New Breyer Collector Club Model...

For the most part, I want to try to keep this blog entertaining and positive, but there might be an occasional rant thrown in here or there if the mood hits me and this is one of those times.  Plus, I have a headache and I tend to get grouchy when I don't feel well.  hahaha.  I'll try to keep the complaining down, though.

So, just about every morning when I get to work, I check Facebook and then Blab and then a few other websites and on Blab I saw someone had posted that the new model for the Collector Club had been put up for purchase on the Breyer website...

I first saw a picture of him during Breyerfest and knew I wanted him when he became available... which was today.  I hesitated only a moment before deciding to go ahead and buy him now rather than wait a week or two in case he sells out since it's a "while supplies last" type deal.  Well, to read some of the comments on Blab, you'd think he's going to be around for a long time.  Most of what I have read about him has been negative.  People complaining about the color and the pattern and "another paint sporthorse" and that he's not glossy and he costs too much and he's boring-looking.  Blah blah blah.  It was enough that the one person who admitted to liking him and ordering him immediately, hid behind the "blue couch of shame"

Sorry the photo is so tiny.  But why do people do that?  Why do they complain so much about a model that people who like it feel they have to hide for liking it?  I told her not to hide and to stand out and proud next to me.  It's like a thread that got started a couple of months ago that led to a few people being banned from the website...price shaming and "upper class" hobbyists.  Or something like that.  That thread got real ugly, real quick and had to be locked a couple of times before it eventually died.  The gist of that thread was that some people who have the means to spend on pricey models are made to feel bad by saying they'd never spend X amount on a model or a model costs more than a car payment or rent payment or whatever.  So the people with the means or desire to spend $$$$ on a model don't want to share anymore and thus, don't post on Blab as much.  A couple of people, myself included, apologized and said they'd be more mindful of it in the future, but that wasn't enough for the person who started the thread and basically kept telling people they needed to pay attention to how many people were saying they felt price shamed and change our behavior.   Someone even said that because they were getting an education and had more opportunities where they live, they're more intelligent and likely to go after the higher-priced models.  I told her that a college degree didn't immediately equal intelligence because I don't have one and I know I am very intelligent.

But I digress...yeah, what else is new...my point is, sometimes there's a pettiness in this hobby that can be a little hard to swallow.  If you don't like a model, fine.  Not everyone has to like the same things.  But to say it's an "easy pass" and "ugh" makes it difficult for people who do like it to express that.  You don't like it?  Don't buy it.  I happen to like it very much so I bought it and I can't wait for him to arrive.  Do I wish he'd been a bay pinto or a black pinto or a chestnut pinto like someone else said?  Eh.  No.  The color doesn't bother me.  Do I wish he'd been made a glossy?  Eh.  I don't care.  I'm not a huge glossy person.  Not everyone wishes every model was glossy.  Do I wish the model was a little less expensive?  Heck yes!  Who wouldn't?  But compared to Acadia, whom I am still trying to acquire, albeit not very heavily right now, Lucien is a bargain.

Would you believe I am still driving around with Minstrel still in my car and in his box?  I keep meaning to bring him inside, but I have yet to do it.  Maybe today.  hahaha.  And I still haven't unboxed Khalid.  That one is enough for the Blue Couch of Shame

And the horses I bought from Amazon in July are still in their shipping box.  Yikes.

In addition to Lucien, I also bought the Farrier doll...

I don't know why.  Well, yes, I do.  Because I wanted a boy doll and I wanted to round up the dollar amount for my purchase from Breyer.  Dumb reason, I know.  His face looks funny but I can learn to live with that, I guess.

I guess that's it for now.

New Model...

Well, modelS...plural.  But one doesn't entirely count yet as he hasn't been removed from his shipping box or examined yet.  I'm such a slacker.  Hahaha.

Last week I bought a Khalid off of someone on ebay and he arrived a few days later...

Like I said, though, he's still in his shipping box and I can't even leave feedback until I inspect him. Maybe this weekend. It's funny, though, because I was so hot and heavy to get him into my grubby little paws but then I don't even bother taking him out of his box when he arrives.  Grrrrr.  And combined with the 2 horses I bought off Amazon in July that are also still in THEIR shipping box, what right do I have going and buying yet another model?  But I did.  At least this one isn't in a shipping box, just the regular window box Breyers come in.  Yesterday I found myself with an unexpected afternoon off so I decided to head out and look for the wild horses.  Usually, I prefer to go a certain way to get to where they are, but decided to go a direction that would take me past a Tractor Supply Company.  Unfortunately, all of ours are on the outskirts of larger cities so I have to actually make it a point to go to where they are rather than just having one in my regular areas of driving.  Hoping TSC would have Kentucky to add to my San Domingo conga, I decided that was where I was going to go.  And actually, taking that route to get to the wild horses isn't going out of my way.  The route I normally take IS, but I seem to get there faster.  Maybe it's because of traffic / traffic lights, I don't know.

So, I get to TSC and even before I walk through the sliding glass door, I'm already seeing the familiar bright yellow boxes our beloved models come in.  I head over to the display, already with the intention of buying SOMEthing, if only to justify the energy it would end up costing me in the long run.  I saw the exclusives Sampson and Hakan, but neither of them appealed to me.  I also spotted Stella, another TSC exclusive that I didn't realize was an exclusive at the time nor did I realize she was a traditional.  For some reason I thought she was a Classic and I didn't buy her because I was afraid I already had her.  There was a neat Stablemate barn set I considered, but I didn't really care for the mold used.  They also had the 2019 Christmas model Minstrel...

Yup.  That's the one I got.  I loosely conga the Latigo mold so I grabbed it and off I went.  It was my hopes to go back to the location where I'd taken the Stablemate photos featured in an earlier post, once I reached that area, I was afraid to get out of my car.  Why?  Well, the road I'd driven on was very bumpy and my bladder was unhappy.  Sorry, but that's the truth.  And with no facilities out there other than some cactus, I didn't dare risk it because I would still have to drive back out to the main road.  Did I mention this road was a dirt road mostly for off-road vehicles and 4 wheel drives?  Not only did I not want to risk my bladder, but I didn't want to damage my car.  I need to find another place to take some pictures for sure, but when you live in the desert, there aren't too many "natural" places to go.

I will probably have to go back to TSC at some point in order to get Stella.  I liked her look enough to consider buying her yesterday so maybe I need to go back and look again then maybe buy her...We will see, though.  I don't have any models on the Blue Grass Bandit mold, but that's not a big deal.  Not every model I buy has to be one I conga already, right?

I did see some wild horses while I was out looking.  A small band and they were not in a place where I could photograph them, which was a total bummer, but sometimes just seeing them is neat.

QOTD...Okay...this is an interesting one...If a store has several models you want and you could only get one "now", how do you decide which one to get?

Playing With Dolls...Model Horse Scale Dolls, That Is...

Yeah, I know the title is kind of long, but I wanted anyone to read it to know what I was talking about and not think I meant something like this...

Although I played with plenty of those when I was younger.  I had a Baby Alive and a couple of Cabbage Patch Kids.  No, I'm talking model horse scale dolls.  This is the "long awaited" 2nd part to "Expectation vs Reality".  This is what I was researching when I ended up splitting it into two different posts.  This won't be as detailed as the other one, though, because this is mostly filled with fun photos, not necessarily ones taken for a photo show, but rather just because you wanted to have fun with your model horses and rider dolls.

I've been putting this post off until I could dig up my dolls and take some pictures, but they're a little difficult to get to at the moment and if I wait until I finally get to them AND take pictures, too much time may have passed.  It may be next year.  Who knows?  Well, I'm hoping it won't be that long, but "next year" is only a couple of months away.  Anyway, in not waiting for that I actually came up with a couple of post ideas for the dolls.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be.  hahaha.  But I'm keeping that a secret until I'm ready to post the first one.

I do have a couple of my own photos to start us off with, though... Let me see if I can remember the reasoning for them...why I took the pictures to begin with...Okay.  I can't remember and I can't find the post in my old blog where I originally posted the photos.  There are too many posts to go through and not enough time.  And yes, I know I shared these two photos in an earlier post, but they still give me a chuckle...

In the first photo, sisters Taylor (on the right) and Jackie thought it would be funny in they terrorized the dogs at the barn because it was too muddy outside to ride and they were bored.  Taylor is old enough to know better, but she got caught up in Jackie's youthful obnoxiousness.  The duo chased the dogs and cat around the barn for quite some time before eventually growing tired and meeting up with their friend Erica.  That's when things got real.  The dogs and cat come to get their payback and they've brought friends...

It's not so funny now, is it, girls?  Maybe next time you'll think twice before you chase the animals around the barn because you never know when they might bring in...A KOALA!!!!!!!!!!!!   Erica didn't do anything wrong, she was just there when the pack showed up so it's guilt by association, I guess.  Hopefully they learned their lesson.

So.  I found all sorts of types of photos of playing with dolls when doing research, but not as many as I had hoped, but that's okay.  They range from realistic...

To funny...

I just love the drama this photo conveys

And variations in-between...

Who knew Jean-Luc Picard showed Saddlebred horses?

The ones with Jose (last 4) are probably my favorites.  He is owned by Jennifer Buxton of Braymere Saddlery and I always love it when she does a blog post featuring Jose.  They're always good for a laugh.  The George Morris doll is also hers.  I don't know where she got some of her props, but I would love to find out.  I found some golf carts, but I don't think they're the right size.  I think I have the imagination to create funny scenes like that, but I lack the supplies or knowledge on where to get them.  If anyone knows, please tell me!  Please.  Jennifer shouldn't be the one having all the fun.  hahahaha.  But yeah, I still need access to my dolls in order to do anything and all of mine are female.  For some reason, I have an aversion to buying male dolls.  Why?  I wish I knew.

So, question of the day...if you could create any scene with dolls and models or just the dolls...and you had all of the materials you needed to do it, what would the scene look like?

Realistic Model Photography...

In looking at my old blog for some pictures I thought I'd posted there, I realized that a couple of the topics I've written about here, were also written about there. I apologize if you are seeing them for the second time, although I'm pretty sure anyone who is reading this blog wasn't a follower of my old one, but I do still apologize.  Some of it is actually almost identical, but while this topic was covered on my old blog, the content / photos / etc is new.  One of these days I will get around to deleting that blog.  I just need to make sure I don't lose any important memories / details before I do so.  The photos are already backed up on Google, but it's the dates and information that goes with it that I need to make sure I keep.  It will be a bummer to lose all those beautiful view counts.  Some of the posts numbered in the hundreds, even if there were no comments.  Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself because of the low view count.  I wonder if I can remove that from my page so I won't know how many people are reading this junk.  hahaha.

On to more fun things, though.  Model Horse Photography.  Or, more specifically, Realistic Model Horse Photography.  Anybody can take a picture of a model...

That doesn't take much talent.  Just plop a horse down on something and shove a camera at it.  Click.  You have a picture.  Right?  Sure.  But it's boring, wouldn't you say?  Sure, the top photo is a little better than the bottom one because of the background.  I liked that background on top.  Especially since I didn't have to buy it.  A friend had sent me a model she knew I was wanting and wrapped him in this large, silky cloth.  I pinned that cloth to the wall above my dresser in my bedroom and let it drape behind it as I had small statues of lighthouses on top of the dresser.  Whenever I wanted to photograph a horse, I'd just use the cloth to cover the lighthouse and bam!  Instant background.  But it was still kind of boring.  So I tried take pictures of landscape outside that I could have enlarged and use that as a background, but that didn't work either.  What mostly attracted me were the photos taken outside of the model in the environment.  I like to think I'm a somewhat decent photographer, but my attempts are laughable at best...

 Don't you just love the smoker and grill in the background?  So realistic and in-scale to the model.  Just like the gigantic trees in the first photo, which should look familiar from the last blog post.  I apologize for recycling photos so quickly, but I wanted more of my own and not just tons of other peoples'.

But speaking of scale issues...

No.  Not that kind of scale issue...a looooong time ago I read an article in Just About Horses about model horse photography and one of the things mentioned was making sure the items in your photos were to scale of the model.  Not all that easy when you have limited resources with your environment...

Both are very appealing photos, but definitely out of scale.  What I enjoy looking at are the photos where the person really took the time to set things up properly and tried to make everything look as realistic as possible...

I think the last one is my favorite, but all are really nice.    It just looks so unbelievably real to me even though it's obviously a plastic horse.  This next photo is definitely a good one, but it misses the mark slightly by only having hoof marks in the sand right by the horse.  To be more realistic, there should be hoof marks leading up to where the horse is standing...

But I'm not here to criticize or critique photos, that's not what this post is about.  It's about sharing some awesome, realistic model horse photos.  Rocket is a little out of scale to the ocean, but he looks GOOD.  His colors blend nicely with the background without getting lost in it since he's almost the color of the sand.  I still need to get a Rocket.  And an Emerson, but Rocket is a little more obtainable right now since he was only a Breyerfest SR and not a Premier Club Model.

On Instagram, I follow several accounts of people who take realistic photos of their models, but only Keri Parker posts Behind the Scenes photos and I like those almost as much as the finished product because it's sometimes quite surprising the difference.  Like the Keanu doll whose pants don't fit him properly, but since you only see him from the front, you miss that detail.  Here are some of her before and after creations...

The top photo was taken while the scene was sitting on top of a fan.  And then there's one on top of an overturned bucket...

You'd never know it was a board on a bucket, would you?  The tree is a little big, but maybe it's a giant Redwood?  hahahaha.  And finally, there's this one...

A lot of little things going on to make that scene. There are so many more of hers that I could share, but I don't want you to think I'm obsessed with her or something.  Well, maybe I am a little, but I'd say more in awe.  She's very creative, but I think I've mentioned this before.  hahaha.  Sorry.  I'm not really a creepy person.  Keri, you don't need that restraining order.  Honest.  hahaha.

My Plastic Pony Project isn't coming along too well.  I still haven't unboxed or cleaned anything up.  <sigh>  I feel so...oh, I don't know what word I'm looking for.  But I really need to get on it and start putting stuff together.  I hate seeing my messy shelves and unboxed Breyers.  And I've got one coming sometime this week.  I got a Khalid off of Ebay and he's supposed to arrive "By Friday".  I hate waiting.

Would you believe I can't think of a blog-related QOTD for today?  Failure.  I think that's the word I was looking for earlier.  Not everyone has the time or inclination to take realistic photos of their models.  Okay.  Let's do this.  Of the ones I posted...which is your favorite?