Merry Christmas!!!

 

It's Christmas at Mini Hoofbeats Studio!

Lots of presents under the tree....

It's Brighid and McKay's first Christmas.

Happy momma...

...and an overly excited McKay;

All ready for Christmas!

Have a Wonderful Christmas Everyone!

Tiny Details: Unsupervised Ponies and Foals Invading an Unsupervised Bake Sale

 

Sometimes for more detailed scenes, I'd make a sketch of what I wanted it to be like. I don't always abide by it, but I can get it pretty close.

Yeah, I got that pretty close - especially with Arrow being the center of attention!

The story of this scene is basically one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. In turn, someone let these food-loving invaders right at the same moment when the person manning the bake sale left it unattended. This is the consequence.

However, with this end picture, a lot of the details get lost. Thankfully, I took lots of pictures. Here they are!

Enjoy

Winter Pony Bytes Photo Show Results

At the beginning of the month, there was a new paid+prize photo show that was being advertised on one of the Facebook groups I follow. The Winter Pony Bytes Photo Show uses a new platform that is specifically programed for hosting model horse photo shows. When I first read about it, I assumed that the platform would be like SmugMug, another great platform for photo shows. So out of curiosity, FOMO, and it being a prize base show - I entered it. And I could tell you this:

It was not what I had expected.

Due to the fact that they were still testing the trafficking of users in a small time frame on the site - we were allowed to upload pictures for only two days. Completely understandable.

It took me about an hour to enter in my photos for each division (and I didn't even enter every single class!)

It was very similar to my experience with Breyerfest:

Lots of fun prep = quick to burnout

Throughout uploading all my photos, I kept thinking, "what was I thinking?!"

I did not have time for this.

I had other things I wanted to get done.

I was needed elsewhere in the house.

So, I tried to get it ALL done in one day.

Let's just get it all over with it.

Then I get an email from one of the hosts the next day asking about my formatting (I followed their instructional photo example to a "T") and if I was going for points.

Unfortunately, I haven't done many shows with points, so I don't really understand them. In my weird logic, going for points seems like that's how you get a higher chance at winning anything. I did find out, however, pointsless entries can still place in the champions round. They still mean nothing to me. Just give me the ribbon, because that's more rewarding for me.

And now the results.

Mares In Black Division

(to be honest, whenever I see the MIB sign/whatever it's called, I think of the Men In Black movie with Will Smith. I really wanted to do a scene for one of the classes of standing mares with "suites," "ties," and "sunglasses" to be the secret agents from Men in Black. Unfortunately, I don't have  any mares who would fit the idea).

Whole Mood Mares

Blue Moon and Maybelline having a dispute

Received 1st in the class

Aaannddd....for being a pointsless entry...

received Reserve for CM/AR

As you all already know, Maybelline (right) is a vintage SM, not a CM.

Performing Mares

Paint Me A Pepto and Jenny competing in the speed game of Bribe Your Horse

Received 5th

The Barn Division

(this was a little hard to do, since I do not own a barn. I do have the arena panel and ways to make the barnyard, though).

Corral Comedy

Ice Cream Kisses

Received 5th

Naughty Ponies

Unsupervised Ponies and Foals Invading an Unsupervised Bake Sale

Received 3rd

The Greyt Grey Challenge

(thankfully, I have lots of Greys!)

Grey Performance

Brighty's Trick Training

Reveived 4th

Not-A-Horse Grey

Blossom

Received 5th

Winter Fantasy and Animal Fun

(between the Grey division and this division, there are a LOT of entries. Most of my stress level was with these two - in the uploading part, that is).

Wings

Sumatra

Received 5th

OF Not-Unicorn

Numinor

Received 2nd

OF Unicorn

Xavier

Received 4th

Pony Bytes was OK, but I think I'm going to stick with MEPSA, Facebook, and SmugMug for now. There's less stress with those.

Supplies Organization

 

I finally figured out a way to store the the #95 gauge Paracord for model horse rope halters and leads.

I am surprised that the camera was able to differentiate between the orange (top right hand corner) and the coral (bottom middle) since it is nearly impossible to tell them apart in-person.

Now I need to figure out where their official place would be. 

Oops!

 

I honestly don't know how this happened.

The posts are correct for the Traditional scale....but the poles height are perfect for the Classic scale.

This means that I still need to make the Traditional scale a set of fences (which is what I was doing anyway - make a set for every scale).

Hopefully, this week I can get around taking this set out to the shop to whopp off the tops of the posts to make them the correct height for Classics.

This was another problem I ran into. I found out that Traditional scale needs 4-5 panels (which I already figured that, but it was good to test it), since America Pharoah was cutting it close on both ends due to his length. 3 Panels are perfect for Classics - especially since Laurel (and Montana) are my longest Classic horses.

Pink Package Prizes!

My prizes came last week from the Field of Dolls Photo Show.

How did they know that I needed a new, ugh, mask? (I haven't tried it yet)

Now I have another colored mailer to make more mini mailer props! (Remind me to make a post about them!!)

I know fore sure that the mask and the saddle pad were apart of the door raffle prize, but I don't know which prizes went with what placing.

Now I have two sets of stirrups (the black ones are the new set)!

This is one of those vinyl stickers that has been a new trend (at least new to me) in the model horse community. I'm thinking of making it into a magnet instead of sticking it on something that might wear out faster than I want it to. But, really! I don't know how these people guess things about me without even knowing me????!!

I haven't gotten a color-by-number kit in a long time.

And color pencils are my main medium!

It gets better - do you remember when it was cool to be the one with the shortest pencil?

Yep

And you eventually develop a knack for how to use them.

I mean, look at my color pencil collection...

Oh! And then there's this collection!

I plan on eventually making a sculpture of a horse head with all of these little pencils.

I had to take these pictures later because the Casio's battery needed to be recharged.

I haven't tried it on too many of my horses, but so far, non-crazy hair ones work the best. (Wapiti looks really good with this saddle pad, but doesn't photograph well on his show side. Snowman snagged it from him for a picture. Goof ball!)

New Fence

 This past couple of weeks, I have been working on making a pasture fence for photographing my model horses. There were a guarantee number of trials and errors, but I got through it, and figured out the best possible solution. Thankfully, we have heap loads of sticks out back!

I ended up making a Traditional set, a Stablemate set, and a Mini Whinnie set. Eventually, I'm going to make a set for both Classic and Paddock Pals (and maybe Wind Dancers, too...?)

So far, so good.

Though, I do need to make another "panel" for Traditional, since both "Bandit" and "Pharoah" were cutting it close on both sides.

Oh! So, tiny!!

There's still some areas where I need to add more brush, but believe it or not - all of these are held together with hot glue gun!

The fences even did well when I tried portraits!

Oh, yeah, and I figured out that I don't need a Macro Lens for my Canon. Instead, I literally placed the camera on the table at the appropriate distance away from the little guys and snapped the picture with very little peering through the viewfinder. This method so totally worked!!!

The one thing about the fences is that I couldn't get them to interlock very well since their base are super large popsicle sticks. I'm not done with them yet - they still need more foliage (I'm using the moss for the time being here).

On the second photoshoot, I knew it was supposed to snow.....but.....I was more focused on the fact that it's overcast, which is PERFECT for photographing model horses (especially Glossies!)

Well, it snowed on me.

Got some good pictures.

And some that needed the snow shook off of the grass mat, due to disappearing white feet.

Ah, much better!

I was supposed to get pictures of some more Mini Whinnies and Stablemates, but my fingers were practically frozen even though I had gloves on. It was also kind of tiring because of the cold. Oh, well, I'll get those pictures another day.