My Corbins are here!

Good news, everyone! My Corbins arrived yesterday! Observe!



Sorry for the crappy photos.



They're definitely pretty, but the mold just isn't really my thing. He'd make a good mule with that head, though. Hopefully I can get them sold without too much trouble.

Quality-wise they look pretty good - the one in the bottom photo is better than the top one, though. The top guy has a rub in the paint on his face, under the gloss, but otherwise he looks fine.

In other news, it looks like all the complaints about the Collector Club Appreciation event had an effect on Breyer, because they're doing something "special" today for the people that missed out on Wednesday. I'm guessing they glossed up more of the glossy regular runs for the promotion? Anything else would just piss off the fanbase more, so...it'll probably turn out they glossed some Empres models or something. I guess we'll find out later today!

Corbin is now available!

Attention, Stablemates Club members! The 2019 club is finally complete - Corbin is now available to order!



Mine will both be for sale, so I'm more excited to see what the raffle will be this year. They've really stepped things up in the last couple of years - I'm guessing glossy versions of some of the matte releases? Hopefully the raffle isn't an afterthought and they tell us in a reasonable amount of time!

Priscilla is here!

Good news, everyone! My Priscilla came today!



Isn't she a beauty? She's not very good about standing up, though (a common occurrence with this mold). Maybe my other one will be better? I haven't ordered that one yet - I'm waiting to see if I can bundle shipping with the Collector Club Valegro that has yet to be released.

I love her green and purple tail ribbons! Check them out:



They look like somebody colored them with a gel pen - and I don't mean that in a bad way. Quality-wise, she's pretty great - I didn't see anything wrong with her. If she stood better, she'd be perfect!

That's all I have for today - sorry to be so brief. The next release will be out in December - I'm excited to see what the final paint job will look like for him, since we haven't seen that yet. Hopefully we don't have to wait too much longer! And we should be seeing this year's last Premier Club sculpt soon as well. Let's hope it's a looker!

Priscilla is now available!

Wow, that was quick. Priscilla, the next Stablemate Club release, is now available:



She's one of the releases I've been most excited about, so the faster she gets here the better! I can't wait. Both of the kids have been sick this week and I think I'm starting to come down with whatever they have, so I could really use a pick-me-up!

My other Iris is finally here!

Well, I'm not sure what happened with my other Iris model - I got a shipping notification for her after I placed the order, and it had a tracking number, but a week later the tracking had never updated from "Label created." So I emailed Breyer and they sent out another one last week. Maybe the first one fell off the back of the UPS truck or something? Anyway, she finally arrived yesterday, and I'm pleased to report I got...the decorator!



I really, really like this color, so it makes me a bit sad that they put it on a mold I don't collect. Maybe Breyer will use it on something else someday? Pretty please?

I'm in a bit of a hurry to write this post, so I only have the one photo. But she was pretty nice from a quality standpoint. I didn't see any issues with her at all - her eyes might be slightly sloppy, but that's it. (Interesting how they can do such detailed blue eyes on the cremello appaloosa, and this one just has plain black eyes...)

In the four years that the Stablemate Club has existed, the gambler's choice mold has only been on a mold I collect once - the Fylkir, in 2017. On the one hand, I kinda wish they'd use more molds I want, but on the other hand...it's nice not to have to get all of them every year, especially since they sell for so much more than the purchase price. I'm definitely not going to complain about that last part! Maybe next year they'll use a mold I collect again and I'll be shaking my fist at the sky for saying anything!

Iris is here!

Well, one of them, anyway. The other one will hopefully arrive tomorrow. I ordered them one right after the other, so it's annoying that they didn't both arrive at the same time. But anyway...Say hello to...the perlino appaloosa!



This one seems to be a lot of people's least favorite, judging by the reactions I've seen on the Internets. But I don't think she's that bad. She certainly looks pink from a distance, though.



I didn't see anything particularly egregious in the quality department, though it looks like she has a fingerprint on her face. I can't get over her tiny blue eyes, though!



How do you even paint something that small without screwing it up? I guess they probably paint the whole eye blue and add the pupil afterward, but I don't know how you'd do it without leaving brush marks. I guess that's for the experts!

Mine will be for sale, sadly, but it was fun to open the box and see which color I got. Crossing my fingers for the decorator tomorrow!

Iris is now available!

Attention, Stablemates Club members! The next release in the club, Iris, is now available for purchase!



It's the gambler's choice model on the G3 Highland Pony! They all look like fun colors, but I like the decorator best. Here's how the website describes it:

Mojave Turquoise-inspired decorator with a gold basecoat layered with purple, blue and interference gold, and a high gloss finish

It's enough to make me wish this was a mold I collect. Alas, I don't, so both of mine will be going to the sales bin. That silver bay is really pretty too, though! Here's a photo of them from the collector club tent at Breyerfest.

 

I'd thought the cremello was a solid color, but it looks like she's an Appaloosa! And the writeup says she has a satin finish, rather than glossy. You'd think they'd go whole hog and gloss her along with the other three, but I guess not.

Whichever color you prefer, I hope everyone gets the one they want! Good luck!

Breyerfest Closeups: Corbin

Hello, readers! Today I have another Breyerfest Closeups post; this time, I'll be talking about the other new mold for this year's Stablemates Club - Corbin!



Unfortunately, I only took one picture of him for some reason. So...they still haven't finalized what color he's going to be? Isn't that leaving things kind of late, manufacturing-wise? I guess they could have decided on his color a long time ago but didn't want to show us, but I mean...we're going to find out sometime, and we already knew what the mold looked like. Isn't Breyerfest the perfect time to unveil it?



Well, whatever. Seeing the model in person didn't change my opinion of him; I'm still not a fan. But that leaves me more money for other things, so I can't complain too much!

Greyson is here!

Greetings, readers! Good news - my Greyson model has arrived. Observe!

So handsome! I really like him, although if I had to nitpick something, I'd say he needed a little less white. Here's his other side:

He has an amazing amount of detail for such a small model. Too bad he's so narrow through the withers, again...seriously, someone needs to ask Breyer about this at Breyerfest.



Quality-wise, he's excellent - I didn't see a thing wrong with him other than an area or two of blurred edges to his markings. I was afraid I was going to snap off one of his little legs while I was trying to get him out of the box, though - can we please go back to the satin bags already?

That reminds me - I thought Breyer's awful new shipping company couldn't sink any lower than shipping stuff in bubble mailers, but it turns out that bar could be lowered after all. Now people who ordered 3 or fewer blind bag Stablemates with their SMC models have been receiving them with the blind bags crammed into the tiny SMC shipping box! This didn't happen to me personally (nor did I get my Greyson models in bubble mailers, thankfully), but again - if I ordered a blind bag with mine and it turned out to be the chase piece, but was broken due to these terrible shipping practices, I would be LIVID. Get it together, Breyer!

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. One thing I can say for sure, though - I'm going to be on the lookout for the PYO sets in the Breyer store at Breyerfest! I can't wait to see where they use this guy next!

Greyson is available!

Greyson, the third release in the 2019 Stablemates Club, is (at last) available for purchase!

I've been waiting for this guy to come out for a while, so I'm glad he's finally been released! They usually don't waste much time getting the new SMC releases out, so I was wondering what the holdup was. I can't wait to see mine!

My Gweneveres are here!

Greetings, everyone! My Gweneveres survived the Great Bubble Mailer Fiasco of 2019 in one piece, and so did their boxes - mostly. Behold (and sorry for the godawful photos)!




When you're at home wrangling two kids and a dog, you have to take some quick photos when you can. Anyway, the color on these ladies is really nice, and I love the pearly mane and tail (as usual)! It makes me wish they'd used a mold I collect, because I just don't collect the G1 Morgan Mare, nice as she is.



I ordered several blind bag Stablemates with my Gwens, in the faint hope that I'd get one of the chase Alborozos I still need. Alas, my luck wasn't that good, and I didn't get either of them. Fortunately, despite being shipped in bubble mailers, the boxes were only mildly damaged. Hopefully that doesn't affect their resale value.

It's hard to find the time or inclination to list anything on eBay these days, so I might just wait until Breyerfest and sell them there.

Quality-wise, I didn't see anything horrible in a quick glance, but that was all the time I had to look at them. Hopefully nothing terrible reveals itself when I get around to selling them! I also hope Breyer's new warehouse learned their lesson about sending things in bubble mailers after the earful collectors have been giving them over the last week. Considering the number of blind bags I ordered, I was really nervous things were going to show up broken - and if I'd gotten a broken chase piece I would have been irate! Fortunately (or not), I wasn't lucky enough to get a chase piece anyway, so the point is moot.

So, hopefully I don't have much trouble selling these - and now I'll go back to waiting for the next release! I'm hoping the Belgian or the new Thoroughbred is next! 

Gwenevere is now available!

More exciting news! Gwenevere, the second release in this year's Stablemates Club, is now available on the website!



Her purchase deadline is 4/24, so we have plenty of time to pay for her - provided Breyer's gotten their warehouse issues straightened out, of course.

Both of my Gweneveres will be for sale, sadly - I don't collect the G1 molds.

Fiero is here!

Greetings, readers! Exciting news - my Fiero is here! Okay, I got two of them because I have two accounts, but they were both glossy and the extra one has already been packed up to trade for a matte one. So I only have (poor) photos of one of them! Behold! (Today was long, and tiring, and frustrating, and I didn't have a chance to get better photos).



Starting with an in-box photo. Although I didn't get a photo of it, it looks like the Fiero models were packaged in leftover boxes from last year, because they have the same artwork on the back of the box (including the photo of the unpainted Darley, etc). Are they going to look like that all year? Why wouldn't they update the boxes for this year? Sigh. I still wish they'd go back to using the satin bags.

But anyway. Here he is out of the box!



He's definitely handsome despite the bad photos. He's got great shading and I love the contrast of his white feet against the solid body (if only all four feet were white!). He has a lot of dapples - almost too many, really. And they're out of scale with his body, which is something we've seen with Stablemate Club releases before.



Quality-wise, he's fine - other than the too-large dapples, the only issue I saw with him was some kind of paint flaw on one of his tail tips - no biggie.



Even his eyewhites were decently painted!

I did manage to find a Muir Woods for a not-terrible price, and he's due to arrive tomorrow - so I'm hoping to get both of these guys together and see how similar they are shade-wise. They probably won't match each other, but it'll be fun if they do!

All in all, this guy is a worthy addition to the Stablemate Club collection, even if it is the second time the mold has been used in the club. More to love!

Fiero is now available!

The first Stablemates Club release of the year, Fiero, is in stock on the Breyer website! Breyer must have gotten their warehouse backlog worked out - yay!

I already ordered them on both my accounts. Hopefully I get lucky and they send me a glossy and a matte so I don't have to worry about trading!



These guys are definitely pretty! Can't wait for them to get here. It's interesting that Mirado has had all of two (well, three if you count both finishes) releases, and they're all molded in cellulose acetate. Maybe he'll get a Breyerfest release this year too? I hope so.

I'm not going to lie; I was kind of hoping the first release of the year would be the new Thoroughbred sculpture and the last would be the new sporthorse, to "bookend" the club releases, as it were. Oh well - maybe the new Throughbred will be next!

The new Thoroughbred for the SMC is revealed!

They're definitely pushing the signups for the Stablemates Club, aren't they? We got another reveal today - the full paint job for the new Thoroughbred! He was debuted in this video today.



I definitely like him! His name is Grayson and he was sculpted by Heather Puleo. I wonder when he'll be released next year? It would be cool if they "bookended" the year's releases with the two new molds. He's very attractive and I can't wait to see what else Breyer does with him! Unless he becomes the new blind bag chase piece, in which case...no thanks.

Priscilla!

There was another exciting Stablemate Club reveal yesterday - the G3 Belgian! Meet Priscilla!



Although I'm not wild about her name, I do love the paint job. She actually bears some resemblance to Arosa from yesterday! Like Arosa, I love the contrast of the black spots on the gray/white areas of her coat. Nice! And I'm really relieved to see she's not involved with another gambler's choice in any way...I think I would have died if she'd been the gambler's choice instead of the Highland Pony. Bring on Priscilla!

Fine, twist my arm...

Next year's gambler's choice model for the Stablemate Club has been revealed - it's the Highland Pony!



Well, that was unexpected. They showed the silver bay one in this year's JAH, so I figured it wouldn't be the gambler's choice. Boy, is my face red!

I don't collect the Highland Pony, so this isn't a huge priority with me, but I do really like the colors they picked, especially that blue/purple/gold decorator. There seem to be two decorators this time - that's new. Good to see them mixing things up a little bit. And it looks like all four of them are glossy! Fun stuff.

Speaking of glossies, Darley is already arriving at people's houses, and apparently the glossy chestnut Mirado in the club is going to be a gambler's choice glossy and matte. Just when I thought I didn't need to buy an extra club membership...gah! I'm definitely going to have to join on my second account, and maybe my husband's account as well. I'm reasonably confident they'll show us the rest of the releases before the end of the year, so hopefully they don't throw us any curveballs in that regard.

My Darley isn't scheduled to arrive until next Wednesday, but I'll be sure to get pictures of him posted as soon as I can! I'm excited to see him (and the unicorn blind bags I ordered with him!)

Darley is now available!

At long last! The final release in this year's Stablemate Club, Darley, is available for purchase! 

I've been anxiously awaiting this guy's release because I want to order some more blind bag unicorns - I still don't have either of the Stablemate Alborozo models! Hopefully I'll get at least one of them with today's order. And despite Darley's weird pose, I'm looking forward to getting here - I sold all of the other releases this year except for Sapporo, so it'll be nice to get one that stays here, weird pose or not.

In other news, another of next year's SMC models was revealed over the weekend. Say hello to Gwenevere!



I'll admit the G1 Morgan mare isn't really my cup of tea, but I'm sure she'll be easy to sell on the aftermarket. So, what's the gambler's choice going to be? All we have left to see are the two new molds and the G3 Belgian. I'm guessing it'll be the Belgian, but you never know - they could decide to mix things up with one of the new molds. If that's the case, I hope it's the Irish Draught so I only need one account next year!

The 2019 Stablemate Club is open for business!

Good news, everyone! The 2019 Stablemates Club is available to join on the Breyer website! And check out this reveal!



That's right - we finally get to see Mirado in a new color! Looks like they're going to keep using the tiny boxes, too - boo! I'd rather have the bags. Nice color on Mirado, though - and he's glossy! Can't wait to add him to my collection! Now if they'd only show us the rest of the releases and tell us which one is the gambler's choice...but apparently someone at Breyer decided secrecy is the name of the game this year. Bleh, I say! Show us what we're committing to buy! That goes for the Vintage Club, too!

All 2019 Stablemate Club silhouettes are revealed!

Another reveal on the SMC blog - the last two silhouettes! Here they all are together.



So we're getting TWO new molds next year? That's a new one! I'm not terribly excited by the other new mold, though; he'll probably get sold on. And the G3 Belgian?! I've been hoping she'd show up in the club for years! Huzzah!

Now all I have to do is hope they tell us which of the molds is the gambler's choice, so I know if I need more than one membership or not. If the G3 Belgian or Mirado are the gambler's choice (or the Carrick-esque new mold, for that matter), I'll definitely have to renew all three of our memberships. Hopefully it's one of the other three molds so I can get away with only having one membership again next year.