New Arrivals: The Grand Finale

 Well, we've reached the end of the Breyerfest new arrivals for this year. I held this guy back for last, and here he is...Lot 8 in the Breyerfest Live auction, the Shimmer Dapple Silver Grey with Somatic Mutation! 

Yes, I spent too much on him, but that's what credit cards are for, so I'm not going to dwell on that topic. He sure is pretty, though - he managed to catch my eye, despite his weird face marking. I'm happy to report that his face doesn't look bloody in person! It's just a somatic mutation. So, if this were a real horse, presumably he would eventually gray out and turn white everywhere except that side of his face. That would be an interesting thing to see! But anyway. 

I must not have been paying attention when this model was first revealed, because when I unwrapped the model after paying for him, I was surprised to discover his braids are painted silver and blue, two of my favorite colors. I've complained in the past about them not bothering to paint the braids on other releases using this mane (why have the braids in the mane if you aren't going to paint them?) so it's fitting that this guy does have painted braids. He was meant to live with me! I can't wait to put him in a class at a model horse show. Not that I expect him to do any winning in breed - everyone I talked to about him knew right away what mold I was talking about whenever I mentioned the "noodle legs Andalusian." I still think he would have been pretty great with a coat of gloss, though! Of course, then he probably would have sold for a lot more and I wouldn't have bought him. All's well that ends well, I guess. 

Well, that's it for the new Breyerfest arrivals - I didn't buy as much this year, probably because I knew (or at least hoped) I'd be able to take another auction model home. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to pay off this credit card. In the meantime, Breyerfest Closeups is next on the docket - check back tomorrow for the first one! 

Kingfisher, at last!

 Good news, everyone! Months after the accidental tease of Kingfisher through erroneous belly stamps on Cooper, we finally have a reveal! Say hello to the long-awaited newest web special! 

Look at that glossy goodness! He must be mine, despite his noodly legs. This is the first time this combination of legs and hair have been used on this model since Novelisto back in 2014! The entry deadline is 5/12 at 11:59PM EST, so don't wait too long to get your entries in. He's a beauty! 

In other news, the Stablemate runners-up prize for the Best Custom Contest has been revealed: it's a Highland Pony! Observe: 

I gotta wince at that bent ear...there's only going to be like 11 of these things, so how do you miss that? Kinda nondescript otherwise - it's a black version of one of the Iris releases in the Stablemate Club a couple of years ago, but like...why that? Seems like one of those choices they made that's clearly only done to keep us from guessing everything in advance. Also can't help but notice one of those front legs isn't touching the ground. Well, let's hope this one is just a sample and the ones they actually give out will be a little better in the quality department! 

Alejandro is here!

Exciting news today! Thanks to the generosity of a fellow Blabber, I was able to get my hands on an Alejandro! Behold!

For some reason I'd gotten it into my head that he was glossy, so I was a little disappointed to see he's matte. But he does have a little bit of shimmer to his paint, which is nice. And I love his paint job! His flaming mane and tail make an excellent contrast to the rest of his body.

Although I really like the way this guy turned out, I'm disgruntled that his mane braids aren't painted. This makes 3 out of 4 releases with this mane that didn't have the braids painted. If you can't even paint them for a 3,000-piece run (or 1,250, in Dag Dia's case), what's the point of having them? Will they ever be painted again? Just retool them out of the mold and call it a day -- because as it is now, they might as well not even be there. Bleh. Wouldn't turquoise have gone well with his mane color?



Quality-wise he's not bad - his dapples could have been more subtle, and he has a few lint spots here and there. His eyes are weird, though; at first glance, it looks like they're just sloppily painted, but on closer inspection it looks like they tried to outline his eyes with the same black as the rest of the eye and it just looks weird.

All in all, though, he's a worthy addition to the collection - as long as I don't dwell too much on his unpainted braids. We'll forever be wondering what could have been...

Featured Model - 9/1/2018, Tesoro de Oro

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! In honor of Thursday's Alejandro reveal, this week's model is...Tesoro de Oro!



(Throwback to when I still used the white backdrop!)

Tesoro de Oro was the second Collector Club special run for 2014. As item #712132, he was a run of 1,000 produced on the...Gypsy Vanner? Laredo? Something else? Well, whatever. He was sculpted by Kathleen Moody, and boy howdy, you should have seen the kerfuffle when he was first introduced!

Okay, I admit this version of the mold does have noodly legs (among other problems), but I like him anyway. Of course, being a Moody sculpt, he has oodles of hair, but this guy is a little different from the norm - he has braids in his mane! We don't usually see a lot of that kind of stuff nowadays. Of course, not every model gets those sorts of details, so poor Tesoro's braids aren't painted. It would have been nice if they were, since he did get the horseshoe treatment, but Breyer must not have thought it worth the effort.

I do really like this guy's color; that gold buckskin treatment is so striking! Plus he's glossy! Definitely a win-win.

Until Alejandro was announced, Tesoro de Oro was the only time this combination of mold parts had been used in this configuration, after its debut as Laredo in 2013 (not counting last year's auction model, which was probably left over from one of those two production runs). Like I said on Thursday, not long ago I was thinking about this model and wondered when they'd use it again, and voila! A new release, finally! I wonder if he'll pop up in other places, too? Surely they'll have some whiteware left over, right? Maybe we'll get a web special, too! Although I would hope his braids are painted if that ends up being the case.

Which reminds me - we don't yet know if Alejandro's braids are painted, since Breyer didn't see fit to provide us with a photo of his off side. I hope they are, though! Teal or some type of blue would look nice with his mane! Hopefully we don't have to wait too long to find out.

Don't call my name...Alejandro!

This year's fall releases (all two of them so far) have been revealed! Huzzah! I'll start with Alejandro, this year's brick-and-mortar special run:

I was just thinking the other day that Breyer needed to use this mold for something! He's pretty much just been collecting dust since 2014. Well...parts of him have. Wait - that's not quite right either. This combination of parts? There we go.

Anyway, I love him! Mulberry gray looks good on him. Too bad we don't have a brick-and-mortar dealer in our area anymore - I'll have to try to find him somewhere else, hopefully for a not-extravagant price.

Anyway, let's look at our second model - Verdades!



This guy is a portrait of the real Verdades, a successful dressage horse owned and ridden by Laura Graves.  I'm mostly just happy that he's on a mold I don't collect (although he does look handsome from that angle...). More money for other things!

That's all there is for this post, but hopefully we get more exciting reveals soon!

Live Auction Lot 8: Ooh, Shiny! (And Cracker Barrel Stablemates!)

Today's live auction model has been posted, and he's a doozy! Check him out!

 

It's Laredo! We haven't seen much of him lately. And that color is scrumptious! Looks a lot like Apollo. Look at how thick that gloss is! Mmm...I'm tempted to bid on him too. Decisions, decisions! (I'm not likely to be able to bid on any of these, for what it's worth, but it's nice to dream.) The one holdup - the photo link implies that the horse's braids are painted purple and silver. That...could be interesting. At least they aren't purple and green, I guess. I hope they did a good job...but this is an auction model, so it probably looks amazing. I'll definitely have to get a photo of his other side when they're on display on Friday. 

In other news, and I'm really late to the party on this, more blind bag Stablemates have been showing up at Cracker Barrel restaurants, of all places, all over the country. I briefly thought about driving to our closest Cracker Barrel (an hour away), but the "chase piece" for the set isn't on a mold I collect, so I opted not to. The rest of the Stablemates in the bags are reissues of other colors, so I wasn't too excited about them. Here's a photo of the chase piece, from IDYB - it's on the G4 Arabian mold.

I've never been a fan of the G4 Arabian - I think it's just too awkward-looking. I do really like that color, though - if they put it on another mold I do collect, I'd be all over it. I'm still not sure if I'm a fan of blind bag stuff in general, though - the Spirit ones weren't so bad since I could just buy an entire box at once, but I still haven't gotten my hands on the gold Friesian from the Walmart blind bags. Grr!