Featured Model - 9/11/2021, Avalon

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model I don't own but would like to, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...Avalon! 

This handsome guy, technically a resin, was an edition of 125. He's item #711138 and was a new sculpture, used for the first and (so far) only time at Breyerfest 2011. IDYB doesn't have a record of who sculpted him, but to my untrained eye he sort of looks like a Sifton piece. 

While I wasn't terribly crazy about any of the three new resins introduced at that year's Breyerfest, Avalon is probably the only one of the three I'd add to my collection if he were released in plastic. Prince Charming's proportions just look goofy to me and Sorceror's Apprentice is just...nah. That's a handsome shade of chestnut on Avalon too, and I like that his tail isn't banged. That's one sporthorse trend I wish would just go away already. 

So, since Prince Charming has made his debut as a Stablemate, will Avalon and Sorceror's Apprentice follow along soon? And why haven't any of them been produced in a larger scale? Did Breyer have some kind of agreement with those artists as well? Seems a bit odd to go to the trouble of making those molds to only use them once. I wouldn't mind getting Avalon in any scale, though I suppose I'd prefer him as a Traditional. But if Breyer wants to shrink him into a Stablemate, I wouldn't complain about that either! Just don't make him a bunch of rare and super-rare chase models right off the bat, like they did with Prince Charming! 

Resin to Plastic

One of the things I like to contemplate from time to time is the conversion of resin sculptures to plastic for mass release. This is how all Breyer molds are made, but as you all know, there's a healthy market in artist resins produced by hobby sculptors. This market is a large part of how Breyer finds its sculptors - either to sculpt for them, or to sell the rights to a given resin to Breyer so it can be produced in plastic.

So, one of the things I like to think about is which artist resins out there I'd like to see in plastic. Of course, sometimes Breyer gets beaten to the punch and somebody else gets the rights to a resin first. I'm talking about Kitty Cantrell's Wahoo resin that was released a few years ago. Stone acquired the rights to it fairly recently, to use it as a new Pebbles release (albeit with a changed front leg). I view this as one of Breyer's biggest missed opportunities of the last few years - it's been almost 20 years since we last got a rearing Traditional mold, and Kitty's sculpts tend to be popular with collectors. And since I don't have the money to collect resins, I really wanted to see Wahoo produced in plastic! But I guess that's just how it goes sometimes.

Wahoo isn't the only resin I wanted produced in plastic, though. Here's a quick list of some others:

Infinity by Kathleen Moody

Minuet by Kathleen Moody

Esplendida by Brigitte Eberl

Almanzor by Brigitte Eberl

Independence by Sarah Rose

Heritage by Emilia Kurila

Extreme Justice by Sommer Prosser

Elnathan by Tabatha Pack

Those are all I can think of for now, though my memory is like Swiss cheese these days, so I could be forgetting some. Which resin sculpts would you like to see in plastic (by Breyer, Stone or anyone else)? Let me know in the comments!

Porcelain to Plastic: Addendum

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Breyer's fondness for introducing new porcelain molds that are later released in plastic, and the likelihood (or lack thereof) that any of the old porcelains from the '90s would ever be released in plastic.

Well, the other day I was reading through some of my old issues of JAH, and stumbled across this little gem.

So, if this little blurb is accurate, it explains (kind of) why we haven't seen any of those old porcelains released in plastic: "Something something too hard to do, something something." Or, the porcelain molds have more detail than a plastic mold would, therefore never going to happen? But they make new molds from resin sculptures all the time, and we all know how detailed resins are. But I do remember reading an article by Sarah Mink about sculpting for Breyer, and the sculpt in question had to be able to cleanly pull the finished plastic out of the mold without catching on anything - maybe that would be an issue with the old porcelain molds.

Or, a simpler explanation would be that Breyer doesn't think there would be enough of a market for these old molds to justify the expense of converting them to plastic. Surely the technology has advanced in the last 23 years to make it possible, right? But if Breyer doesn't think the demand is there, they aren't going to spend the money on it.

Which is unfortunate, because I'd really like to see the Spanish Barb and the Sarah Rose Hambletonian in plastic, but it doesn't look like that will ever happen (though the Hambletonian is a bit newer, so might actually happen). But I can always hope!

Porcelain to Plastic

One of the things Breyer seems to like doing from time to time is debuting a mold in porcelain, resin or other material before eventually releasing it in plastic. Othello, Giselle and Gilen, and Tenacious/Sir Buckingham (among others) are all examples of this trend. In more recent examples, last year's Beautiful Breeds cob ornament is being released in plastic as one of the Breyerfest single-day Stablemates for this year.


However, there are some older porcelain sculptures that were released in the 1990s that never made it to being released in plastic, including the Shire Mare, Icelandic, Arabian Mare, Spanish Barb, Great Horse in Armor, the Circus Ponies, and others. One thing I've always wanted to ask Breyer is why these molds haven't ever been released in plastic. Not that I'm complaining about it - I'm just curious as to why.

I only have one Breyer porcelain, though I'd like to have more. I like my Adriano but I get nervous every time I have to touch or move him; I'm just too paranoid that he's going to end up broken!

There are a number of possible reasons for the porcelains never getting a plastic release; perhaps it's an issue of getting the rights to the sculptures, or Breyer doesn't think there would be much of a demand or market for releasing said sculptures in plastic, or there might be some technical issue preventing it. Rights-wise, though, I would think either Breyer already owns all rights to the sculptures, or would be able to buy said rights from Kathleen Moody if they somehow don't already own them. Which would bring us back to the demand argument - I doubt they'd put much effort into getting the plastic rights if they don't think there's a market for the sculptures (especially since most of them were released 20+ years ago, making them "old news," as it were). As for technical issues, most of those sculpts have been used multiple times, so I doubt that's the problem.

I would totally be in favor of seeing many of these molds finally released in plastic, though, even if they ended up being Classic-sized. The Classic line could definitely use more molds! The Spanish Barb is one of my favorite molds Breyer has ever released, and I'd love to see him in plastic. I'd really like to see the circus ponies in plastic, too (sans tack). I doubt they'd do anything with the Icelandic now that they have Falhofnir, although he'd probably make a nice Classic-sized Icelandic companion to Falhofnir and the Stablemate. I'd also like to see the resin Hambletonian released in plastic. And it would be interesting to see what the Arabian Mare and Great Horse in Armor look like without tack/armor.

So, I hope Breyer does focus groups at Breyerfest again soon - I participated in one at Breyerfest 2013 but stupidly didn't ask about the porcelains then. I'd love to have another opportunity to ask!