Some new customs and nail polish ponies!

I haven't posted anything properly model horsey in a while so hopefully this'll make up for the lack of posts!

I've had a whole pile of bodies sitting next to my desk for the last year or so in varying degrees of completion. Some needed resculpting, others just required a skoosh of primer or sealer. One of them was this G1 Seabiscuit stablemate that I'd resculpted with plaits and a new tail aaaages ago. I'd primed her, but done nothing else and that was really bothering me, so last week I got the pastels out and started painting. I'd always wanted to make her appaloosa so I found a few good references I liked the look of and got started.

I used a silicone 'clay shaper' to apply the pastels rather than a brush which let me do more deliberate spots and mottling and I really love the effect. I went over the blanket with very thinned down white acrylic, then another few layers of pastel over the top to blend it together.

Despite such a complicated pattern I finished her in a couple of days and she's now ready to begin her performance career where she'll be known as EA Quirtsquip, the Knabstrupper mare.

I love this mould so much, it's so expressive!

This is a very crappy pic but here's a sneaky peek at what she'll be doing for her first outing at the Copperfox Tour event in a couple of weeks!

...and now for something completely different.

I took part in Model Horse Blab's 'Spring Stablemate Swap' again this year (it's kind of like a secret santa, but with custom stablemates and usually chocolate and things) I did some decorator customs for my partner and sent some sweeties and chocolate and things. They said they loved them, so I was really pleased. 

I think one of the nail varnishes is acting up a bit as it was supposed to give a holographic gold sheen but it seems to have reacted with the other polishes and while its still gold, it has an odd texture so apologies to wildwinds if it changes further, I didn't realise until I looked at the photos and saw it do the same on something else I painted the other day!

I was thinking of kirin when I did this one so she has glitter 'scales' on her back, although they've blended in rather a lot more than I intended, lol.

 I really struggled to part with this one...

...so I made him a twin to keep!

 This is a sort of metallic/holographic appaloosa...thing. XD I don't really know how else to describe him but I love him to bits. I really like how textured he turned out and I'd like to try something similar again soon.

 

I couldn't resist doing a glitter rainbow pony either.

My box from ICSpots however, was held to ransom in customs for a while so I only just got it today but jeezo, was it worth waiting for! O_O

The massive box was a shock in itself but it didn't take long to open, although getting everything out took considerably longer as I was oohing and ahhing at everything I pulled out!

To say I'm overwhelmed would be something of an understatement, just look at all this awesome! I knew some people went all out in these swaps but I wasn't expecting anything as generous as this!

LOADS of chocolate (which in this house won't last very long, ahaha) and cookies and tasty deliciousness of all kinds, (I've been wondering what the infamous 'peeps' taste like for years, haha) as well as a $15 Rio Rondo voucher, (which will be put to very good use) some postcards and handmade jewellery. I'm not much of a jewellery person but I'm going to display them above my desk so I can admire them when I'm working - the colours are fantastic!

Then of course there were the ponies! I'd already kinda guessed that this little guy was going to be coming to me and he's even cuter than he looked in the photos - there's something about the painting and the sculpt combo that makes me think of an illustration from an old vintage horse book. 

His travelling companion however was a complete mystery and I absolutely love him!

I was feeling a bit under the weather today as I didn't sleep much this weekend so this really made my day! I can't thank Linda enough, I've been totally and utterly spoiled!

Bases and penguins and leopards, oh my!

It's been absolutely ages since I've shown you all what I've been up to at GMRC, and given that my last post was all about the museum, I thought I might as well make this one similar.

Before our attention turned to getting specimens ready for the redisplay, I made quite a few bases.

Here's one for a Harris Hawk.

One for a gull, finally making use of one of the plaster rocks I made several years ago!

This one was great fun to decorate as I went wild with the sand and shells, making lots of layers and finishing off with a nice coat of varnish to give everything that 'recently submerged' look.

Another one of my rocks was used for this Song Thrush base - I felt rather sad about covering it up actually, though I was pleased with the final result!

 

Thrushes are known for using rocks as 'anvils' to smash snails on, hence all the shells.

 This little Willow Warbler had incredibly tiny and delicate feet, so I had to drill probably the smallest hole possible into the twig to host the leg wires, then gently carve out the underside so I could hide the leftover wire.

These two - a Dunlin and a Greenfinch - both had pretty boring stands before I got hold of them!

I think the Greenfinch is one of my favourites - I love the base but the expression on the bird makes it even better - he looks like such a snob!

Just look at him, lording it over everyone else on the shelf because he's got a much better throne.

Sometimes the specimens aren't on any base at all, or just temporary MDF ones, but other times they're on old ones which have seen better days. That was the case with this Black-necked Grebe - she was sitting on just a chunk of roughly painted peat!

I made her a nice clump of reeds to sit on instead, and while the colour isn't really what I wanted (we ran out of the good green paint and I had to improvise) she looks rather good in it.

All her pals are dead jealous now.

For the last few months I'd had to put base-making on hold and help get some specimens ready for the redisplay. This meant a combination of cleaning, repair work and actually packing them up.

Some cleaned up really easily and didn't need much work at all, like this lovely Wombat here...

I think the nostrils and teeth make a spooky sea otter!

...while others, like the now infamous Mongoose Lemur, were more difficult.

Stop looking so cute, you terror. You know what you did.

A few specimens needed some paint touch-ups and small repairs.

This poor Chinstrap Penguin had a pretty nasty seam split along his neck which needed filled, but in order for the glue and filler to set properly with the edges aligned, we had to find some way to pull his neck taut over the weekend. Between the three of us we came up with this. XD

Yes, a can of paint, random bits of wood, a massive lead weight and cotton tape - all totally normal equipment for penguin-bracing. It did the job though, and the repair is completely unnoticeable now. All that was left was for me to repaint his feet, as Chinstraps have pink feet, not yellow.

Fun fact! If you run your finger over the edge of a penguin's wing, it feels like one of those chunky paintbrushes with stubby synthetic bristles.

Answering all your 'what does x animal feel like?' questions since 2012

The Secretary Bird also had wrongly coloured legs, though they took longer to repaint as they're absolutely massive birds!

They're like comedy legs, you can't quite believe they're
real even when they're right in front of you

They've also got the most epic eyelashes.

Whoever mounted this Binturong had been a little overzealous with the gloss varnish, and he had the shiniest nose and mouth imaginable.

After I'd spent several weeks cleaning him (he wasn't quite lemur level, but not far off!) I went over his nose with some matte varnish which made a big difference.

I cleaned the tortoise and the cobra here - the tortoise came out particularly well I think, he's very shiny now! There was an absolutely beautiful Pangolin I cleaned too which is also on display now. (you can just see him the background there, behind the Sloth Bear) I adore Pangolins, so I was really pleased to get the chance to work on him.

We spent several weeks just boxing things up as soon as they were clean and it felt like we went through every cardboard box in the place!

 The Albatross was mounted specially, and we had the job of taking it out of the freezer and sending it off to the taxidermist and my god, they're heavy. Like, really, really heavy.

It is the focal point of the case my model's in, though annoyingly I haven't actually got a photo of it yet, haha.

You can see our old friend the Chinstrap in the middle too.

I couldn't help thinking that it looked like this guy was steering a gondola...

Here he is in his new home, along with a snake I cleaned as well.

That big Water Buffalo in the background took ages to clean as well, but he's one of my favourites and is now a feature specimen in the gallery.

 We weren't doing anything with her, but just in case you've ever wondered just how big Walruses are...

She's not even the biggest one in the pod either - the male is huuuuuge

When we're not cleaning specimens, we sometimes end up at Kelvingrove itself, where we usually find ourselves underneath the displays themselves, armed only with long sticks and a solitary Henry Hoover, to get rid of the built up dust and foost which proves irresistible to the moths which can then go on to prey on the taxidermy. You'd be amazed at what else we find under there - a million and one pencils, pens, half eaten sweets (eurgh) and usually half a ton of leaflets and kid's toys! I found a magnifying glass and one of those big graphite sticks once - obviously the art students had been in.

Before the Life Gallery reopened we were there to do some specimen cleaning, and that included some of the larger animals like the giraffe.

 How does one clean a giraffe, you might wonder? 

Well, like this apparently.

We had a stepladder to get up higher but it was still a hell of a job!

The crocodile was significantly easier to reach...

...but those teeth really were sharp!

A few months back, we rummaged around in the freezer for a leopard (as you do) who'd been in there for the last twenty years as the museum was going to have her mounted for the redisplay. She was a zoo animal, I think from the now defunct Glasgow Zoo, and had been lying frozen in a big black bag since she died. It was the first time I'd ever got to see a body before it was sent to the taxidermist and even in death she was really beautiful. Her ears had been squished a bit and she was frozen absolutely solid but somehow she still looked like she was just asleep. We packed her up and she was sent down south to the taxidermist a few days later.

I only got to see her finished when we went to KG to do some cleaning and wow.

Isn't she beautiful? The taxidermist did an absolutely fantastic job, she looks so alive.

Anyway, that's your lot for this post - I'm working on a base for an absolutely adorable grey squirrel next so I'll need to do something about that in the future.

I'd like to leave you with this Ancient Greek pot I saw in one of the galleries the other day, which shows the finest set of eyebrows in antiquity.

Eyebrows, as they say, on fleek.