In the Studio #2: Seeing Spots

With the Spooky SM Swap done with on Model Horse Blab, the time has come for the Secret Santa! This is my third year doing the Secret Santa, and as usual for any swap or swap-like event, I'm excited. My first year I gave my partner a custom of her mare, which she adored.

Last year, I hunted down a Smoke Western Prancing Horse and made my victim very happy (I think he might have been a sort of mini-grail. Either way, she was thrilled to get him). This year, I'm doing a custom once again.

Because there's a link in my MHB signature to this blog and I share it on Facebook, I'm gonna have to be secretive about this. I won't say much about my partner, but I won't leave you in the dark either. So meet a little pony I've named "Obi-Wan".

Er, well, Obi-wan so far. My partner mentioned liking G1s, so after a hunt, I was able to snag one from another blabber. He came pre-primed, and thank goodness! Here in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, winter's already here (I say as there's snow on the ground outside). If I had to prime him myself I have no idea how long it would have taken to get him outside. 

The horse he's being modeled after is a fleabitten grey. I've never done fleabites before, but I was up for the challenge, as usual. First was a layer of white to cover up that grey.

I used the acrylic that comes with those little Breyer custom kits... in hindsight, a bad idea. I was looking for something thin since this guy was starting to lose detail, so I opted out of my thicker white. The Breyer stuff isn't that great. Oh well, live and learn. He'll be covered up anyway. Then it was onto mane and shading. 

It doesn't look like much in this photo, but he got a couple washes of grey and some pastel work, and his mane and tail were started. The horse Obi-wan is a portrait of has very light, creamish-grey hair... very interesting, really. So it wasn't too much different from the body color. At this point I started getting a little frustrated because in honesty, he doesn't look like he's getting anywhere fast. So, I figured since I'm done with the basic shading, I can start on the fleabites. Easy enough, right? Just whip out the Prismacolors and go to town!

-sigh- Again, I've never done a fleabitten horse before. It's... tedious, to say the least. Dot after tiny dot with colored pencil. That portion of the neck took me around 15 minutes. But I will persevere! 

Although it might end in me becoming cross-eyed. 

Stay tuned!

In The Studio #1: Little devils!

As I mentioned in my previous post, this year I was involved in the Spooky SM Swap on Model Horse Blab. This was my first Halloween swap so I was very excited.

My victim was Amy, who said she likes G2 Thoroughbreds and the color black. I decided to go for a realistic horse with a little costume. Unfortunately, the devil costume didn't work out how I originally wanted, but he got a cape all the same.

I want to add that the horse (deemed "Friend of Mine") was the best primer job I've ever done. I feel much more confident about priming now. But I digress. Anyway, I decided to go for a shaded black on this fella. Considering he was my first shading job, he came out pretty well. I started with a Payne's Grey as a base and worked up from there (his mane, tail, and front two legs were intentionally left bare). From there, it was a thick wash of black, with pure black in the shadowed areas and lightly greyed in the highlights.

So here's where things start to look silly. I wanted his mane and tail to be pure black, but I didn't want the pure black on Friend of Mine himself. So, I used masking tape to cover up. (Don't worry, this didn't stick to the paint, masking tape is great like that). After that, it was on to the leg whites.

Yes, that's a tube of paint he's straddling. In my defense, he needed to dry, and I didn't want him sticking to the desk. Gotta get creative in these situations!

While I was in between working on him, I was also working on a little decoupage coffin box. It was Halloween after all!

I painted the outside with an orange base coat and various spooky things and lined it with red felt. The lining wasn't as great as I'd hoped, but it worked out. 

I also invested in some glow in the dark acrylic, so the vampire and the spiderweb (not shown) glow.

After the shading, it was just hooves, a star, and the eyes. Then it was time for sealer.

I used a new sealant for the first time, and while matte, it did give him a pretty, almost semi-gloss finish, and really brought out his shading. His eyes were, as always, glossed over with a small dab of clear nail polish.

After that it was time to pack up! I pack my horses as if they were made of thin glass - I had an incident last year where a horse broke on its way to me, and ever since I've been very paranoid about horses breaking in-transit. Unfortunately, anyone who receives a horse from me probably has to cut it out of the packing with a machete. Once he was wrapped in toilet paper/plastic/bubble wrap (after, of course, putting the little cape I made on his back), I thought to put him in the coffin box. It was a perfect fit! So, with the coffin sealed with a layer of mod podge, I tied it up to close it (I was going to use chain because that would have added to the spoooooky-ness of it, but I didn't have any lying around. Although I still had a ton of red ribbon from his attempted costume.) 

I added some candy and a post card, and off he went! Amy received him earlier this month, and told me she was thrilled with him and the goodies I packed. Few things make me quite as happy as someone who enjoys a custom I've done for them.

Now onto the Secret Santa!

In the Mail #1: Spooky Stablemates!

Anyone in the model horse hobby knows how exciting it is to get a package. I'm among one of those people that when I expect something, I jump at the faintest sound of a truck and run to the window to see if it's the mailman/UPS man/FedEx man.

Recently I got involved in another one of Blab's swaps - The Spooky Stablemate swap! I love Halloween - it's one of my favorite times of year, and since I started doing the Blab swaps, I figured I'd do this one. I've only done the Spring Fling and Secret Santas before, so I figured this would be just as much fun.

Yesterday I was having a very, very crappy day. I won't go into detail, it was just not my day.
I was out for most of the day, but when I got home, I saw a box near the front step, covered in pictures of horses and Halloween Garfield stickers.

The lovely LittleBlueBMW (Kristin A.) spoiled me! 

First things first, she got me an assortment of candy (obviously, this is a Halloween swap after all!). There's a few lollipops, witch and pumpkin ring pops, and a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate. 

Next, I have a card - Tim Burton, no less! I had mentioned in the thread that I have arachnophobia, and asked that whoever's victim I was didn't send any realistic-looking spiders. She mentioned in the card that there were no little spiders hidden in the box. 

Next - candles! And lots of them! I just got a votive candle warmer a few months ago, so these were perfect! I should also mention that, as somebody who has purchased several copies of "Gothic Beauty" magazine, I've seen ads for Dark Candles several times, and have perused their website. I'd thought of buying some, but at the time I didn't have the warmer (or a credit card), so they passed out of my mind for a time. Now, I have six of them! Evidently, Kristin knows me too well. ;) They smell like incense, it's lovely. Can't wait to get these babies into the warmer!

And last, but certainly not least - the Pony!

I'm in love with this little fella. He's a black Cantering WB with orange in his mane, as well as orange eyes and nostrils. He also has little decals on him - one of Frankenstein's monster, one of a vampire, and one... I think it's a devil. The vampire on his back sticks out a lot, so I gave him the name Bela ("Bela Lugosi's Dead", after one of my favorite songs. Bela Lugosi was a famous actor who played Dracula).

I'm so happy with everything that was sent to me. And it came just when I needed a pick-me-up. Now to finish my little fella!

"Turning Tricks" or, Adventures in Stripping models!

(I should start off by apologizing for that title, but let's be honest here. I had to.)

In the past, when I've wanted to customize a model, I've gone straight for primer. I didn't really do a lot of prep work or anything like that, partially because I just didn't think it was important. And it's not always needed, but in my naivety I became a bit "frustrated" when I painted over the last layer of paint that I was losing details. I'm not always the brightest crayon in the box.
Slowly I did finally get into prepping - mainly just sanding down logos and making sure no seams were visible, grinding at some odd points on the tips of hooves, you get the idea. After that came the idea of stripping the paint first. At first I thought I could try using the back of an XActo blade to just scrape the paint off.

Obviously, I gave up after a great amount of tedious work, but not without attempting to remove the paint with rubbing alcohol. It yielded slightly better results, but I got sick of it and just primed the horse. 

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I started work on a swap pony. I tried to strip him after sanding, again, using the alcohol. Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, none of the paint was coming up, and I just put him aside and kept grumbling "Little Stinker" under my breath. The other day, I discovered my primer was missing, and unsure when I'd be able to go get more, I decided to use the XActo method. It wasn't working out. Luckily for me, my boyfriend found the primer this morning, so after he he sits overnight tonight, he should be ready to work on (finally!). 

While I was waiting for Friend Of Mine (the TB in primer) to dry, I decided to try yet another method of stripping. I have a couple of models that have some thick layers of acrylic on them, and asked on a Facebook group page what the best method would be other than letting them soak in bleach mixture. One girl told me to try nail polish remover. So I did.

I was in shock. Just a little bit and perhaps ten minutes of work got him that far. Mind you, there's about three layers of paint on that horse, plus primer. You can see the OF peeking through in the first picture. I'm definitely going to continue to use this in the future.  

I have a couple of others that need to be stripped - one of them was sealed and is a little trickier, not to mention slightly bigger (Classic scale). So I might try something else with her, but for the SMs, this is going to be a go-to from now on. 

Getting back into the swing of things

Lately I've been thinking a lot about customizing and the model horse hobby. I've been spending much of my free time on other people's blogs or studio Facebook pages, staring at all the amazing work that hobbyists have created. I constantly sit here wishing I could either afford their work, or I could do something like that.

But I'm an artist! I can!

...Well, maybe. 

Obviously every artist starts out somewhere, and with practice, those I've looked up to for years have gotten to the point they are now. My art supplies would be collecting dust if it weren't for the fact I kept it in a bag and did the occasional painting or two. I'll be very honest, I miss customizing. I've only done work recently because of the Model Horse Blab Stablemate swaps. I'm not always happy with how my work comes out, and I plan on changing that. I plan on working so I can become better.

Now, I don't want to get too personal here, but I'm unable to work. I can't get up every day and go to a "normal" job. It's just the way it is. Money's getting tighter and tighter, and as both a collector and a person who would really like to stop living off her parents one day, and have more than forty dollars in her bank account, I put my foot down and said, "Self, we've gotta figure something out for the time being." Then I looked at the desk.

Unfortunately yet fortunately, I do not have pictures of the way my desk looked last night. All it really is is a small drafting table with a protective sheet on top (for when my mom would scratch something off with a knife on her architectural drawings). In the past, that's where my workstation has been, as my mom doesn't really use it any more. Not to mention my "old studio" is in our basement. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, too many spiders (and rats, although I don't have a crippling phobia of rats). It's got some cheap old lights and no windows, therefore no system of ventilation whatsoever. It served the previous homeowner well as a furniture restoration shop, but for someone like me, it's not the greatest. Anyway, back to the desk. It was a wreck. Covered in papers and random bits and bobs, and plenty of dirt. 

So, this morning at about 5 am (despite the fact that I really should have been asleep), the cleaning began. About forty five minutes later, most everything was cleared off. I just had to wait until my dad could use some cleaner to get the dirt off (I have problems with household cleaners, unfortunately). 

Here it is from a few hours ago. Again, nothing fancy-schmancy, but for what I do, it suffices. Now comes the somewhat-organization part. Oddly enough, I can barely keep anything organized. I have OCD, yet I'm one of the most scatter-brained people you may ever meet (at the time of writing this post, I have two or three other things I'm doing). And we all know that if an artist's desk is any sort of clean, there's something terribly, terribly wrong. All the same, I do want to keep it as neat as can be expected. 

Remember the bag full of art supplies I mentioned before? Yep. This was the inside of it. Then after a bit of sorting...

 We're getting there. Slowly but surely I've been locating supplies and finding places for the time being. It will take some time, but it won't be too terrible, I don't think. The worst is over, really. Now if I could just find out where my Dremel walked off to...

Another thing I've decided is that I want to have a body box of my very own. I don't particularly collect bodies, although I hope to accumulate some in the very near future. But so far, what I have is enough for at least a couple of horses (not to mention there's an absurd amount of half-painted ponies I already have lying around in my room that need work/finishing).

 So that's that for now. I'll try to update as often as I can, since I plan on opening up my books soon. Stay tuned!