More exciting reveals!

 Ooh, shiny! We've got some new reveals for the holiday season on Breyer's website - check them out! Let's start with this new Cantering Welsh Pony:

She's this year's A Pony For Christmas special run - I guess that's a yearly thing now. Her blanket is so cute - it looks like a candy cane! She even has her own gift box! 

Next, here's this year's holiday mare and foal set, Ceres and Minerva! 

What's this? A unicorn Bluegrass Bandit? Sign me up, even if it is pink! Must have her! The foal is cute too, but I'm still trying to sell off my Ambers and Ashleys, so I'll have to split up this set if/when I get my hands on them. Let's hope they don't sell out too fast! 

Next, take a look at this stunning new Rearing Mustang! 

Will we ever stop collecting plastic ponies? This one has the answer to that in his name - NEVA! Anyways, that's a pretty cute design - reminiscent of Black Forest from this year's Breyerfest. Interestingly, he doesn't look glossy in the above photo, but the description says he's glossy and he's glossy in the other two photos as well. Maybe they were playing around with finishes and used that photo by mistake or something.

Lastly, here's Altair, the galaxy unicorn that was previewed in the Collector Club tent at this year's Breyerfest! 

A rare appearance on the elusive Shire B mold - I gotta have him too! 

Let's hope they give us some notice before these come in stock - I have to have them for the collection! I hope we get even more reveals soon! 

Diadem and Alcor!

 Attention, readers! The Susecion and Le Fire set that was teased last month has finally appeared on the website! Behold: 

From the website:

The magic of a new life takes on a double meaning when it’s a unicorn foal. Diadem has just welcomed her new colt, Alcor, whose inky black coat with gold, purple, and blue under-shading will help him to stay hidden while he’s young. Diadem has a lovely white coat with soft blue, purple, and pink shading. Both of these mystical beauties have golden horns and hooves.

Nice! I was afraid I would miss out on these two, but since they're still in stock now, several hours after going up, they must have made a healthy supply this time. This is a pretty popular set of molds, though, so I'd suggest buying yours ASAP before they disappear. They qualify for free shipping, too, which is nice. 

I'm a little ambivalent about the mare's color, honestly, so I'm hoping she looks better in person. Can't wait to see what they look like in hand! 

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!

Mira and Antares are here! UNICORN OVERLOAD!

Unicorns...so many unicorns lately. But...more. I must have MORE! Like Mira and Antares! Now if they only had a stallion, to match them. Duende, perhaps? But would that lead to a unicorn short-circuit? There's only one way to find out...

I like that the mare is a little darker than the foal - sometimes Breyer's mare and foal sets match each other a little too well, when that's not always the case with real horses.

Their color is really interesting - at first glance it looks like a flat bronze, but then you notice the (very subtle, on my set) purple shimmer, and the shading and dapples, and the ombre effect on the foal's horn (not as noticeable on the mare). The mare's horn seems huge!

See what I mean? Their eyes are really nicely done, too, although the shape of the mare's eyes don't match each other. I guess you wouldn't notice it unless you were specifically looking for it, but still.

Quality-wise they're both pretty good - no horribly warped legs, which is what I was afraid of. The mare has some scrapes on her barrel under the paint, and a rough spot in the paint on her front right hoof, but other than that they look pretty good. Well, other than my inner nerd screaming that foals don't usually have dapples in real life and this one does, but then again bronze-colored unicorns don't exist in real life either, so these could be anything they want, and so on.



Either way, I really like the color on these two, and I hope they use it again on something else. Can you imagine it on the Othellocorn? Swoon!

Benasque selections and Holiday Mare and Foal set!

Greetings, all! The selections for Benasque are finally out, if you haven't heard. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we were drawn on any of our accounts. I'll have to hope for the waitlist!

In other news, the annual holiday mare and foal set has returned this year! Say hello to Wish and Wonder!



According to the Internets, this is the first time Stormy has been issued with a pinto pattern other than her original Stormy pattern, although the 2009 Waiting for Santa set is somewhat different from the norm. The mold also appears to have developed a parrot mouth due to the ravages of time - that will happen when a mold is continuously in production for most of the last 40 years.

Anyway, here's some ad copy from the website:

Chincoteague Ponies can have many different coat colors and patterns, just like the ones seen on this island-dwelling pair. The windswept mare Wish has a beautifully-shaded dapple-grey coat, and her sweet filly Wonder has a sooty buckskin pinto coat.

So the mare is Wish and the filly's name is Wonder. This is clashing with my old memories of a different horse called Wonder, but I think I'll cope. They both appear to be chalky, to boot! They're nothing I need to buy, sadly - I wish they'd use Susecion and Le Fire for one of these releases. They don't get enough love from Breyer, and it's not like they wouldn't sell out instantly. Maybe next year!

2016 Holiday Mare and Foal Set - Crystal and Crispin!

This year's Holiday Mare and Foal set have been announced - Crystal and Crispin, on the Grazing Mare and Foal molds!



It's good to see another mare and foal set this year - it looks like this is a new tradition we can count on!

The first Holiday Mare and Foal set was Vixen and Blitzen in 2014, on the Running Mare/Foal molds, and the second set was last year's Eve and Claus on the Thoroughbred Mare/Nursing Foal molds.

Crystal and Crispin are definitely cute! Here they are without the blankets (blue, my favorite color!).



Someone on Blab mentioned that they would go well with the Connoisseur Silver Knight and I agree! They would make a great little family. I may be biased, though, because dapple gray is one of my favorite horse colors, on models and in real life (goofy names aside).

Sadly, I will not be buying this set as I don't collect the Grazing Mare and Foal. It's interesting that they're using older molds for this - although that's probably a good thing, as older molds presumably won't sell out as fast, thus giving more people a chance to buy them - people that actually want them, as opposed to the resellers. Not going to lie, though - I would have loved to see this color on Susecion and Le Fire. Maybe in a few years, once they work through all the other older molds.

In reality, if they used the FAM and FAF next year, I'd likely buy them. I only have the FAM/FAF in a couple of colors each, but I have some nostalgia for them - the Ara-Appaloosa FAF was my first Breyer, and he's one of the only remaining members of my old "carpet herd" that I still have. When I got back into collecting in 2010, I of course had to find an Ara-Appaloosa FAM and FAS to complete the family (still the only FAS I own). The other set I have is the Drinkers of the Wind set - they pulled off that black-point dapple gray color so well.

I'm definitely crossing my fingers for the FAM/FAF next year! Crystal and Crispin are available for order here.