A Collection of Almost Congas

 Hey y'all! So I haven't posted for a few days, and that's mainly because I'm waiting for NaMo to start so I can start posting my progress photos, plus also just generally worrying about the weather--I'm in the southern part of the United States and while my state has mercifully been spared by the huge ice storm bombarding the other Southern states, we are still having super low temps and rain, so it's been a whole lot of prepping to stay warm in my house! I really want to stay in the groove of posting here though, so I thought I would showcase a part of my collection that's pretty common: the half-conga, or almost conga. Generally, due to not having a lot of space, I tend to collect more Stablemates than any other scale, so I have quite a lot of full-fledged SM congas. Classics I have a few 3 and 4 model congas, but Traditionals, I seem to have a whole lot of half-congas. This actually isn't even all of them, I just ran out of steam going back and forth from my bedroom to the kitchen!

Cantering Welsh Ponies Tally Ho & Plain Pixie

Proud Arabian Stallions in liver chestnut & bloody shoulder grey. I believe the liver is a pretty rare, low run model, and of course the bloody shoulder is Freedom.

Indian Ponies! I included her SM version because I feel like it doesn't really count to the Traditional IP conga, but also, it is technically the same mold...isn't it funny that I have a conga of her in SM form but not Traditional?

Trads: The classic bay blanket IP, and TSC Sayen.

SMs: They have no official names, so I'll just give you their show names! Anniversary pinto is Merveilles, buckskin is Alessa, and black frame is Night Maiden.

Sadly, these are my only two Lady Phases...I desperately need more, but especially Silky Keno! Don't get me wrong, though, I adore these girls. Left to right: BF Surrey & TSC Jolene.

Like I said, these aren't all of my almost-congas...I also have: two Cleveland Bays, two Semi-Rearing Mustangs, two Foundation Stallions, two vintage Ideal QHs, two Buckshots, two Smokies, two Astrids, two Action Stock Foals...good lord! Actually, that's enough to make a part two of this post. Tune in at a later date I suppose? 

See you guys soon with some NaMo posts hopefully!

A Post About Vintage Animals

 Hey folks! With today's hint for the next BreyerFest reveal, which seems to be on one of the vintage animal molds (I'm guessing mountain goat or bighorn), I had the idea to dust off my long neglected vintage animal collection and make them the focus of today's post. Let's go!

First off we have Spanish Bull #395, and he is by far my favorite. I was fortunate enough to find him NIB in an antique store (where I got the majority of my vintage Breyers before all that was left were overpriced, beaten up models) and he is genuinely gorgeous. He's done in this fleabitten grey color with bi-eyes and he is, in my opinion, flawless.

Next is the Buffalo #381 American Bison. I believe I found him out of box at the same antique store as the bull, but he still had his hang tag (which I neglected to photograph). Unlike the bull he has a few scratches here and there, no doubt from being so old, but I love him all the same. His big head is so adorable!

This Pronghorn Antelope #389 was also found at the same store as the buffalo and the bull, NIB. Sadly he has some leg warping, but otherwise is almost flawless. I find pronghorns fascinating and there was no way I was passing up an NIB Breyer animal.

Here's one of two Classic scale animals I have, Cougar #750203. This particular cougar came with Eclipse, the black standing Mesteno. He's flawless...but his face is so goofy looking to me! I love the cougars a lot though as a big cat fan, and he came with a wolf for under $10 total at a different local antique store (I think the vendor had no idea what they were), so I wasn't passing him up!

This guy was the real highlight of the aforementioned purchase. I LOVE the Breyer wolves so much! There were a few wolf releases that look very similar to this, but I believe this one is the solo #3814 Wolf. He is sadly a little beaten up, but it was totally worth it for both his price and the chance to own a rather sought after Breyer animal mold.

And that's it for now! I really hope with the RR releases of the Longhorn bull last year and the black bears for 2026 we'll see a resurgence of these vintage animal molds, and maybe even some new animal sculptures in the next few years.

See y'all!

NaMoPaiMo: My Retrospective

 Hey there y'all. While NaMo registration is delayed for a few days, I thought I would go ahead and make my little retrospective post, along with some lore behind why I skipped 2 years of NaMo and why this year feels special.

(Warning, this gets a little heavy towards the end. Talk of family death and terminal illness.)

Let's go back to my very first NaMo, 2021. My chosen model for that year was a CAM that I named Dancing Mad after the epic classic boss battle theme for Kefka Palazzo in Final Fantasy VI. At this time I was a lot less knowledgeable on breeds and painting techniques, and I think this custom marked my first time ever using Pan Pastels.

Here's a picture of her as a WIP that I dug up from the NaMo FB group. My inspiration from her was actually a mini of some kind, maybe an American Shetland, who highly resembled this mold except, well, as a mini, and was a buckskin roan. I thought that color was so beautiful and would look lovely on the CAM, so that's what I went with.

However, obviously this mold is not a mini, or even a little ponyish--she's straight up Arabian! At the time I decided she wouldn't be very realistic and thus no good for showing, and so I gave her a little creative flair: purple eyes (which were also a bit of a shoutout to her namesake, Kefka). Looking back on her, I can definitely see where I've improved, and things I would have done differently had I painted her today, but I do still love her a lot. She's sadly been gathering dust since she was painted, but I think it might be time to clean her off and give her a proper glamor shot.

All in all, I really enjoy this entry. According to my FB post at the time of the challenge, I had an OCD relapse and a 'tragedy' occurred in my life (I have absolutely no idea what it was!) and I almost did not get her done in time, but as per usual, I dragged myself across the finish line with a complete model. I also learned how to use Pan Pastels properly and worked on a color I had never done before.

Next up is 2022, where I painted my first artist resin ever: Brontes by Break The Mold Studios.

At the time, I was very captivated by a Vladimir Heavy Draft stallion I had found on Instagram named Voyage. He was a dark, nearly black liver chestnut, with a silvery mane, and I quickly decided that Brontes would become a portrait of him. Once again, my lack of breed knowledge caused me to make mistake: I believe Vladimirs do not ever have docked tails! This is a common mistake in breed assignment in the hobby though with drafters, and I tend to give it a pass. As per my FB post, I wanted to attempt dapples for the first time, but as you will see I chickened out.

On February 1st, 2022, I had a Discord painting party with my friend where I got this base coat down, and then it seems like I didn't touch Brontes again until the 20th! Again, per FB, I ruined my sleep schedule, tried to fix it, and then had to rush to get his pastels done before it would rain for an entire week. Good lord, girl! Thankfully, I got him done, and then went onto his finishing acrylics (mane, hooves & white markings). I did, indeed, get him done in time:

And you can see a major, major improvement over my first NaMo horse. Its a bit dulled in this photo, but his shading is very nice, especially for my first time using pastels to this degree. He definitely still has some little wonky things about him, like the white on his front legs not being blended (they look like white markings but they aren't, they're more that light color that some chestnuts have on the ends of their legs, which is why his hooves are grey and not pink like the back ones), and it was my first time painting something with details this small and intricate, so his eyes are a little gloopy. His mane is also a little rough, and I did absolutely NOTHING to his base! I do still really like him though, even if I now consider him a bit amateurish. I named him Running Up That Hill (after the Kate Bush song and long before Stranger Things ever used it!).

For NaMo 2023, I would paint my second ever artist resin, Xeuqre by Endless/Wiktoria Szamburska.

This model was...a journey. He is 3D printed, like Brontes, but if I recall correctly, he was a second quality print and had some very small pockmarks. Nowadays, I wouldn't blink twice at that, but back then I totally overcompensated by slathering way too much epoxy sculpt over the bumpy areas...which ended up making him even BUMPIER...and I did not have the proper grit of sandpaper to successfully sand him down. What a mess already, right? My original plan for him was classic champagne, but because he was so damn lumpy and I was at a loss on what to do, I just made him a blue roan with corn marks to cover up the epoxy. I won't be posting a picture of his WIP here, because I was not and am still not happy with him at all. Although I technically completed NaMo that year, I consider the model itself a failure--I learned a lot in retrospect, but also had to cop out on his color due to my own beginner mistake. Oof is all I can say.

Some time between then and now, I did something that might be seen as taboo: I repainted him. Yes, my original painted Xeuqre for NaMo no longer exists. I was so dissatisfied with his color, and I felt very disappointed in how he looked...which was, in my opinion, Not Good. But he still had those awful lumps from my epoxy disaster, so I made him a roan again, this time a flaxen chestnut. No pictures of this color exist anymore because, again, he looked AWFUL. I don't know what I was doing with the way I roaned him for that color and I was still only using acrylics at that time, so he had no facial shading and his flaxen legs looked rather ridiculous with sharp edges. His mane & tail were also flat mustard yellow with very little dimension. I had messed him up again!

So now what? Well, if you saw my intro post, you know I am not painting Xeuqre again for my official entry; I will be going easy on myself (while still trying to learn more about pastels) by painting a micro Huso in red dun minimal frame overo.

However, I do want to try something.

For NaMoPaiMo every year, there are some side quests you can do, like Minis Painting Minis and I Did This Too! Well, I will be participating in Minis Painting Minis (more info on that soon because my idea is cracking me up), but also I'm considering trying I Did This Too with Xeuqre.

In 2024 my whole world began a slow descent into madness. In 2023, we had moved my ailing grandparents into our home in order to be their caretakers. My grandmother was ambulatory but with worsening dementia, and my grandfather was lucid but fully bedridden. It was a severely stressful time for my family. Sometime in March 2024, my grandfather had a fatal stroke and passed away in the night. I won't wax poetic about this, but my grandparents had been married for 60+ years, and my grandfather was my grandmother's whole life. She began to decline fairly quickly after he died, eventually stopping eating, and then succumbing to the dementia in January 2025. But before that happened, there was something else.

My dad died just days before Christmas 2024 from a secret battle with cancer.

This, along with my grandmother's body and mind actively failing her, along with two ADDITIONAL deaths my family had already experienced (my step-brother Mike died from leukemia in October of that year and my great aunt Glenda, my grandfather's sister, also died from an age-related stroke after him but before my father), was a huge shock to us. We had known that his doctors had detected cancer the year prior and had done a procedure to remove the masses. But the cancer returned, and my dad, not wanting to put more weight on our shoulders, did not tell either of us that it was back...nor that it was terminal. His death was completely unexpected.

Needless to say, this was a huge blow to me personally, and I did not do a lot of art between 2024 and most of 2025. I dabbled in things, like jewelry making and doll customization, but nothing major, because I was simply too depressed. I stopped drawing and I stopped painting horses.

But a bit into last year, I kind of had enough. I missed horses. I missed painting my own customs, I missed painting resins. I started off with a few micros with rather simple paintjobs, then I moved onto some Stablemates recently. I painted a simple custom on Halla, then something slightly more complex on a 9" Hartland TWH. But I really wanted to get back into the groove of things. So, here's where NaMo comes in: I want to make this my official return to customizing, and with Xeuqre, I want to turn him--my biggest NaMo failure--into something I can be truly proud of, and I want to dedicate him, a majestic, stomping stallion, to the strongest male figure I ever had in my life: my step-father, James. His color is still a little up in the air, but I think for basecoat, he will be a bay dun, with actual effort put in this time!

Here he is in his current, newly primed state. The leg where I was holding him is all that remains of his previous, totally crappy flaxen chestnut roan paintjob. See you in February, Xeuqre.

Thanks if you got this far, and sorry if it was too heavy. BF reveals are rolling out again so there will be a part 2 to my opinion post soon enough, as well as some other things I have planned. See y'all later.

Update on Breed Assigning the New SM Othello

 Yo! This might be a bit of a shorter one, but I wanted to share something exciting. I mentioned in my last opinions post that I was very excited for the new SM Othello, being called a 'Belgian Cross' by Breyer, but I was a little concerned about finding him a fitting breed for showing; mainly my concern was having to make him a rather strange or unconvincing crossbred. However, no longer do I have to worry about that, thanks to my friend Lauren, who managed to find a purebred Shire that is flaxen chestnut and has pangare!

This is Thunders Flaming Spirit! As you can see, he does have a small amount of pangare, much less than the new mini Othello (and this guy's coat is much darker) but I expect using him as a reference will be more than sufficient if you want to show the new SM as a purebred Shire. Thanks Lauren!

Off Topic: My Little Ponies

 

What's this? Not model horses? That's right, I figured it was time for my first off-topic post! In honor of Gadsden Collector Con that just happened last Saturday (which I missed due to having no ride, very sad) I wanted to post about these two G1 MLPs I found at last year's GCC, Daddy Apple Delight & Baby North Star, which then inspired me to go ahead and make an off topic blog post honoring some of my favorite G1 MLPs!

Bowtie was one of the very first G1s I bought back when I started collecting them as a 13/14 year old, and I love her dearly. She may even be my favorite G1 pony. When I was 19 I boarded a plane for the very first time to travel to Boston, which was also my first time ever traveling across the country, and my anxiety disorder was severe around that time, so I brought Bowtie with my and combed her hair on takeoff to keep myself calm. It worked!

Baby Fifi was a grail for a long time before I finally stumbled upon one for a decent price. I just love her little poodles, and I'm a sucker for a blue pony. Also...

I think she makes an EXCELLENT baby for Bowtie! (Never mind the fact that there does exist a Baby Bowtie...)

Dancing Butterflies, along with a few of the other Twice As Fancy ponies, was also a grail for me. Isn't she lovely? I love this pose, too. Unfortunately, when I curled her mane, it didn't hold! However you can see that her tail has stayed curled just fine, very strange...

And finally we have my 3 favorite unicorns, Gusty, Sparkler and Starflower. I adore this pose (I feel like it also looks very similar to Dancing Butterflies' pose) and these three are like my trinity, ESPECIALLY Starflower. It's extremely hard to find her with her symbols in good condition unless you're buying a reproduction, but I wanted the original! (Gusty is a repro and Sparkler has had her mane cut, but I think she looks kind of dashing with the shorter hair.)

Anywho, that's it for now. See you with something more substantial in a bit!

Opinions: New Releases for 2026

 Like I said, I ain't afraid to post twice a day!

I got some good reception from friends on my last opinion post about BreyerFest (another one is coming soon once the rest of the event models are revealed), so here's one for the new regular run releases. I won't be posting pictures of every model here because that would be a LOT of images, but obviously I will name what models & sets I'm talking about.

Betsy & Ross: I'm not hot on the patriotic decorators or even clearware really, so I don't have much of an opinion here. They're fine.

Yan Wu: I LOVE him! I think he exemplifies the Year of the Horse very well and his design is very nice to look at, such a nice shade of red. He looks like a ruby!

Apollitical Jess: He's cool, and I'm always a stock horse fan, but I'm not super into the Geronimo mold. The color is really interesting though--I'm not familiar with the real horse, but I love seeing unusual coat colors featured on Breyers.

Jaguel Hilton: I also don't have a big opinion on this guy, but he's a very nice grey on a new mold!

Pluto Gratia: OMG, he's gorgeous. Such a simple color but honestly such a classic and always so beautiful, especially on that mold! So majestic!

GG Kiss Me Kate: I LOOOOVE her! I'm a huge draft fan and I've been waiting with bated breath for an RR on this mold, although Vanners are not my most favorite breed. However, she's still a draft, so I'm into it. My only gripe is the soft edges on her hoof markings--I'm not sure if Breyer was trying to emulate how jagged white markings fade into the feathering on hairy drafts or if it was a cost saving thing, but I do wish they were sharp edged. I feel like she'd look even fancier.

Ideal Series Pinto: Very nice! To be honest, While Hamilton is an amazing mold, he isn't my favorite...I'm much more a Five Gaiter fan. However I have to appreciate a good pinto on a beautiful sculpture.

Thorin: While I'm not a huge fan of the colors they chose for this model, I've seen pics of him in hand, and he has the most AMAZING iridescent purple glossy sheen, which immediately ranks him higher on my list!

Black Bear & Cub: I love that they used these molds again so much, and I love that Breyer is bringing back these vintage animal molds and releasing them yearly!

GG Kiss Me Kate

Okay, moving away from the list format to be more concise, I'm gonna talk about the new Classic scale offerings. By far my favorite out of the lineup is the grey Arabian mare, who I already have a pedigree for (thank you Gubbera Park!). I have been eagerly awaiting a realistic paintjob on this mold, which is a newer sculpture by Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig, and was originally released with a foal who is sadly absent here (same with Rhiannon, although Kate is a portrait). Crazily, I used to not be an Arabian person at all, but all of these fantastic model Arabians have really turned me around on them! I also am really intrigued by the blue roan Appaloosa. That and the new Loping QH Stablemate seem to have their roaning done in a different painting style than Breyer normally uses and I have to say, I'm really liking it, however on the Classic I don't like the perfectly circular spots (but that's normal for an RR to have). The black frame overo tickles me--I've noticed for the last few years that Breyer always has at least one black frame overo in their roster in some way. The chestnut Mustang is super fiery red which I like, and I'm a big fan of that mold as well. The champagne Mariah is also very unique in that she's a dilute that I don't think we've seen Breyer use for RRs very often, if ever. Then there's the bay Morgan...well, he's a bay Morgan.

Sadly, once again I haven't got much to say on unicorns (Candy Delights & Sapphira). As a past unicorn fanatic...I'm a little burnt out on them now!

Grey Arabian

Moving onto Stablemates, this is where I'm really excited. We are FINALLY getting RR releases on the shrunken Othello and Semi-Rearing Mustang molds, which are not only in lovely colors, but are also super cheap, which means readily accessible bodies for customizing! Also, Django is FINALLY released in pure black, so all you Friesian-heads finally can show your Djangos as purebred Friesians! Speaking of showing...I foresee some trouble trying to show the Othello SM. He is done in a gorgeous flaxen chestnut with pangare, which matches him being advertised as a 'Belgian cross', except the mold looks nothing like a Belgian, and the breeds which match Othello's body type the most don't tend to come in pangare! Maybe he could be a Belgian crossed with another draft breed to account for the feather AND the color, or something like that? It'll be fun to research at least. I also really like the blue roan Loping QH, which I briefly mentioned earlier has her roaning done differently from previous Breyer roans. I find it very interesting. The Brumby on the shrunken SRM is a very basic color but obviously the mold being released as an RR is exciting. I do also quite like the grey Thoroughbred and buckskin tobiano Warmblood.

And finally I'll talk about the Mountain Ranch & Pursuit of Happiness sets. I won't touch on the plush, the riders, or fantasy sets, because I just don't really have anything to say about them. As you might have gleaned already, I love stock horses, so I'm pretty excited about this set, especially the shrunken Fighting Stallion. He looks fabulous! But I honestly do love every mold they chose for the set, yes, even the mini Smart Chic Olena and his stubby leg--he's a roan! Of course I love him! And although, like Betsy & Ross, I haven't got a big opinion of the patriotic SM set, the rearing Arabian kind of gives me 2010s Breyer decorator vibes which I love.

Mini Semi-Rearing Mustang (Brumby) & Mini Othello (Belgian Cross)

And that's my opinions on most of the 2026 Breyer releases. Due to space and money, I definitely won't be getting many of the Traditional models, however I would love to get a Kate and Pluto. For Classics all I really want or need is the Arabian mare, and out of the SMs I most definitely NEED the mini Othello and SRM (two of each, one to keep OF, and one to customize, of course!). I would say the Mountain Ranch set is also a need, however if it pans out to me only owning the mini Fighting Stallion, I wouldn't complain.

Anyways, see y'all next time!

Custom Diaries: Current Victims

 Hey again! Today I wanted to make a quick post about my current customizing "victims". These are by far not all of them but they're the main ones I have ideas for right now.

Here's a G1 SM Native Dancer, all primed and naked. My vision for him is very clear and also part of a personal project: to have every model version of Man O' War and War Admiral! At the moment I have both of the Classic MOW models, and also the Traditional MOW, but I'm missing the Trad War Admiral on the MOW mold and also the new Native Dancer MOW from the Vintage club, which is also what inspired this project. This Native Dancer will become Man O' War to go with War Admiral, also on Native Dancer, which I have already completed.

Now that I've gotten over my aversion to pastels (its a long story, and the main character is Alabama humidity), I should really get started on Man O' War...

For this G1 Arabian Stallion, he will be a flaxen chestnut sabino/tobiano Part Arabian named En Vogue, and I already have him pedigreed. I do believe his 'sabino' will actually be one of the W patterns carried by Arabians, and of course the tobiano can come from a myriad of other breeds (I need to check his pedigree again...and get a link to my PA site on this blog!).

I'm pretty sure this G1 Seabiscuit will become a stock breed of some kind, but I'm torn on Paint or QH. I participated in the IPABRA ID auction, and I was really gunning for a silver grulla splash, but I ended up not winning it...I still want this guy to be silver grulla though. I wanted him to be a Paint in order to add less frame overos to my Paint breeding stock (literally all of my pedigreed Paints are frame...woops) and splash would have been cool, but I really don't wanna copy someone what is now someone else's horse, if it counts as copying. Silver grulla as a base for sure though.

(That back leg where I was holding her is still sticky from the primer that got on my glove...gonna have to troubleshoot that.)

Finally on the roster for today is this SM Indian Pony. I initially was making her a portrait of the Traditional IP Cheyenne, but I lost interest pretty quickly (and she got buried under the mounds of crap that got piled onto my desk...) and she returned to being a body. So I went looking through my painting references on Pinterest and again stumbled upon a Utah mustang who's color I've been wanting to paint for a long while. I believe his name is Clorax.

There's just something about a pinto roan mustang that gets me every time...and I LOVE the IP mold as a mustang. I actually want to make my own little customized SM mustang band, especially with the new super cheap RR on the Stablemate Semi-Rearing Mustang that just came out! I'll have this IP, another IP I customized a few years back in seal bay roan with tons of corn marks, a mini Fireheart and then the mini SRM. I think it'll be a lot of fun!

Anyways, I think that's all for now on this topic. Yesterday I actually primed 10 horses (including my new Hartland donkey & one of the Hartland nursing foals) but I'm still brainstorming on most of them.

(Yeah, I brought both nursing foals out while spraying, and then realized, wait, why did I bring both when I only want to fully repaint one?)

Oh! NaMoPaiMo registration opens in 3 days! Who's excited? Who's ready to get painting? I think I'm actually gonna re-take my registration selfie holding Huso, since I've gotten a nice haircut and am not sick as a dog like I was in the other picture (not that you could tell, but still, bleh). I'll also have a pretty interesting post coming up soon featuring my past NaMo horses, including one that has actually been repainted since then, and is now slated to be repainted a third time...he's actually featured in the above picture, IYKYK.

Anywho, see y'all in a bit, because I'm actually having a lot of fun writing for this blog and I'm not afraid to post here twice a day!