Uncle! Uncle! I give up!

 Well, we have our holiday mare and foal set of the year - say hello to Bellatrix and Spica! 

I love the color scheme in the above photo. Isn't it pretty? I suppose that's the point of the whole thing. I can't wait to see this set in person - they look and sound amazing, and the photo doesn't show the purple interference all that well. It'll be interesting to see what they look like! 

But otherwise...my wallet is pretty much on fire! Stop with all the releases already! Sheesh. They've been coming rapid-fire for the last week, and I'm ready to wave the white flag here. Sadly, it's probably not going to stop anytime soon - we still have the last Premier Club model, whatever the winter web special is, the last Stablemates Club model, plus whatever else they have up their sleeves for the end of the year. I have to think their revenues are down due to the pandemic, so I can't really blame them for releasing all this stuff to try to make that up, but still. Give us a rest...please! 

Speaking of new releases and arrivals, my cup runneth over - I finally got my Raia, plus Barrington, Honeybunch and my three Stablemates Club Valerio models. So I'll start with Barrington! 

I have to say, I like this guy way better in person than in the promo photos. He just looked so dull! Fortunately, he's much better in person. 

His color is really rich! While I still prefer the loose mane and tail, I can get used to these. I counted 32 little braids on his neck, all of which had to have a little dot of red paint, plus one on his forelock and the base of his tail. The painters must have been going crazy painting all those little braids. 

Sadly, his quality isn't the best; he has small rubs or scuffs on all four his legs in the white areas or on his feet. A bit disappointing for a run of only 500, but I might be able to take some of the scuffs off later. 

Next, here's Raia! 

This one had a bit of a convoluted journey to get to me, but she was definitely worth the wait (shipped to a retailer four hours away, paid for over the phone, picked up by my brother, then waited for my husband to make a work trip to the area and bring her back)! She's beautiful.

I've always liked the red bays with four white socks. So flashy! And I'm super-glad they used the flip-tail for her, since we don't see it that often. 

I didn't notice anything particularly bad with her quality, either, although she has black spots of mane color on her neck under the mane, due to the sculpted holes or "windows" in her mane. Would have been nice if they'd stuck something under there temporarily to catch the paint so it wouldn't end up on the neck. 

Next, here's Honeybunch! 

I was a little leery about this one, because I've been seeing a lot of reports of poor masking around her mane. This girl has it, unfortunately, but it's not as bad as some of the ones I've seen. 

I love the pearly on this one! She has it on her mane, tail and the floofy parts of her legs. I guess I'm a sucker  for pearly, but it seems like it makes every paint job pop a little more. I wouldn't want to do the scrubbing it would take to make a real horse look like that, though.

She does have some booboos, but it wasn't quite as bad as it looked at first - I was able to pick a couple of black/lint marks off without affecting the paint underneath. She does have a pretty big rub on her left eartip, though, and the culprit was easy to spot - the box she's being shipped in isn't quite wide enough, and the side of it rubbed against her ear and took the paint off. I've seen at least one other Honeybunch with the issue, so it's probably happening to a lot of them. Too bad the boxes couldn't be slightly wider, eh? 

Lastly, here are my Valerios! Drumroll please...

While I'm of course disappointed that I didn't get three different colors, I've had REALLY good luck with the randomly-shipped stuff lately, so I can't complain too much. I'm just glad I at least got two different colors.

I'll be looking to trade the extra palomino pinto for one of the other colors - ideally the Appaloosa, but I'd settle for the rose gray. The two I unboxed looked pretty good - I didn't see any major flaws on either of them. The palomino that's still boxed is a bit sunken-in through the barrel and chest - a rather common complaint from the looks of it. The unboxed ones don't seem to have that issue, so at least it's not all of them. Let's hope I can find a trade! 

That's all I have for today - I hope my Collector Appreciation stuff shows up soon! Looks like we're also starting to get glossy Sable Island Horses and EZ to Spot - in that case, I'd rather get the glossy EZ than Winx. I guess I'll find out eventually!