"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!