When I was a child, I had two cats.
Tilly was a beautiful tortoiseshell whose main goal in life was pretty much just being comfortable and basking in the sun. She had no interest in hunting and only ventured outside when it was nice and sunny and she could roll around on the warm paving slabs of the patio.
Introducing...Prince!
Yet another late post, this project was actually done in March 2025, but for me that’s still a pretty good timeframe from completion to blog post. 😂
One of my long term hobby goals is to make Max a horse. Not just a static statue, but a fully poseable articulated 1/6th scale horse so she can go out on hacks and jump and gallivant to her heart’s content.
(As per usual, I don’t give myself easy projects!)
I’ve made articulated creatures before (obviously Baxter, and a handful of other art dolls from back in the day) but horses are very different beasts, and something I knew would be considerably trickier, especially considering the fact I’d need it to be sturdy enough to support the weight of a doll and tack, whilst still being able to be posed. Once upon a time I made a 1/6 horse; Inky, whose decidedly wobbly and battered body still leans precariously against one of my shelves; her wire core being far too weak for the rest of her. She was a labour of love, and while I do cringe a bit looking at her now, she was a good first attempt all things considered.
I’ve got lots of ideas for a new horse using much improved techniques, but at the moment I don’t have all the materials to get started the way I want, so in the meantime I thought I’d do a test run and start off with a pony. I’ve got a few 1/6 child dolls, so I thought it would be fun to make a Shetland for them to ride. Unfortunately as you’ll see, it ended up not turning into one so I just dropped down a scale to 1/9th (better known in the model horse hobby as Traditional scale) and decided he could be a crossbreed instead. The irony is that I don’t really do much in trad scale, so he’s become something of a rarity in my collection. 😂
Anyway, onto the step by step!
