shelf. And it - honestly - doesn't look bad. She's my first ever 'special' model horse (if we don't count some CMs).

Rispu stands very close to Killi (Sam), as that racehorse has a blanket, so it's not a big bad thing if he leans on him accidentally. One of my goals is to make protection blankets for all of my horses, but I happen to sukka with fabrics, so most are naked.

While Katti stands very well, Rispu does not. I made him a help piece from silk clay (I have dry leftover pieces to cut into yet smaller pieces) that I put between his hoof and the plastic stand. The stand has started to crack, so that's not so good... I better keep my horse able to stand. If the plastic stand breaks to useless stage, I know I can just make a new one from silk clay - yay! No, don't get scared. Silky is totally safe. Just don't put it in your mouth, heh...

Anyone wondering what Katti does mean? It's a nickname for "cat", a bit like kitty. Another Finnish version is kisu, it and katti do mean "kitty". Sure enough?

So that was about me now. I usually don't like to do this kind of long texts that do not have ONE thing to focus at. They easily escape from hands and get messy. But now I think this kind of 'news text' had it's place. It also helps me to write a full long enough post as I've suffered from writersblock and related problems for longer time now. I guess these are better than nothing. I've published some like this to my main blog (The Tuherrus) too, usually after a long time no blogging...

And! here is Kultis, the newest doll - on Reizvoll! Guess who got crazy with bridle experiments.

But yea, goodbye. Or not. I'm not going anywhere, so if you think I'm irritating, I can laugh now. (Dark humor anyone?)