The 2020 Halloween line is now available!

 More good news, readers! Breyer's 2020 Halloween offerings are now available to order...like this rat-tastic Classic! 

His name is Ratsputin...a bit of a mouthful, but plays on words are always fun, right? Fortunately (or not), I don't collect this mold, so I don't need to buy him. Which is good, because, well...I mean, I don't really have anything against rats per se, and wouldn't mind having one as a pet, really, but...rats? Bleh - it just makes me think of dirt and filth. But to each their own! 

There's also some fun new Stablemates, which is what I'm most excited about, despite the dreaded blind bags:

Those are some pretty ambitious paint jobs, so I won't complain about the $25 price...this time. Let's hope the factory can pull them off! Plus, they qualify for the 10% Collector Club discount (CLUBPLUS20), so order away! I'm hoping to get the Cantering Warmblood and the Friesian, so here's hoping! 

There's also a cute plush:

Aww, I love candy corn! I may be alone in that opinion, but whatevs. If you order $75 worth of merch (any merch, as far as I know), you can enter a code (SUGAR20) to get the plush for free! 

Humorously enough, there's also still leftovers of last year's Halloween Stablemates. You'd think they'd take the hint from the last few rounds of blind bags not selling out (these and the Starry Skies) and QUIT DOING BLIND BAGS AND JUST MAKE IT A SET WE CAN ALL BUY....but I'm trying not to be too negative here. Anyway...happy early Halloween! 

New Arrivals: Indu, Glossy Indu and Marigold

The Breyerfest blues are still going full swing in this household. I can't believe we left for Breyerfest two weeks ago, and we've now been home for almost a week. Where does the time go? I guess time really does fly when you're having fun.

In happier news, I was fortunate enough to be drawn for Zion and Moab, so they'll be on their way here soon. In the meantime, I still haven't had a chance to dig out my camera's battery charger (darn work!), so I took some quick cell phone photos of some of my Breyerfest acqusitions. First up is Indu!

 

There has been a lot of variation within this run, which was to be expected. Some of the models have really obvious, chicken-wire looking dapples, while others (like this one) are more subtle. Shading variations also exist, with lighter and darker models reported.

 

I'm happy that I got a model with subtle dapples (I had 3 at one point in my quest for a glossy), but the quality isn't the best, unfortunately (and this seems to have been common throughout the run). Mine isn't too terrible, but does have some issues.

 

Somehow I didn't even notice that left eartip until I was taking these photos - ugh! Other than that he isn't too bad, he just has some little bits of debris embedded in his finish here and there and his shoes could have been painted a little better. Not anywhere near as bad as that silver splotch on my Acadia, though.  Next: Glossy Indu!

I always try to keep my expectations low for glossy models like this, since they're essentially just taking half the run and spraying some gloss on afterward, flaws or not. But other than his very prominent dapples, this guy actually isn't too bad - some lint in the gloss in a couple of spots and the edge of his left ear looks like it didn't get sanded down very well, but overall he isn't bad.





His shoes are also decently painted, if a little more sloppily than the matte Indu's were. But this model could have been much worse, so I'll take it. The Internets are saying this model was one of many that sold out on Sunday, so clearly he was popular with someone!

And lastly, Marigold!

I love the colors on this little guy, and it sounds like I wasn't the only one - he sold quite well from what I heard, though I don't know if he sold out or not. Even my husband liked him!

Quality-wise, this model is very, very nice. I don't see a thing wrong anywhere on him, despite all those big decals. Someone took their time with this one, and it shows! He's gorgeous.



That's all I have for today - I'll try to get some more photos of my other purchases up this week. Until next time!

Artisan's Gallery Snapshots!

In lieu of skulking my way through the KHP visitor center today, I wandered through the Artisan's Gallery instead to see if I could get my eye on the special run models for Breyerfest. And, lo and behold...

 

In the above photo we see Indu, Vahana, Kaalee, Darjeeling and a little bit of Saffron.

 

And here we see more of the previous, plus Namaste and the rest of Saffron. These are the seven (horse) models that will be available in the special run line, minus the surprise model. I had hoped that if there's a matte/glossy split this year it would be revealed here, but all of the models had the expected finishes.

In this photo we see Diwali, the Official Breyerfest Cow (tm), as well as slightly different angles of Namaste and Saffron, plus the plush horse Lotus.

 

The Single-Day Stablemates are as cute as expected, though I didn't have the time to examine Tushar and see if he's as butt-high as he looks in photos. I'm still planning on getting Mishti and Vivaan, though. Hopefully we'll have time to get that done tomorrow.

In the above photo we can see the Celebration Model Nazruddin, the plushie elephant Jaipur, the regular elephant Holi and the Classic Marigold. Drool! Marigold must be mine, and I love Nazruddin's box despite my dislike of pink. I'm still not planning on buying a Holi; I don't collect the animal molds and I have reservations about how well-executed those decals will be.



And lastly we have Navya, the curiously attractive clear Stablemate. Gah! I need him. We're going to be getting up really early tomorrow in hopes of getting in line early enough to get our hands on him and Marigold - hopefully we're successful!

I'll close with that - good luck at Breyerfest tomorrow, everybody! Try not to keel over in line - I know I'll be doing my best.

Marigold!

Breyer uploaded a gorgeous new special run on the blog today - Marigold!

 

According to the blog, he'll be available in the Breyer Bazaar, aka the pop-up tent, aka the Tent of Despair. I love almost everything about this model - the design, the colors, the nearly-white tail...everything except the mold it's on. And I almost like it enough to want to buy it anyway! He was designed by longtime Blabber Lauren Hoeffer.

 This mold has never really appealed to me before now, and I doubt I'll spend any time waiting in the pop-up tent's (shadeless, and usually terrible) line... but if these show up in the regular Breyer Store at the end of the weekend, I can't guarantee one won't come home with me. So pretty!