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!

Pony Delivery: Hartland Donkey & Two Tag Alongs

 Howdy! Welcome to my first Pony Delivery post, which is pretty much what it says on the tin: when I get pony mail, I make a post about it.

Here is today's delivery, and the last one I'm allowed to make for a while. It's a Hartland donkey along with two Hartland nursing foals. Really, all I was looking for was the donkey...I came across it in some other, more expensive eBay listings and quickly fell in love, but I wasn't willing to pay upwards to $40 for it, especially because I wanted to customize it. So I did what I always do and hunted for deals and found this listing, only around $12 ($20 with shipping) because the donkey has some melting on its side (yikes!). How that happened I'm afraid to ask.

Here is the man/woman of the hour, the donkey! This thing is literally so adorable and I cannot wait to paint it. As you can see, the melting is fairly significant on the neck, but thankfully its only on the one side.

Now, a note: I worked on sanding this dude a while before making this post and I actually found that the melted areas are a little gummy, so they were easy to wear down/peel off with an X-Acto knife. That being said, before any other customizers come for me: YES, I know I should have put some epoxy sculpt over these areas. I miiiiight still do it. But I'm also pretty poor at sculpting anything besides simple ears, so I shied away from it before priming this donkey with some still pretty obvious gashes in the neck. This may cause some of you to recoil in horror but I do very, very minimal prep on my models before customizing, and the main reason for that is that I don't do commissions or anything, I simply paint these for myself, and so I don't really mind seams or small bits of plastic sticking out and whatnot. However, fret not, because this donkey is not out of the woods yet--those gashes are pretty ugly!

I'll also be making a post about my customizing victims soon so you guys can see my concepts for each body I have, including this guy!

Moving on...

Here's the first of the nursing foals, and as you can see, this guy has melting too, which was not disclosed in the listing! Pretty disheartening but I managed to file/cut away a good bit of this. As with the donkey though...this little dude is not out of the woods yet, cause oof. He's adorable though, isn't he?

And here's the second nursing foal. No melting or glaring damage, just some dirt, which is awesome! These two will also be customized along with the donkey. Actually, they're almost perfectly in scale with my Hartland QH family...twins perhaps? That would be really cool for my PA stable!

And here's everything all together. It's definitely gonna be some work getting them to look presentable enough for customizing, but I'm feeling very inspired to get it done with NaMoPaiMo coming up.

To end this post, I'll leave you guys with a question/request: what color should I paint the nursing foals? I definitely think I want to do the twins idea, and my QH family is also not painted yet...so drop some color ideas in the comments!

See you later!

BreyerFest Model Opinions (So Far)

 Oh man, two posts in one day...

So this year's BreyerFest theme is Midsummer Fair, and it will be "inspired by the rich culture and traditions of Nordic countries", per Breyer. As always around this time of year we're getting lots of teasers and posts from the BF blog showing the upcoming event models, and I thought I'd give my very unsolicited opinion on what we've been shown so far! I'll go in order of the reveals.

Our Celebration horse is Corgi Hill Flinka, a beautiful grey dun/grulla/grå on the new Fjord mold sculpted by the excellent Maggie Jenner-Bennet, and I have to say, I REALLY like her. The past few years I've been pretty underwhelmed by and/or just generally not into the Celebration horse models, so this is a nice change of pace. Her color is soft and pleasant to look at and I really like this mold a lot, plus she's free with your ticket depending on which one you get, which is totally worth it in my opinion.

These are our 4 event Stablemates, all representing the flag colors of their respective Nordic countries: Finland (Helsinki), Denmark (Copenhagen), Iceland (Keflavik) & Sweden (Uppsala). My opinion on these are...mixed. I'm not a fan of all-decorator event Stablemates (with the exception being the art-themed BreyerFest from a few years back). With that in mind, I do quite like Copenhagen & Helsinki, but for me personally Uppsala and Keflavik fall flat. I'm just not a fan of the patterns or color mixture on the models. Though, as a fan of the band Ghost, I am somewhat tempted to track down an Uppsala...

Our first special run! Litha is a bay tobiano on the Ethereal mold. Sadly I haven't got much to say about him since I'm not a fan of Ethereal! The model is nicely done, but not for me.

The second SR reveal is Aquavit, a bay dun mule on the brand new Winnifred mold. As a dun fan, I LOVE this model! Of course she isn't available to online attendees, just my luck, but she's definitely one I want to keep an eye out for. Her color is strikingly similar to the bay dun Stablemate mule, which is my favorite release on that mold (and one of my favorite models period). My only complaint would be that I wish she had a darker head!

Our third SR reveal is Thingvellir, a grulla frame overo on the vintage Man O' War mold, and this model had me absolutely jonesing when it was revealed! I recently acquired my first traditional Man O' War from an antique store and I kind of fell in love with him after finally seeing him in person (I previously was not a big fan, and I'm not keen on models with sculpted on halters). What an awesome coincidence! A lot of people won't be (and aren't) hot on this model but as a vintage lover, a dun lover AND a pinto lover, he's right on the money for me. And he'll be available to online attendees! Yippee!

Our Limited Edition traditional scale model is Vindur from Dalalif, a beautiful chocolatey silver black on the Icelandic mold. The LEs have become some of my favorite BF models in recent years, and this guy is no exception. Although I'm not completely sure on my feelings about the mold, I do love Icelandics and silvers, and this guy is just gorgeous! I think he's one I'd definitely like to own, should funds allow.

Scandi Surprise is, obviously, our surprise model, so there's not much for me to say here! When the prices are revealed I'll be deciding whether or not I want to buy it, but honestly, one of my biggest BreyerFest dreams is to get a Surprise model--I've never gotten one before!

And finally, we have the teaser that dropped just today! Honestly, I've never ever been good at guessing on the BF teasers, and I usually let other people do that for me. We'll see who it is tomorrow and I'll make another post about it then...or I'll wait until a few more models drop and do a pretty long post like this one, not sure yet.

Anyway, see you later!

Models I Got for Christmas

 Hey again! Time for my first "real" post on this blog. I wanted to start off simple, so here's the horses I got for Christmas.

Sadly, my mom declined to get me any models for Christmas, just on account of me running low on shelf space...but that didn't stop me from buying some for myself (or my friends from being generous)! Let's start from the top and go in order, because the last horse I received has the best story.

First up is the WIA release of Birdie & Boone in buckskin roan and palomino. These were the first models I purchased for the holiday season and were my early present. These guys are LITERALLY stunning. Jake Heaps is an amazing sculptor and I was SO HAPPY when I found out these two were coming out in plastic! I remember seeing them back when they were first released as resins and going crazy because I generally can't afford resins (unless they're micros/charms/second quality) and I wanted them so badly. I absolutely love mustangs, and the more rough and tumble they look, the better! Birdie is literally my ideal mustang, and Boone is so small and delicate I'm so afraid I'll break him every time I pick him up, but he's adorable. Another thing you'll learn about me as time goes on is that I'm a roan freak, and Birdie's color on this release is absolutely stunning--not to mention, she's a dilute roan! It's just a feast for the eyes. There's also a pinto Birdie/buckskin Boone from WIA on these sculpts, but I'm not as crazy about them as I am these...so perhaps I'll save up and get them to customize!

Secondly we have a Breyer Classic Mustang Mare in old style chestnut pinto. I'll admit, I'm not the best with money...but when I saw this girl for sale on Facebook for a steal, I decided to jump, and call her part of my Christmas presents. She's definitely been well loved and is not in the best condition, but I've wanted a Love mustang mare for quite a while, and she seems harder to come by in the colors that appeal to me the most. I just think she's so cute! I decided to name her Blossom.

Third up is Arapaho on the Phar Lap mold. This one was a doozy...Arapaho has been a grail of mine for literal years, but I've never been in the position to spend upwards to $40-$60 dollars on him. So when he came up in a Facebook sales post for about $15, I knew I had to get him. The catch? His tail was broken. Recently I had fixed a broken leg on a G1 Stablemate using the acetone method so I thought, no problem, I've got this. And then when I received him, acetone proceeded not to work! It ended up being okay though, because it gave me a chance to try out the baking soda + superglue method, which worked like a charm, and from his left side, you can hardly see the break. His right side was less lucky, because there's a pretty big chunk of plastic missing from the base of his tail...good thing I'm not picky at all. Despite his break and being rubbed and scuffed, I had my grail, and I love him! Except there were two variations of Arapaho released: a very speckled one and a not so speckled one. You can see that this is the not so speckled one, and my actual grail is the very speckled one. I'm thinking he needs a brother...one day.

And last but not least, I received A Class Act, a 1998 Fall Show Special on the Five Gaiter mold, as my final Christmas horse. The story here is simple but sweet...my friend Bree and I had gone to the mall theater to see Avatar: Fire and Ash and afterwards I wanted to go into this store that's directly outside the theater, inside of the mall, because I had seen Breyers in there--in particular, this Five Gaiter. Like I said, I'm bad with money (working on that for New Years!), and I after haggling the price a little bit I decided to splurge on him for $33. But when I went to pay, my card declined...and it turns out I had only $32 in my PayPal account. While I was standing there, dejected, Bree suddenly stepped up and bought the Five Gaiter for me and said, Merry Christmas! I honestly don't know what I've done in my life to have such awesome, kind, generous friends, but I love these people a ton and they clearly love me. For obvious reasons this Five Gaiter is my favorite to date and in my conga. As you can probably tell, I love vintage molds a lot, and the Five Gaiter is slowly making his way to the top of my list.

And that's it for my Christmas horses! I think soon I'll make a post about the BreyerFest reveals so far and my opinions, as well as some art updates, and of course NaMo registration is coming up so I'll be posting about that too and revealing my selfie with Huso. I'm also still getting used to this platform and planning out some series I'd like to start, like conga highlights and whatnot. Anyways, see you later!