Sugarfoot Live Model Horse Show

It's about time I'd write a post about the very, first live model horse show I had attended back in....um.....September! The nice thing about this particular show was that it was in Farmington, UT - which is much closer to little o'l Cache Valley than previous ones in Southern Utah. Either way, it was very exciting planning who I was bringing....

and spending the entire month sewing Pony Pouches (to be honest, I really have no idea how many I made!)

 Poor Xavier looks like he has a turban. It's really an extra strip of polar fleece from the pony pouches wrapped around his horn for protection. I brought two other unicorns (a classic foal and a stablemate), but they weren't able to see like Xavier here.

 I wish I had gotten more pictures of everyone else's collections to show the rest of my family that "I'm not the only one who has a huge herd of model horses." In fact, even though I had brought just over 40 horses - there were people there with possibly over 100! And that was usually a good mix between the big guys and the little ones.

It was slow for most of the morning. I was starting to get a little discouraged when none of my horses were placing. I did find out that I should have put Snow Princess in the Decorators division due to the metallic, blue highlights in her mane and tail - making her not realistic!

Once the Fun Classes started, hope of placing in something came back in the form of prizes. Moana (left) won a unicorn coin purse and Xavier (right) won a unicorn rubber ducky??? Don't ask.

 This was the Mini Fantasy Fun Class. Apparently, I was the only one with a Wind Dancer....going up against the current trend of unicorns. That's OK, it was worth a try. One of the main reasons I had insisted on attending, was meeting other collectors and finding out if any of them lived near me. In turn, I found out that the girl on the right lives in Cache Valley, too.

Now, when I saw the Mare & Foal/Family class listed, I knew I just had to enter my entire Spirit* Family that I had collected over the years starting with the two Plush Spirit and Rain; originally bought at Blockbuster years ago after the movie came out. The lineup starts with Spirit's parents: Strider and Esperanza. Next is Spirit and Rain with their two kids: Swirl (Bay Frame Overo) and Wild (Buckskin). Then it crosses over to Wild's family, her mate: Silver (Black) and foal: Mary Jane (Palomino). Now it's Rain's side of the family, starting with her twin sister, Raindrop and her mate: Wild Spirit (standing Dunskin) and their foal: Lightning Bolt (standing Buckskin Pinto). Then there's Rose's family (Rose is Rain's aunt), Rainbow and her daughters: Daisy Mae (running Buckskin Pinto foal) and Montana (running Dunskin). Ending with Montana and her mate: Chestnut (Tobiano) with their foal: Lightning (Black Tobiano). Yes, that's the ENTIRE family!

Then SURPRISE!!! Another judge had gifted the newest edition to the family (I ended up calling him: Free Spirit; and he's Spirit's* cousin who no one knows where he got all the "big" genes).

I literally didn't expect that kind of a surprise! One of the other collectors had told me that it was because of "shear volume." Though, what I found even more funny, was that they had a Spirit model on hand as a prize!

 I originally was going to include Strider's adopted family with the lineup, but I had already used up a ton of table space with the direct family. So, the Grand Champion twins, Brown Tyke and Cupid, ended up in the Most Loved class. They didn't win anything, but by the way, they were my very first toy horses that I could remember!

I think this was apart of the Resin Division. Yes, that's a tiny horse standing next to that humongous rosette!

Here's another crazy mini! Highly detailed, but not mine.

This was the Pony class in the Customs Division. One of the things I made sure I did with each of my customs, was ask the judge for explanation on placings and advice for the future. Blending on both the sculpting level and the painting level were the major biggies. But, the one thing she did say, was that she had never seen this kind of custom before. She was also totally convinced that Alistair (Mushroom: right) was Breyer Classic Merrylegs underneath all that "hair." He's not. In fact, he's mirror image to Merrylegs (I'll write about the comparison in another post). But he's sculpted from Breyer's Traditional Shetland Pony.

This is NiConi. She was one of the judges and totally fell in love with Merida, my Zebra Dun Shetland Pony custom. Merida is not for sale and I would be making more fuzzy ponies in the future.

 I did bring some of my "to be for sale" pieces. So far, Aster was the only one who placed in his class.

 This little guy was customized and owned by Shannon Robinson. She really has a knack for sculpting Pegasus wings.

 Here's Snowfire with his placing. He was quite a trooper when I got him. His right hindleg was majorly bowed outward (a factory fault) and he couldn't stand properly. The nice thing about being a customizer is that you have all the tools for fixing these kind of faults.

 Banks Vanilla got 4th place in her class, too!

Some of the perks of going to a live show were raffle prizes, door prizes, silent auctions, and other horsey goodies that collectors were selling at their tables. I wasn't successful with the raffle prizes, but I did get my very first Medallion with the silent auction (I still don't know what color I'm going to paint him). Those who had full entries got a goody bag of fun horsey things (I did!). The rest were a good mix between OF models and bodies for customs......plus my very first Peter Stone model horse!

 Spirit, you really earned that ribbon, by the way!

That was too much fun! I can't wait until the next one!

Unplanned and Not Happening Again?

 This halter was supposed to be for a Paddock Pal. But my measurements were extremely off. I know, I should've taken it apart and started over - but I didn't!

 Instead, I pulled out my nearest Stablemate (little miss Dungaree) and tried the halter on her. My irritation increased, but I still kept making this teeny, tiny halter that is several sizes too small for a Paddock Pal!

 My point? Well, on of my list of no-nos was to not make tack that's smaller than a Paddock Pal (meaning Stablemates and Mini Whinnies). It's bad enough that I am already customizing Mini Whinnies, while being extremely nearsighted and wears glasses 24/7. Making tiny tack might throw me over the edge.

I don't know, recently I had an idea to make a unicorn team pulling a fairy carriage in the Stablemates scale. I might make more Stablemate halters, but once I have more experience making ones for the bigger horses.

A Different Tactic

Dremeling a drastic custom is still in the experimenting stage. In the past, I had taken out the entire ribcage like on these two stablemates.

 And, of course, I still need to work on not getting the skeletal structure so thin that the limbs break off without warning.

 So, I tried a different tactic of leaving the ribcage on, while making the spine still movable.

 I got my dad to help me with cutting his mouth with a dremel rotary blade - more like supervising, since I hadn't used one before....and I know that they are very fragile and will break without any notice.

 The foam stage is weird. Look, he has teddy bear ears!

 Ah, much better!

One thing I did do differently was the painter's tape vs. notepad-paper-over-Apoxie-plus-rubber-bands-method.

Apparently, the Apoxie doesn't adhere to the foam because it needs a porous surface - not smooth and spongy. Forming Ocean Mist's (stablemate) ribcage was a challenge due to the lumpiness caused by the rubber bands trying to keep the Apoxie on the foam. That's why I figured that painter's tape would work better, since I could make it tight and the tape has enough texture for the Apoxie to bond to. I hope it works. Haven't tried it yet. Hopefully this week I could start working on him again.

The Evolution of Firestorm

In a way, every custom is an evolution. They start as one thing and turn into something amazing in the end. But the process in-between is always something that non-artists don't realize. The tug 'o' war between sticking to the plan and letting the model form itself. In my case, they [the customs] usually get their way.

 Obviously, I had done some re-sculpting on his head and mane. His eye accidentally got sheared off when I was working on his muzzle with the dremel tool.

 Had some issues with the primer puddling on the model, too. Though, granted, I did run out of my primer and had to use my grandfather's (which is thinner because he uses it for model airplanes and army trucks). It did not adhere to the slick surface of a model horse too well.

Here he is in his "Cheeto" stage. This was almost his name, until...

 I applied the pastels...

 .....And he became this color. Which, in a was is really cool. He almost stayed a solid color as well.

 But, the plan was...

To make him a Framed Overo.

 But, he kept evolving with...

 Every. Single. Layer. Of. White.

 (Oh, yeah, that's an alien monster toy that my uncle wanted me to fashion that green alien to the white tab on the red one. He's been helpful when painting hooves. He's still hasn't gone home yet).

 All finished! He really turned out an awesome color and pattern. He comes in a pony pouch with an ID card that includes his general information, personality, and mold info. Careful, he likes soda pop!

Updates: Ocean Mist

Here are the finishing touches on Ocean Mist. She's a Bay base Grey Sabino1 Shire who loves carrots and sneaking up on her friends.

Such a sweet girl!