I do not collect...

I have seen other hobby bloggers write about this topic, and I've wanted to do so myself, but for some reason I hadn't done so before. Weird. Well, now I do. So, people say they don't collect something, while in reality they have a suspiciously large pile of that same thing in their possession, and they use effort at it. 

I do collect Schleichs with factory flaws like this.

I mainly collect Breyer traditionals, and want my horses to be tack friendly and realistic. I am very much into base colors and do not look for anything too complex most of my time. So... How do I explain that I...

...I do not collect appaloosas. I really do not like spots and do not know why they are so popular. I think it makes an animal/model look visually restless and it also hides its anatomy and shapes. So, how the toe do I own so many horses with spots on them? Some are entirely covered in spots on white background, and some have blankets. I just end up getting these for some reason, although I keep telling myself that I do not like spots. 

Dreamy.

I do not collect stablemates. Why I still have a lot and get more and more of these? I don't even know where to keep all of them and what should I do with them. (Nope, there is a key: tackmaking... and sometimes customizing.) Blergh.

Formosus Ningor "Ninksu" and Chocolate In The Ballroom "Pallero", two lovely repaints by Kave.

I do not collect warmbloods. When I think about what kind of horse breeds I find interesting and what I have ridden for real, I can count drafts and ponies. Despite this, I do not have as many draft and pony models than I have warmbloods... I have never ridden a warmblood (seriously) and do not find them very interesting as a breed. It's a sporthorse, and I hate sports. Why do I keep collecting these? Maybe because they sure are tack friendly. (Nope, seriously, thoroughbred is one of my favorite breeds. It's officially not a warmblood, of course, but is a sporthorse, and I still hate sports.)

A precious red hannover gelding.

I do not collect Schleichs. I dislike them these days. Why do I keep buying them? Because I customize! To be able to fully compare the customs with OFs, I need to have a sample of an OF model. The factory models in my Schleich army will not get names or anything these days, they just aren't worth all the effort. But they are here entirely for photos... Dumb? 

 

Wow, why is the list so short... I could get a longer list about things I want but do not have. Of course. Everyone else could too.

Why only one is not enough

This is for all those people who question my need to buy more horses so often and despite how I 'already have so many'. These people never seem to hear it when I say that there in America are collectors, who have HUNDREDS of traditional scale models, shelves full. I have only... 50? That is not much!

These three were bought from a fellow Finnish collector.

So, why only one horse is not enough?

Well, let me explain.

One thing I want to point out is scale. Model horses come in many scales, and I quite like to know what the difference between them is by experience. There was a time I didn't know how small stablemates are, and had to ask it. I still remember the description: "lightly hand-wrappable" alias so small that you can almost close the horse into your hand. 

The palomino and the pinto came from my American friend, LittleYoungOne, the dark bay andalusian (who's barely visible) and warmblood came from Kave (who painted both). Behind the palomino is my NaMoPaiMo model Torsti, as you can't see.

Different brands. Sculptors and styles vary, and every horse is different. Every brand is different, and often brands don't share sculptors with each other. 

Got this mare similarly as most of my collection, but she's a pretty model and therefore worth photographing and sharing.

Breyers are better than Schleich. I have a rather massive collection of Schleich, most of them from the early 2000's to the mid 2010's. There was a time I enjoyed Schleich and genuinely liked to buy new ones. Then the quality went down, and at the same time I already may have known what Breyers were like. Now Breyers give me the same enthusiasm what I felt about Schleichs years ago. It is what it is - I could never have only one or a few, I want a lot!

I make tack. It could be boring to do a ton of stuff and only for one size. With both real and model horses, one size does not fit all. I could not make tack for my friends if I had only one horse. I like the fact that now I can compare different models to make sure the tack is accurately measured. There is a lot of variation even among 'equally large' horses like warmbloods. Oh, there's so much variety in that box!

I made this halter to fit specifically the exact mold it is on; though the horse it's going for is in someone else's collection. (The horse is not scratched - just dusty!)

I am materialistic. I don't understand why people are so scared of materialism, or think it's a bad thing. Having stuff around makes me happy, even better if I can see it! Model horse hobby is one of the most perfect forms to let it storm around. For me, it has always been an option, because I don't know how to organize (or keep things organized all the time), and as a traditional artist I've already gained a massive amount of art supplies and have zero space for it. It's completely natural... But basically I can just honestly say that hoarding hobby stuff makes me happy.

This is partially to the materialism part: I like to have several pieces of something matchy, for example models of a certain scale or brand. In fact, I need to have it so, no less. One or two is not a collection, but a ten is. I don't even know why I feel it like this, but as long as I have too few of something, I don't bond with it properly enough. 

Everything in this photo came from my American friend LittleYoungOne. The skeleton got named Silli (Silly Silli), and he's one of the funniest things I found from that package. He may be a potential studio mascot.

Modelverse. I know, you're already so fed up with this topic, but I can't stop. It's my life. I cannot see a world for a certain scale if I don't own enough models in it. But the big thing is, that I must have all the horses I have. And more. I have so many ideas and plans, so few horses (and dolls) to make them real with.

Back before late 2016 I had only three traditionals: my PAM (who was unnamed for too long), an unfinished Blue Box QH and a wrecked flockie. All of these were in standing position and therefore I had very limited options for scenes. I know that some people actually prefer standing models over anything else, but I think these alone are just boring. I want that famous variety I already mentioned in the beginning of the article. 

Sense of community. By gaining a large and growing herd of different brands, scales, colors and breeds I also may get a better feel that I'm in a community. I'm a sideviewer most of the time anyway, so this could be at least the one thing I can relate to others with.

So to put it simple, this hobby could be basically impossible and really odd if only one could be a thing. People with tens or hundreds - let alone thousands - of plastic (or rubber, flocked, carved, china, porcelain) horses cannot be wrong. In a randomie's opinion my collection of Breyers may be overgrown and waste of space. (I occasionally get those "you could make a lot of money by selling these at some point" type of comments.) They just don't know what are like the collections of people who have for example collected much longer than me; those people may also have used way more money on their models than I with mine... 

I made this horse. And tack. And the doll.

So, anyway. I keep spying what to buy the next time.

Do your effort

Last summer (So this article was written about a year before publishing...) Anne Field posted a good blogtext in her blog. I interpreted it so that it is about learning experiences, practice, effort and doing your own work in general. I thought the article was so good that it should be saved somehow, to be easy to find later, so I linked it to my blog and commented on the subject(s) while chatting with an American friend, LittleYoungOne, in Discord.

Not So Black, a draft stallion from 2020.

Here comes my comment speech: 

What I got out of that post was how Anne emphasized that you can't trick when you want to do something well. Tutorials, instructions and answered questions from others will help, but the only thing which truly helps you learn is making the thing you are working on.

Practicing to cut slots (for noseband hangers) in split crownpieces before doing the same for actual split crownpieces.

...it worked!

 

One can read books about riding and know how to do that in theory, but the same person can't do anything for real after first reading and then randomly getting on a saddle. Books are books, real life riding is riding. Same goes for customizing, painting, resculpting, even writing, and tackmaking.

Also being afraid of fail is not an excuse. You will fail a lot during your practice sessions, get a ton of ugly stages and so on. What's the key to solve those? Continue to create. The ugly stages and fails are not going anywhere - they can only teach you to improve and eventually push through them and finish your work.

In 2016, I asked and got taught how to braid. It may be the only "textile craft" I can enjoy, which shows in the number of ropes I've braided serially since then.

And then about competitions and chasing prizes: If one participates in a show or competition, they should be totally okay with the possibility that they will not win. Everyone can't win, but most do good stuff to try with. The idea should never be winning, but participating, trying your best and figuring out what you can do, learn more. Compete against your previous works, if something has to be competed against.

What works for me, is thinking that "if I do this for my friend, it has to be the best I can do". This is how my bridles and halters are in the stage they are in at the moment. I started making tongue buckles to bridles, developed the bit hooks and bothered to figure out nosebands because I made a bridle for Kave in 2017. Basically I could say that I wanted to impress my friend with... skill? What?

My first proper bridle where I didn't use sliding buckles. That was when I learned how precious tongue buckles are in the hobby! And I was afraid of their "complexity" for so long... As an old work, this bridle is more or less ugly, but I'm also happy that it has a good home at Kave's.

In 2021 my Swedish hobby friend, Decors, asked if I could do tack to donate for a Swedish liveshow, Vattenshow, whose co-hostess she is. Of course I said that yes, I can make a few halters. Among the batch to be donated, I also wanted to make pieces for both of the hostesses. For Decors I made also a bridle and some bits to go with it. The difference between my oldest proper bridle and this is like between night and day.

The bridle from June 2021, which moved to Sweden.

What else can I say? I have wanted to write about this stuff for ages! But blogging is hard. While it can be hard to believe, I am not a writer, after all. (I do blog stuff or story/world texts almost daily, and draw very very seldom these days... But yep, I am not a writer.) I am a visual artist, a drawer. I also can do painting if I bother to. Watercolors are nice. So are makeup sponge tools when you use them on graphite - which is the only use I have ever had for them. 

A travel set of watercolors and tank brushes (brushes which have soft, hollow barrel) pair very well together.

"What else"... Uh oh. I figured out that this is actually a good spot to mumble about my art life even further. I've drawn my entire life, and cannot remember the time I first scribbled something which should look like an animal or whatever the topic was (I remember drawing a carrot in kindergarten). I never drew with the idea that I "could become an artist". I just drew because it was a natural part of my life. It IS a natural part of my life. 

Due to having drawn animals from that young age, I have an odd angle towards those who first grow up and only then decide to start drawing. Good luck with practice... It is a lot of work. I can say I have an advantage here. Though, it does not mean I could be good. I have seen so many beginners being great in what they do. Meanwhile I usually stop thinking good about my own works after each doodle gets a couple of years old or if I can see it all the time. 

Outdated thumb rats, since 2014.

I often wonder what life could be like if I didn't draw or do my model horse stuff myself. Good stuff is pricey! (I guess my art room could also look very different than what it is. Supplies take a lot of space, so do projects and finished works...)

What could life be with aphantasia, as well? I can't imagine the lack of visual imagination; meanwhile I see everything in my mind. One ridiculous brain image I have had was about lemons flying downstairs with mosquito wings - thanks to how my dad tried to describe he had mosquitoes in his room. Don't ask how he managed to call them lemons, I have no idea. But I sure have some oddly rich hyperphantasia. I can see worlds while in the shower, and forget I even exist. 

There was a time I wanted to learn to draw horses as properly as was possible. I became an anatomy freak. Eventually I also learned that realistic and semirealistic drawing styles are my thing, while I also wanted to develop my personal way to stylize "cartoony" equines. The latter went so that the anatomy had to work, but stylizing to some degree had to be possible, too. I have a ton of good memories of those years, but most of the doodles are not worth seeing... Of course. 

Once I also decided to test if I can resculpt a toy horse in the BH-style, which is how I called my cartoony style. Now when I think it, it's strangely absurd and, ummmm... Impressive, in the sense that it really happened. I couldn't do that today. It's the same thing as what happened to my tack: I made a lot of Schleich scale tack at some point, learned to enjoy it, then switched to traditionals and no longer understood why and HOW anyone can enjoy crafting mini scale tack. It was impossible, and still is. 

I never knew my first(?) buckles with moving tongues were in a Schleich scale bridle, and I don't even know the year this is from.

My drawer background was why I got into model horse customizing ages ago. It was the idea that I could really make a model horse, not only buy it. By customizing I was no longer dependent on what factories provided. Buying commissions from others was never an option - because I never knew anything like that even existed!! And well, I still like to do my own stuff, anyway... Not that I could not want to have others' works as well. Collecting others' tack and customs is a nice way to learn something new and see different angles of doing things.

But the bond between you and your own work is something which you can never have with a thing you did not make. It also feels nice to be able to say that "Yea, I did all the stuff in this photo." (Shows don't exist here.)

Since I probably didn't make any sense with most of this text, I will continue to comment on other stuff. It's close to the topic, of course. How can people be so crazy about winning, indeed? I have never been that much into participating in anything. I'm not a prize chaser. Shows (even photo shows) have never been my main motivator to learn to make model horse stuff. Good horses, paintjobs, tack, dolls, performance setups... Nope, never done those with showing in mind. And then the rare time I bother to try my luck in something, it even didn't require crafting on anything but just writing a little - and then I won! That made this little pessimist super happy. I still can't understand that it happened. 

Tripworthy, my Braymere giveaway marwari.

Anyway. I wonder how much and how far could things have developed in the hobby if there were no shows, and especially, if the shows were not about competiting against others... This one has prettier horse, this one has the most blingy set of tack, here's a cool scene, aaand... So. How far can you go? What this logic has taught me about my species, is, that humans have an odd natural tendency to compete and try to win... It has to be natural.

I also want to say one more thing to the practice topic. I have found out that maybe I am unusual in the sense that I am less afraid of trying new techniques and tools when it comes to arts and photography. I struggle to start drawing anything I haven't drawn before (it is annoying, I wish I could draw many different species of animals), but I probably have tested various techniques and tools in more relaxed sense than most people I've talked about this with. I don't understand why it is like this. People are afraid of using a lot of colors, contrast, mixed media... They're afraid of shading with strong hand or exaggerating anatomy and expressions. And some are very afraid of starting their model horse customizer career. 

I brainwashed Kave into painting, taught her about how I layer colors, and her very first (very first!) repaint was this stunning tinker stallion. His name is Abundiantus Fructum. Photo by Kave.

To say it simply, I do my all to kick encourage my buddies to try new things and hopefully make them go crazy and enjoy it. This happened with Kave and went successfully, so I am positive that my other hobby friends can start a model horse artist career too. 

One thing I have wondered a lot is a stupid habit I have. Sometimes I find a way to do something, then go "nope, it's too much of work" or "that part will be weak" and it basically prevents me from trying it. Then when I finally give it a go, I probably get surprised and realise how much more sense everything makes when there is one more step in the process. It can both make the product better and also make me value my own work more than before. My halters are often better when they have paddings in the nosebands, and I always like my dolls better when I bother to paint shadings to their bodies. 

I also have learned that my brain needs challenges, and even works to stress about. One example of this could be one of my dolls, who is based on a character I designed in 2011. That doll had to turn out perfectly enough. It went almost so, but he's no way ideal... Of course. Finishing complex projects feels good afterwards. Another example of this could be my thumb rat cages. Sometimes I assemble them from a million of different pieces just because I enjoy the process. Weird. 

Enjoyable.

Do your effort.

What's it like to see performance photos when you don't show?

I came up with this article idea after seeing a continuous flood of performance show photos and blogposts by Americans. I live in Finland and therefore am European, so my perspective differs a lot from the folk far there. 

I haven't heard about any shows being held in Europe during the worldwide disaster which 2020 has been honored to mark as a synonym of. Meanwhile, Americans seem to have some activity in the model horse field, and a lot! Photo shows are a thing now. Some people blog about this stuff a lot (at least at the moment), and I can well say that I enjoy reading that and seeing all the photos about it. 

What do those posts and photos usually evoke in people who are seeing them? Most of the time the reader is most likely another model horse hobbyist, so that explains half of it. According to what I've seen via the blog stuff, people inspire each other and encourage themselves to do the more or less silly photos and stories. They command each other to have fun. 

A fun but technically so outdated photo from 2016.

While American model horse hobbyists have been busy with performance photo show entries, tack, dolls, props and all that, also I have been sitting in my art room, doing miniature stuff. But instead of performance crafts, I've been sculpting mini clay rats, food and water bowls, and most recently I've also assembled a few model rat cages. 

I very recently rebuilt this one.

I have model horse tack projects in mind and I actually HAVE to make some of them soonish. I have ideas for photos. I have a lot of dolls. I have plans. I have stories in my head. 

But none of that has anything to do with model horse showing. I don't do shows. But I like to make tack, put it on the horses, put dolls on the saddles, basically play with my stuff... All this just for fun, as was said in this older post.

Often, when I read those blog posts by American hobbyists, it makes me want to grab some horses, dolls and tack and do a couple setups. I want to photograph them and then blog them. I used to do all that a lot at some point, excluding the blogging part; the most important thing has always been just to have the nice setups and scenes documented so that I can see them later as well. 

Mirrors are nice and useful, but take ah so much space.

Then I remember that hey, I don't even have a photo studio... Anymore... And I do not have any room or place for it. I'm these people who do not lay on the floor with their toys - instead, I need a table or a shelf to place my studio box on, and then I also need some lamps and probably a tripod for my camera. I have no space or resources for any of this at the moment, and it's not going to change anytime soon. I have no idea if and when it will change, but it annoys me to no end to realize that I can't save all the ideas I have in time. 

So, basically seeing those perf photos makes me both fascinated and frustrated at the same time. I'm not blaming anyone here - it was me who decided to destroy my studio box, but there were reasons to why it happened. Now getting a new photo studio depends from two things: 1. I should find a LARGE enough cardboard box (the previous one was too small) and 2. I need something to place it on top of. 

I happen to own a pile of largeish cloths which I have hoarded just for model horse photography use. They take two large plastic tubs to live in. My favorite will still always be the big sand brown/creamy fabric, which can be seen in many of my photos, obviously. 

I seemingly said what I wanted to... In one sentence, after all that useless blabbering. 

As I just said, I lack the resources for good photos at the moment. Despite that I've assembled and documented a few modelverse scenes anyway - it just doesn't look good due to how... I've placed the models on top of a small and narrow shelf where I keep my littlebits. It happens to be black and with a white wall behind it. I can't do more than just some basic wholebody shots, and the light is too poor to allow detail shots (my camera struggles to focus). I also get physically exhausted thanks to this, because it's not even close to being ergonomic. Basically I've simply given up at trying to do good photos, and these pics turn out ugly. A white paper taped on the annoying marks doesn't help much.

Yes, you definitely can see a western guy riding in English tack here. I don't have any western saddles and I have no idea how to make one. The hackamore is also awful... On purpose.

And here is a cat who needs clothes. Removable clothes.

Still, I seem to have a feeling that I am going to have a new, bigger and better photo studio again someday... Meanwhile I take my ugly photos just to save some ideas for the better future. 

By the way, once Braymere did a blogpost where she mentioned that simplified backgrounds are totally fine. It hit me hard, positively, because that is exactly how I have been doing my own modelverse photos for long years! And I have secretly wished that people would make it acceptable... 

Studio photos with a simple background are my "specialty"... If I ever even had that much experience of any other form of photography! (So the specialty mention is a joke.)

There is also more what I wanted to say. One thing which makes me feel like an outsider with model horse showing question is, that I personally have never participated in stuff like that. I've never been into competiting with other people who craft stuff similar to mine. An excuse is that I just don't understand why people would play "being better" than everyone else. I know that model horse showing is meant to be fun and not too serious and this and that, but it still is about placing higher than your fellow showers. I myself would be a bad judge, because a. I have my own really strict views and opinions about what to judge, and b. I simply wouldn't want to place just one first. I would not want to put people's creations into a bettering order. 

That mention about me having strict opinions about judging is... Something I want to talk about, but maybe not here. I don't know how to word it, really. I have never judged model horse shows, and I'm not an expert with different breeds' standards, so it's not about being "too knowing" or anything, but the opposite... I just happen to be really picky about art and realism in it, and I am a total tack spy. I spy details and accuracy. I judge horse photos every time I see them, be them about real or model horses. I think, due to how I look at these photos, I would also be really unfair if I was asked to judge photos by beginners or children, who naturally can't do everything at the level where the more experiences people can do. And let me say, I'm not at that high level myself neither... But as I said, I struggle to word this thing, so I will well stop it here then. I'm afraid people will greatly misinterpret what I say.

So many tack fails that I can't even count... And it is quite the idea of this heavily edited photo.

Anyway, it was good to be able to turn all these thoughts into words for once. I've been wanting to write a post like this for so long time now... More to come? 

Illustrating this post was extremely difficult. Every photo I choose seems to have at least one serious flaw which I am ashamed of. I don't bother to show those in the context of good performance photos... So that is why there are so many "behind the scenes" pics.

Not everyone lives in the United States

Today I want to write about the international side of the model horse hobby. We both live in Finland, and have seen the things I'll talk about today. It sometimes seems like a lot of people living in the US thinks everyone lives there. This can be seen for example in the great model horse groups of Facebook. While Afuze doesn't use this platform, I myself am active there. And I am not going to lie, I envy the collectors living in US.

A group picture of models I took for our Finnish information page about this hobby. Some of the tack made by me, some by Afuze.

Could you, American hobbyist imagine this: no live shows, no Breyerfest, no physical stores selling Breyers. This is the reality for us living in Finland, and I believe to a lot of collectors living around the world. I can only dream of a model horse convention. Also going to a physical store to buy models is one of my big dreams that I don't see becoming true anytime soon.

Today I read a thread on Facebook about Breyerfest special runs. The original poster suggested that Breyer could sell the special runs online for people that don't attend Breyerfest. There was people telling that people who pay for Breyerfest should be the only ones allowed to get Breyerfest special runs directly from Breyers. But this is what I am talking about. To the ones saying this, Breyerfest is only about attending and the willingness to pay for it. They don't realize that some people cannot attend Breyerfest even if they wanted to.

I am one of these people. Getting to Kentucky would be way too expensive for me. Also, I would have to fly. I am terrified of flying, so even if I had the money or any of the other resources getting there would be impossible. And here I am not even discussing the moral side of flying! Flying is one of the biggest polluters on this planet, and that on it's own is a reason not to fly. If I lived in the US or Canada I would run to Breyerfest. But for me that's impossible since I live in Finland.

A Finnhorse custom by me, named Varhaiskaali (primal cabbage). Finnhorse is a Finnish breed so it seemed fitting to have a picture of Kaali here!

Reading about people's attitudes in that thread made me wonder if I am (or we are) considered less important collectors? Are we not good enough to be seen in this hobby? Just because we don't live on the same continent as others. I understand that Breyer (and other brands) are not charity, they're businesses. So it makes sense that they have to charge for shipping here more, or otherwise they can't make anything available anywhere. But I would like other collectors to not have the mentality, that the indicator of a serious collector is being able to attend Breyerfest.

Other things American collectors seem to take for granted are for example physical stores. Well, here we have one shop called Lahjakas, and while you can go to their stock to buy models, it doesn't really count as a physical store. I love this online store though, they ship really fast and have the best customer service I've come across. But children here don't usually have Breyers as toys as they're so hard to get. And this means no models in thrift stores and none in vintage stores etc. Afuze has been able to get a PAM from a thrift store, but that's it. (Afuze comments: I remember how even the experienced Finnish hobbyists were shocked when I told them how I found that model!)

I am really wanting to conga the traditional Peruvian Paso mold, but I most likely can't afford it right now. Even if I could find some of them, the shipping to Finland gets expensive. But I must start the conga when I am rich... which might take long. Some hobbyists I know buy a lot of models secondhand, but from what I know these people are adults with jobs and spare money to spend (I am twenty and a student so that probably tells enough).

One of my rarest models.

Another thing I see is different is being able to sell your work. Here we don't have a big market for model horses, their tack or anything related to them. So if you want to sell your stuff you have to sell abroad. And I don't see that many people excited to buy from Finland, and it seems like making a name takes more since you don't automatically have that many hobby friends with the same native language. I would say that also the lack of physical events like live shows makes this harder.

Speaking of friends. I don't know anyone IRL who collects! Afuze is a dear friend of mine, but we have not yet met in real life. We are definitely planning to, but live hours away from each other and neither of us have cars. This hobby feels lonely here, this is one of the reasons we started this English blog. It seems like no one reads our Finnish blogs.

I have never attended a live show. We don't have them here. So that side of the hobby is really strange and unknown to me. It seems to be a huge part of American model horse people's hobby, but here I am. It doesn't even exist to me! And it's not because I want it to be that way, so it's kind of sad.

Halter and halter rope I made for Afuze, already rehomed to her collection.

I am writing this, because I want us to be heard too. It seems that people are always surprised when I tell about my hobby and the differences between Finland and United States considering model horses. I am actually sad, that we don't have many things other people have and really dream of live shows etc. Both Afuze and I have worked to get this hobby more known here, but it's hard when people don't even have a way to find the first mentions of (about?) the hobby!

Things I have never

These are things I have never done, been or owned. Does this seem weird for you, American model horse hobbyists?

Passi and Tilda, my two original sculptures.

I have never seen an artist resin in real life. How would I?!

I have never sculpted with epoxy. I don't know where to get it yet, and I don't think I'm worth it anyway, what comes to my sculpting skill level.

I have never seen a Stone in real life. Interesting models are traditionals and too expensive, cheaper ones are too small and uninteresting, and no webstore sells them in my country.

I have never met other model horse people in real life (except my twin). I know some, but only digitally (and by trading...).

Ninksu and Pallero, my stablemate scale pearls who I got from Kave, who also painted them.

I have never painted with oils. I own a set, but I have never been able to actually start and try to paint anything with them. And I recently decided to not to even try them on models, since oils are... well, oils, and maybe not so good with plastic.

I have never seen professionally made tack in real life. By this I mean tack made by masters like Jennifer Buxton and other extremely skilled tackmakers... There are so many of them, and I want to become just as good.

I have never made bridles from leather lace that was bought in the ideal width. I have to make that width by myself.

I have never used pre-made bits, buckles, clasps or anything else which would be bought from hobby stores such as Rio Rondo. I have never even seen those metal pieces in real life. I make all my buckles and other metal parts by myself. 

I have never seen professionally customized horses in real life. CM AR? Drastic Breyers? Seen them only online. I assume the first time I see one would come when I make one of those myself, which is just realistic with the life I have. Long trip coming. Long and slow.

Does this count as drastic?

I have never photographed my horses outdoors. I'm afraid of breaking them and so on, you should know this. Though I now got two pony pouches, so outdooring with my models should be a bit more possible at some point.

I have never seen Breyer traditionals in a physical store. I have only seen stablemates and classics, and also that only once. That was also the only time in my life when I bought Breyers in a physical store.

I have never showed neither live or photo. My country simply doesn't have shows, and while photo shows would be a thing in theory, I simply have never been that interested to even try.

I have never bought a horse, made a piece of tack or assembled a horse & rider setup with showing in mind.

I have never tried to sculpt and paint a horse that would ideally match to a breed standard so that it would do well in shows.

I have never designed tack so that it would look exactly like something which already exists in 1:1 scale. I do my own designs. 

I have never done anything with showing in mind.

I have never done anything with perfection - in the sense of idealism - in mind.

Not perfect, not ideal, but quite realistic in my standards. And that should be enough.

So, I lack a lot of things which are seen as normal in the hobby. Most hobbyists are American, and the model horse stuff there is more like a complete industry rather than just a small hobby where adults collect toy horses. I guess they can often forget that not everyone has the possibilities they do have there. Americans simply have everything they need for the model horse hobby, in their own land. One can have hard time realising or remembering that not all hobbyists live there, or, yet weirder, that not every modeller is interested about showing their models.

I'm one so-called home hobbyist. I hobby at home. I don't go anywhere, I don't see people, I don't collect or make anything with show careers in mind. I do everything for myself and for my very few model horse colleaque friends.

No one knows me.

Rollo the ugly custom being flied at by Windy.

I know not all American hobbyists are or have the things I lack. But those liveshow freaks just are what I read most often about... It would be a common stereotype of an average model horse hobbyist. Ha! (Just in case, reader: have a sense of humor!)