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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!

Professor Lynkhart's Cabinet of Curiosities - Final Part!

Well, the time has come, you've seen all the work that went into it, so I'm now proud to reveal the final model in all its glory!

Professor Lynkhart's Cabinet of Curiosities - Part Three!

This is the penultimate update - the final one will be full of shiny pictures of the finished thing, whereas this has a lot of WIP stuff in it.

Professor Lynkhart's Cabinet of Curiosities! (part 2)

Part two! :D

The little occasional table in the last picture of Part 1 looked deceptively simple from a distance, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth!
I've always loved Moroccan styled furniture, especially the intricately patterned fretwork in tables and screens, and as there was a laser-cutter handy I really couldn't pass up the opportunity to make my own...

SM Hedge diorama!

Yes, yet another diorama! XD

This was another commission, but this time I was left to design it myself, with the only stipulation that it had to be 'very green'. I think I did rather well on that basis. :P

I've been wanting to make a mini hedge for a while and now seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a go. The base itself is a little smaller than A4 but can accommodate several stablemates at once. The first few shots were taken on my phone so the colours are a little off.







It has actual 'trunks' and branches that the foliage grows out from which true to form doesn't actually show up in pictures, heh.










The colours are more accurate here.





I really enjoyed making it and quite fancy doing another for myself as this one showed off my customs really rather well. (though I'd like to try doing a winter one...with snow. :D)

I've been sculpting some...

...medallions! :D :D :D

I decided to stay up all night for the Scottish Independence Referendum and as I'd need something to quell the butterflies, I decided to do some sculpting. I've dabbled in medallions before, but the results were nothing spectacular. (the unpainted one at the bottom isn't mine, that's 'Todd' by Clare Stokes.)

 

This time round however, I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I used Super Sculpey and a variety of homemade sculpting tools, although my main tool of choice was one of these, though ironically I used the handle more than the actual tip! (and those ones on that shop are waaaaay overpriced, I bought the exact same set from 'The Works' for £3.99!)

First up was a Highland pony. I referenced the hundreds of photos I've taken at the RHS over the years so I had a good place to start.

I made a gif showing the rough process of sculpting him. :D

Halfway through I did a little photoshop mockup to see what he'd look like with clothes on...

...and as he looks now. :D

Then,. yesterday I fancied making him a friend...

Originally he was supposed to be a young Clydesdale, but the more I sculpted, the older and less Clydesdaley he looked so now he's just a generic and very hairy cob.

I made another gif - it looks like he's chewing at the start, lol.

His face went through several big changes as I had to reposition his muzzle and eyes a couple of times.

His eye protrudes a lot more than I realised now he's baked but you can't really tell if you're only viewing him from the front. XD

I'm so pleased with them and was wondering if there'd be any interest if I were to cast some copies in resin? The Highland is really chunky (about 24mm at his widest point!) so he'd probably be a little more expensive but I don't really know all the ins and outs of casting things as I've only ever used the college silicone and resin!

SM Scale Desert Rock Diorama!

I'd actually finished this a few weeks ago but only had some pretty basic phone photos of it as I'd managed to misplace the tripod. *insert eye rolling smiley here*

It is the same size as the Fell dio from a few weeks back, but couldn't be more different!
Inspired by the iconic rock spires of Monument Valley in Colorado and the like, I couldn't resist trying my hand at a proper 'western' style diorama.





I made the rock from some leftover blue foam I'd used for a college project so the whole dio weighs very little indeed. A couple of the smaller rocks are actual stone chips but they don't add much to the weight really. The foliage is a variety of lichens (actual tree lichen, not the bog standard 'reindeer moss' that doesn't really look like any kind of real plant in dioramas, lol) with some scatter made from static grass, readily available scatters and some dried herbs - so it smells good too!

It's quite 'flat' but depending on the angle its viewed from, you sometimes can't tell!















I say it's Stablemate scale but it looks equally as good with small Schleich scaled models as well if you imagine it's just a smaller bit of rock.





As much as I like it, I don't really have enough stock type models to really warrant keeping it so I'm hoping to sell it if I can find someone interested! If no one on the forums fancies it I'll stick an ad up on MH$P. :)

I do take commissions for dioramas in all scales so don't hesitate to contact me if you'd like me to make you something. :D