Factory weirdnesses

I'm so very good to say this, as my collection isn't huge, but I already know I have one model that is different from what all his clones are. My Cortes lacks eye whites!

How common are this kind of flaws in Breyers, overall? Is it nice or irritating to find out if your model seemingly is one of these? (I know some collectors don't accept even small flaws in their horses. This alone will do a difference in each collection.)

I personally like my C a lot. Partly because he was one of the two first Breyer trads I actually bought from internet; the first EVER was my PAM who was a flea market treasure.

I've noticed that sometimes Breyer should have some variety in the expressions of their horses, as the "looking forward" is not an option all the time, really. Often horses try to look more to the side or backward than forward.

For me, flawed models are really unique, as long as it's not about something like a paint drop escaped to wrong area - like with my Babyflo who has sand brown drop on her forelock. It definitely doesn't belong in there, so it's a factory mistake.

Anyway, I seem to be the rescuer of all failed models generally, according to how well the failed models end up with me. It's not a bad thing as long as the issue isn't too big or clear or disturbing.

I also have a random hobby of purposely finding and buying flawed models, as long as they fit my taste. Bent legs are not nice, I hate that as a thing, but interesting errors like paint flaws and mistakes are nice to find. I've done that with Schleich now, and I own a couple falabellas and a eyeless pony mare.

The falabellas I bought at 2017 as I was buying victims for a customizing tutorial I was doing with beginners in mind. I found what I needed, but my eye stuck to a difference among the row: one falabella was painted differently than the others, while being meant to be the same color! I have no idea how soon I could see the same thing again, so I had to buy both normal and the weird one and one normal for customizing.

The 'average' falabella pony. Creamy-ish color, no much contrast between the coat and mane & tail.

The strange one. He's much more yellow compared to the average guy. Hooves are very dark as well.

As you compare these two, you may notice how different not only the colors are, but also the spots. Especially the backside spots look like they're not meant to belong to one and same pony (good).

Their difference is this clear both through photos as seen with eyes.

I could definitely like to get information of why this kind of paint differences do happen in a batch that is sold at same time. At least I can try recognizing different painters by that, but it still feels weird.

The pony mares I bought at January 2019. As always, I was again looking for potential art victims, and saw that actually that pony mold wasn't so badly sculpted as most of Schleichs are. I was fine with having one OF in my shelf next to future CMs. As I checked which of the ponies was most flawless, I noticed that one of them had no eyes painted! It was a zombie! I bought it and one okay conditioned normal pony, but nothing for customizing, since I already had choosed one horse for that and Schleichs are too expensive to buy a lot at once.

The zombie pony.

While factory errors can be interesting, they also are gold for a artist who is interested to find out how some products are made. It's clear that Schleich loves airbrushing as a technique, just to use a brush after it. Though this isn't a difficult one to guess by those ponies. I rather continue to wonder why and how that kind of flawed model sneaked through the process and ended up in the store, and after it in my collection. Where was this mare made? How did it end up in Finland, let alone in my town? How was I in that store buying her at the right time? Schleichs are quite mass-produced stuff so this is a interesting coincidence. The shelf wasn't even overpopulated of the horses.

I don't see this kind of things very often. Maybe that is thanks to strict quality control, which focuses on keeping the models safe for little kids, I guess. Paint flaws definitely are not a safety risk, so they sometimes end up in the shops. 

Rough plans for the year 2019

I'm not those people who plan a lot and succeed in it, but I WANT to do things, so I do rough plans. Something that I can do in theory.

Namu in a violet flowemore bridle (not made for that mold...).

Finish at least one horse per each month. This should not be hard, if I stay away from cutting Schleichs in ten pieces and having no idea how to assemble them to a new position. I should so simplier but still drastic-ish like (not really drastic) resculpting. I've already done this goal's first step, January, as I started and finished two horses. More to come!

Make some tack at least once each month. A bit easier goal compared to that customizing one... And it shouldn't matter what the tack is, most important is to get it done. Be it halter, rope, a complicated bridle or a new design of a saddle. Very easy goal since I very easily build about 10 pairs of curb bits at once, since I can't get enough of designing them. Now with some stupid plastic beads with colors, because that gives variety to the bits and I haven't done that previously.

Behind the scenes. An exploded tackmaking table.

Finish at least one doll per each month. Easier said than done, but possible. January failed, although I played with the idea to do a doll at/for my birthday, but I did horses and bits and bought art stuff. Well. This can happen, in theory.

Finish at least one photo marathon per each month. Yes, all my goals are month-related. This just is realistic enough to think. I usually photograph at least once a week, and build a big bunch of pics by doing that, and at the end I empty the camera to my computer after I have enough pics. The time to spend to this doesn't need to be long and it shouldn't require having at least 500 photos to check and edit and throw away.

Lanttu the red gelding as a dressage pony.

Then... Try to publish a finished blog article at least once a month! See, at least! I've been very bad blogger for years, despite how addicted I am with blogging. I simply have difficulty to finish the texts and throw them public, because of self criticism and negative feelings what comes to my creations and writings.

Improve with photo stacks and photo stories. For too long I've seen that something's not right with my photo stacks, but I can't fix it. Let's see if this is possible. I bet it is not. List of things I need: backdrop landscape pictures (to be painted), a lot bigger studio box, at least one or two detachable lamps that I can use to leave the flash off... Doll clothes. Realistic saddles that could actually look and behave like saddles do. Oh damn, this will never be possible. What am I planning? Extra plan: PUBLISH THE PHOTO STACKS AND STORIES. (That will happen in Visualrat, if happens.)

Do more (or any at least) photo stories. It can't be that hard. (Or then it can.) Basically, I just mean that I could do model horse photography to build stories.

Twins, Offhand and Grievous, checking a new horse. From a photo story.

I'm afraid of planning anything more, because I'm very good at failing with this kind of things. I also don't want stress to my life, so I try not to add too much pressure... Wait, I need difficult projects? Yes, but I want to like doing them, too. 

I made a double bridle...

For longer time I've avoided making double bridles for 'mouthless' horses, because double bits are a question to make. I want everything to really look AND work like the full scale thing, so it took me few years to finally try.

Because double bridle means also double bit; having two separate bits in the horse's mouth at same time, I was in trouble with my modeller life. Nothing serious actually - I simply had no idea how to combine two bits to the technique I already have invented to make bits literally working on mouthless horses. One mouthpiece fits there just well enough, but another one isn't an option! So how to fix that? I got few ideas to try, failed and had to invent more.

The final product is... Well, a curb-snaffle -combination assembled from FOUR moving metal pieces that are attached to each other. It goes this way: mouthpiece-curb-link-snafflering. Jeep. That is it. Though it's yet a trouble. The link disturbs everything, but at the same time, the snaffle could drop away without it... And the main problem with that stupid link is that it seemingly is disagreeing with a curb strap when I add one to the curb. Grrrr.

Bad photo of the bit combo, but I don't have anything else right now.

(Edit; february 2019. A photo of the double bit who is the star of this article:)

Otherwise, it seems to work nicely enough. Big part of this is how the bridle is made. Strong but soft enough leather with tongue buckles is a perfect thing, but may be difficult to keep good looking as the straps and buckles require more space than it really should. To make thinner strapped bridle, I have to use very narrow and almost paper thin thinned leather lace... With sliding buckles. Yay! NO. After accustoming to how nice tongue buckles are, I've realised how horrific slideys actually are. I can say I hate them most of my time. They also look boring, so... The only big plus is that you can have a buckle and the keeper in the same, but that's just... all of the good.

This is the same leather what I used for the star of this article.

Older bridle from that leather.

But anyway. I made a double bridle from that super thin(ned) leather. It has all parts we need for English doublie: browband, throatlatch, three crownpieces, five cheekpieces (one for noseband), noseband with a flash noseband attachment, a flash noseband, and... The bits and a curb strap. Most of my time with that bridle I've just fought with piling the crownpieces nicely on each other behind the horse's ears (very yummy to do with fragile paper-like leather...), and adjusting the cheekpieces so the bits could work nicely and no air could be found between them and the horse. SO MUCH EASIER TO SAY THAN DO... People. Rly. Don't do paper thin leather and sliding buckles. It's very irritating.

Sometimes I find my worktable a good photography place. Weird, but yes.

The dressage bridle's cheekpieces have some metal parts recycled from four similar cheekpieces I had to destroy after realising how bad buckles were in them. That leather can't be saved after it's glued, so I just got the metal pieces and threw leathers away. It was really nice to have some parts already made...

...but I still had to make sure I have enough buckles for second projects. The buckles are shaped like the number 8 and are really small, in fact they're perfect for that stupid leather I used. At the same time I made some mini jumprings and some other pieces. Because, as you see, a double bridle gets a lot of those (and the jumprings get re-shaped to ovals!)...

I must mention how much I like the "used" look in the straps after they've wrinkled by rough handling... Which is needed, unfortunately.

I seemingly made seven curbstraps from that stupid leather after finishing the bridle. It was pain still.

As you possibly got already sure of, I lost nerves with that bridle. Every time I use that leather I just think why the hell I even try. Yet less nice as I realised I had to redo about half of that whole damn stack of straps (after snapping some straps because they were too thick to go through the buckles... and because the throatlatch was too short). It's not worth all that pain. Or is it?

Actually, I had to get a pause from that bridle project as I didn't know how to survive with it anymore. At some point I then had two bridles to work on... I have no idea how. The first was that  stupid dressage trash bridle and the other was just... random. So random, that I ended up making an another, average bridle from it. The reason to change straps was that they were often too short for the Salinero mold, as he's not the smallest horse in my shelf. Also this other bridle had to use a browband that I tried to pad with red suede lace, which didn't work, so it looks unclean now. Not sure if I retouch it later.

That average bridle in use... Seems to be the best way to take good photos of my tack.

The good part is, that too short straps can still fit smaller heads, so I have different bridles for different horses. Even although I have made my tack recipes mainly for warmblood size. This bridle can work as a 'lesson bridle', meaning that it's simple enough for riding school students to use - my modelverse's main stable has an ideology not to put beginners to use double reins. And with good horses you really should not need anything else than simpliness.

With these I again thought how nice it could be to have a normal instant-splattable glue to use. Contact glue is a bit difficult and irritating to do just for small bits that should be done in a second. It also makes impossible to add paddings properly, what comes to nosebands and browbands. Padding adds so much nice detail that I really wish to do that more to my bridles.

So I guess it took a couple of days to finish that double bridle. I still hate the leather, but at least I now have the bridle... And double bits.

I hate being compliment for myself, but I have to say, this is quite something I never believed I could make. Yes, it's just a bridle... But model horse tackmakers know how easy it is (not) to do a mini bridle that looks and works as realistically as possible, when compared to the 1:1 scale thing. This simply is something I wasn't thinking to do when I first started tackmaking in 2013, ever. Maybe it's the straps' narrowness and the detailing that makes me say that this is quite OK bridle for my personal view now (even without tongue buckles). Still has a lot to improve yet, of course. Like, putting this on any model is a painful experience... Who knows if the second similar project just misbehaves too much to get done at all? (I really felt stupid when writing this part of the article. Really. So much I hate being kind to myself. And that is not a joke. OK: to be honest I just didn't list all the errors this irritatingly fragile bridle has...)

And as my quite new saying goes, everything looks good with a halter bridle on.

Flash noseband attachment... And no, this bridle doesn't look that dirty out of photos.

I wonder if the throatlatch is yet a bit too short...

What's very weird is that I really need these irritating projects. It keeps my brain busy. It's good for health. A simple bridle (browband, cheekpieces and a throatlatch) with three tongue buckles seems to be already too simple for me.

...must make more double bridles. Though not from that idiotic leather. Pffff.

Or maybe yes. 

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?)