Another Stablemates Club reveal, Cosimo and Christmas surprise (oh my!)

 Well, it’s been a crazy weekend of reveals! Quite a lot of things have been revealed, actually - like next year’s regular run releases, but those will supposedly be officially revealed tomorrow, so I’m going to wait until then to talk about them. But in the meantime, we also got to see another 2025 Stablemates Club release! Say hello to Alana, who can be seen here. I’m not at home and my tablet isn’t cooperating, so you’ll have to view the links to see the models. Anyway, Alana is very promising! Another release I’ll have to join the club for. I love her turquoise braids! So that just means we have one more reveal to go - the gambler’s choice for next year. I’ll wait on joining until we see what that is. Hopefully it’s on a mold I don’t want so I can just get one membership like I’ve been doing for the past few years, but we’ll see.

We also got an unprecedented third Premier Club reveal! They teased a sketch of the model yesterday and then revealed a cropped photo today, which can be seen here. I definitely like what I see! But I do like a nice Roman nose on a horse, so it’s not surprising. I also like black horses! So he’s probably going to stay with me. Dare I hope we get to see the Stablemate next? Hahaha. I’ll hold out on joining until he very end of the year, just in case. I don’t think we should necessarily expect to get this many reveals next year, though - I suspect it’s a 75th Anniversary thing and we’ll be back to normal at the end of next year. I hope I’m wrong, though! It would be great to be able to see all the releases in advance every year.

Lastly, Breyer sent out an email today that this year’s Christmas surprise will be revealed tomorrow at 1pm EST! So I’ll have to haunt the Breyer website tomorrow to see what it is. My guess is some type of Fell Pony, but who knows. I think I guessed her last year and it turned out to be Huck. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow! Good luck to everyone! 

Some Tractor Supply new arrivals!

 Greetings, readers! Well, I've managed to lay hands on some of the new TSC releases - not quite all of them as yet, but I'll get there. I ordered the Classics set with American Dream, and also the Classics family set (which hasn't arrived yet) to be shipped to the store in the same town where my husband works, so he was able to pick that up - but I also ordered six of the new blind bags, but the website defaulted to a different nearby store for some reason, so I had to make a drive down there to get the blind bags. Anyway, I'll start with the bay American Dream! 

He looks good in bay, and the white at the bottom of his tail is a nice touch.

So does that make him an extremely minimally-marked sabino? Interesting. 

Anyway, here's the foal, who I haven't removed from the box yet as I don't intend to keep it: 

And here are the results of my six-blind-bag gamble:

I only wanted the Walkaloosa, the pinto Emma, and the black pinto Alborozo, so two out of three ain't bad. It makes me wish I liked the G4 Vaulting Horse, because they keep using that blue pinto on molds I don't like! I don't know what it is about this one, but he's just ugly to me (and normally I like draft models). To each their own, I guess. I do like the mini Emma, too - it's about time she (well, actually he) got a new color. Guess I'll be looking for buyers for the extras. 

Also, it appears that the waitlist emails have gone out for Ponies & Palm Trees, so make sure to check your email! Make sure to check your spam folder, too, as it looks like these emails are coming from a Breyer staffer, not necessarily the website. I wasn't drawn from the waitlist this time, but maybe there'll be a few rounds of waitlists. Crossing my fingers! 

Featured Model - 1/12/2019, Gray Sabino G3 Tennessee Walking Horse

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...the blue roan G3 Tennessee Walking Horse!



This pretty guy is item #5906 on the G3 Tennessee Walking Horse sculpted by Jane Lunger. He was a regular run from 2006-2008.

I love the color on this model! I'd been looking for him off and on, but never found one at a good price until Breyerfest 2017, when I found him in one of the rooms at the Clarion. Score! I just think his color is really well done, especially for a regular run from 10+ years ago. He definitely doesn't look like something you'd see on a regular run shelf.

The G3 TWH seems to be fairly popular - he's had a lot of releases over the years, most recently appearing in a couple of last year's blind bag assortments and the Suncatcher Stablemates painting kit. He's also been used at Breyerfest a few times - the five (!) filigree colors at Breyerfest 2009, and the All-American Tribute set from 2007.

So where will he pop up next? Maybe we'll see him again at Breyerfest this year. It doesn't look like he had any new 2019 regular run releases, and we've already seen all the releases for the 2019 Stablemate Club, so he won't show up with those. Hopefully they come out with some new regular run releases soon! 

2018 Stablemates are here!

Greetings, readers! In lieu of more exciting things to talk about this week, I'm going to talk about some of the new for 2018 Stablemate models. I've been trying to cut back on purchases lately, so the only 2018 releases I've gotten have been Stablemates. Behold!

I'm a bit short on time today, so I don't have very many photos of these. But they include a couple of the new Stablemates Single Assortment models, the stallion and foal from one of the new Mystery Foal sets, and the TWH, Cantering Warmblood, Django and Andalusian from the new blind bag assortment.



I think they're all really nice, but the standout here is, of course, the Django. His color is very metallic and attractive, and it makes everything else look dull by comparison (except maybe the buckskin Andalusian).

As usual, I wish Django's sculpt had been adapted to plastic a little better - he looks so stunning from either side that it's sad to see how narrow he is. Plus, he's just a tad out of scale compared to other Stablemates. Friesians are big, but not that big.

That said, I do like the color on the buckskin Andalusian as well - it's more of a buttermilk shade. And the perlino foal is so cute! The Icelandic is a little plain - I'd like to see some white on him, but that's a small nitpick. And the black pinto rearing Arabian is like a budget version of Oscar.

Sadly, I wasn't lucky enough to get a copper Django from the 8 blind bags I ordered, so I'm still on the hunt for him. Hopefully his price comes down eventually.

As for the quality on these, I didn't see anything majorly wrong with them, which was nice. I hope the Spirit Series 2 blind bags are as nice!

Featured Model - 7/29/2017, Dapple Gray G3 Tennessee Walking Horse

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. We're back to Stablemates this week as this week's model is...the dapple gray G3 Tennessee Walker!

 

This model, like many new Stablemate molds released in 2006, was sculpted by Jane Lunger. This particular release was a regular run and was available from 2009-2011.

Resist dappling (the painting technique where a horse was splattered with paint-resistant grease before being painted and the grease was wiped off afterward, leaving unpainted spots on the model) was how many of Breyer's vintage models were painted, and we still see the technique get used occasionally despite improvements in painting models over the last 30 years.

A lot of the resist dappling you see these days is on Stablemate models - perhaps it's more cost-effective to paint them that way, since they're so small and painting Stablemate-sized dapples would be enough to make anyone go cross-eyed. I'll admit the resist dappling isn't my favorite way to paint models, but this one is pretty nice even so.

As for the mold, this guy is bombastic and fun, though I wish his gait were a little less exaggerated - he looks a little too much like a big lick horse for my tastes. However, he at least isn't wearing stacks, so I give him the benefit of the doubt.

That's all I have for today - tune in next time for more exciting Breyer-related news! Or photos from Breyerfest, or new arrivals...I'm not sure what's coming up next on the docket. I'll think of something!