Yet more mini customs!

I'm obviously in the mood for customising at the moment as I seem to be doing nothing but cutting up tiny ponies!

First up is this G2 Pacer - I've always felt rather sorry for this mould as there are so few breeds it could be shown as (as there are relatively few horse breeds that display that kind of lateral gait) that it rarely seems to be customised.

 

I thought it had potential as a trotting horse if I flipped the forelegs round, so after having to buy myself another hacksaw (I lent mine to someone and haven't got it back yet, haha) I set to work.

 I discovered that the bent foreleg was considerably shorter than the other one, so I had to tweak and extend it with a wire before I reattached it.

 

At first I was just going to bend the neck and lower the headset but after a while I thought it'd probably be far easier to just resculpt it entirely, so he was decapitated for science. :P

It was during this time that this stray speck of plastic pinged off and flew straight into my eye, somehow bypassing my glasses entirely.

I spent the next ten minutes in front of the bathroom mirror with a variety of small pointy objects, trying to extract it. Luckily it had ended up right in the corner, near the tear duct but kept creeping sideways the more I poked at it which was rather alarming. It came out eventually and I've had no problems but it did make me more aware of what I was doing and I'll definitely be investing in some goggles the next time I'm out as I usually just assume my glasses will be enough to protect my eyes but obviously not! If that had been a bit of glass or metal I could have been in serious trouble! 

A considerable amount of (careful!) sanding with my knockoff dremel later, I reattached the legs on the opposite sides of the horse with white-tac to see how it looked before making the join permanent with superglue and bicarbonate of soda.

 

 

As I've probably mentioned numerous times before, I hate using epoxy as it inevitably gets everywhere and I find it really frustrating to work with, but after accidentally supergluing the horse to my hand earlier on, I decided that I'd have to put up with it rather than my usual glue/bicarb method.

The throatlatch is obviously waaaaay too thick here, and I'll need to do a bit of work once the epoxy has cured but I'm pleased with how well the sculpting style matches.

I think I'll end up having him for some kind of western performance as he's ended up quite chunky and quarter horsey.

I still had loads of milliput left over so I worked on a few side projects to finish it off.

I bought this Schleich Akhal Teke at the Copperfox show, and lopped his head off almost as soon as I got him home. I reset it today a little lower and straighter, although trying to get the distinctive hair texture to match was a little trickier and I'm not really sure if I've managed it or not.

I started this guy years ago - a G2 Shire to some kind of cantering draught. I love the mould's head but not much else, especially that horrible, horrible tail, so that was the first part to go! His left foreleg is entirely new which is why it looks so bad compared to the rest!

This was another old custom I started a while back, a G2 Saddlebred. I really like the mould, but I'm not hugely enamoured with my resculpting here. :/ I really want to do a glued thread version but I can't find another body in my stash even though I know I must have at least one more!

Another custom from the dawn of time is this G1 Silky Sullivan I started way back in 2011.

She's really been through the wars and has had multiple surgeries on her neck, and eventually ended up painted chestnut with a mohair mane and tail, but somehow that never quite worked for me, so I stripped off all the hair the other day and started again with glued thread hair.

This mould has such a lovely face.

She was going to be flaxen chestnut but halfway through pastelling she told me she wanted to be a very dark liver chestnut...oh and she wasn't an Arab any more, she was a Welsh pony!

She's still very much a WIP but I'm really liking the direction she's heading in now.

Also in progress is this Britains Shire, who is well on her way to becoming a very hairy cob.

Jump to it!

Continuing on from my previous post...

After the success of my G2 TB resculpt, Eclipse...

...I really fancied attempting another custom I'd been wanting to do on that mould for years - a landing horse.

I know, right, not the easiest thing in the world to do!

I knew I wanted it to stand on only one leg, through a wire onto a base (and let's be honest here, I really wanted to make multiple dioramas more than anything else!) in this kind of pose, with the other foreleg thrown out ready to touch down.

The sculpt as it was was fairly close to that kind of pose, so it didn't take much to remove one foreleg and reset it. I did all the resculpting with superglue and bicarbonate of soda rather than epoxy - more because I'm incredibly impatient sometimes and wanted to get as much done in one day, and also because I really hate using epoxy. It gets everywhere and just eurgh.

I wanted to tweak the hind legs more but I think I'll leave that for another future custom.

Anyway, I redid her mane and tail with glued thread which is definitely my new favourite way of doing hair as you can get some really nice natural poses I'd really struggle to capture with clay.

She's going to be a nice bright coppery chestnut with a bit of chrome, but at the moment I've hit a bit of a snag - I ran out of dullcote unexpectedly, and really needed to seal some pastels. I had an old can of sealer I thought would be ok but it spluttered a lot and well, you can see the result. I've ordered up some more dullcote which should arrive in the next few days, then I'll hopefully be able to fix it with another few layers, if not I'll need to sand her back and start again.

Prior to painting her properly, I set to work on what she'll hopefully be doing as a performance prospect - cross country!

Although I've made a teeny tiny micro mini water complex before, I wanted to try my hand at a proper water jump, and when I saw photos of -this one- at the 2010 Rolex Kentucky course, I knew I just had to make my own interpretation.

I started off with a cork-based placemat and a thickish piece of foamex for the base, then built up one end for the bank.

With a sanding block 'hedge'

A slightly better mockup with wooden dowelling and a rubberised horsehair hedge.

I roughed up the surface of the bank and 'water' with filler to give a nicer texture...

...then gave everything a first coat of paint.

Whilst I put the hedge together elsewhere, I started to add foliage to  the bank section. I probably should have waited a bit but it looked so empty!

I drilled some holes for the internal supports for the hedge and stuck them into place. I painted them afterwards so they wouldn't be so obvious. The wooden supports were made from pine dowelling and stained and buffed with natural beeswax (which smells amazing by the way, I should have been a carpenter!)

I couldn't find any suitable wooden sticks or thin dowelling in my wood stash for the uprights, but hit upon a cunning solution in the kitchen of all places - pasta!

Well, linguini to be precise.

Who has the shiniest scalpel handles? I doooooo!

Once in situ it really looked the part, as did the hedge once that was in place too.

I'm not quite finished it yet so I'll leave you with a sneak peek of how it looks at the moment...

 



 
...and I'll hopefully have an update this week once I've finished it off!

What's on the workbench this week?

Bodies, bodies everywhere!

I've always really liked the G4 draught horse but found his back too short for my liking, soooo, he underwent a bit of spinal surgery...

(He's thinking with portals, obviously)

I resculpted his neck too, as I want him to be one of those super chunky European draught breeds when he's done, though I haven't decided exactly what breed. I really want him to be some shade of roan though.

I lengthened his barrel with the wire/superglue/bicarb method which I much prefer to using epoxy.

I've always loved the look of string/thread mane and tails, so I teased out some very fine silk floss and superglued it on. It's a little rough in places, but I'm pleased nonetheless.
I'm still debating about whether to give him feathering or not.

My second victim is a G2 TB. I've always wanted to reposition one from gallop to landing from a jump for performance, and finally took the plunge yesterday.

My resculpting skills really aren't great, and I know the shoulder muscling doesn't quite match so I may sand down the OF side and redo it so they don't look too dissimilar. I used superglue and bicarb for it all, no epoxy at all.

After and before!

She has a metal pin in her front foot so I can have her installed on a base. This initially caused some problems when I couldn't find my smallest drill-bit and had to improvise, then spent ages trying to find some clear acrylic rod only to eventually remember that it would be hidden in a base so didn't need to be transparent at all! 

Fail.

I lopped her ears and tail off and resculpted them so she looked more alert.

I can't wait to make a diorama for her - I really want to do a cross country water complex...

As of today I've started on her mane and tail - thread again, although I may have had a better idea, so I'll see how this one turns out first and then rethink if necessary.

Any idea for a colour?