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.