Lanin is here!

 Good news, everyone! My Lanin model has arrived - behold! 

He's way more purple than I thought he'd be! 

In-hand, he doesn't look as weird with no mane as he did in the promo photos (typical). 

Quality-wise he's pretty good, other than a purplish smear on his butt, and a warped left hind leg (visible in the above photo). While I didn't take any photos, I did compare him to my other models on this mold, and the ones molded from cellulose acetate (prior SMC releases like Mirado and Fiero) are definitely skinnier through the shoulders than the ABS ones (all other colors). The speculation is that the factory workers aren't giving the models enough time to cool before removing them from the molds, leading to some "collapsing" in the shoulder area. All Stablemate models have a void or air bubble inside (just take a look at the clearware ones), which could lead to some collapsing of the plastic around the shoulder area, so the theory seems solid. Is Breyer ever going to address this? Has it even been brought up to them? Who knows. 

Interestingly enough, it looks like the process to eliminate Mirado's mane (presumably by Dremeling it off) also eliminated most of the detail on his neck. Let's hope this doesn't happen on any future roached releases of this mold, I guess. 

On a small side note, the First Timer's Guides to Breyerfest (in-person and virtual) have been released on the Breyer website, and they do mention a plush as one of the store items (but no photos of said plush). So the plush is presumably still coming? Who knows. 

The promised sneak peek and Lanin!

 Greetings, readers! Well, the promised prince sneak peek arrived on the blog today! Behold: 

Wow, I think I'm going to like it! It looks like the pink stripes are color-shifting to purple and blue? I love it already! It's giving Lisa Frank vibes (look at me all hip and cool, using the young people's lingo. How do you do, fellow kids?). Anyway, the background green/yellow color is interesting - it looked green when I saw it on my phone, but it does look more yellow when viewing it on my desktop screen. Unfortunately, I have no guesses as to what mold it is, and neither does the rest of the Internet, apparently. It kind of looks like it could be some type of Moody muscling? Maybe the Nokota? He's never been a Breyerfest special run, other than Pop the Cork. We need a decorator Nokota at Breyerfest! 

In other news, the first release in this year's Stablemates Club, Lanin, is now available for purchase! 

I'm not sure what to think about a roached-mane Mirado, so I'm excited for him to get here! Let's hope it doesn't take too long. 

What is happening?!

 Well, the Christmas Day surprise model has been released (Wassail!), and then sold out (Wahhh-sail!) - what a long, strange trip it's been! 

The initial release went okay - no website glitches that I'm aware of. At first I was incensed, because there were no actual photos of the model, and I thought they weren't going to reveal the mold at all - but then I saw Huckleberry Bey was in the description, and was somewhat mollified - with photos to be revealed on Christmas Day. The description also revealed the four colorways - glossy metallic sparkling red, glossy metallic sparkling red with filigree, glossy metallic sparkling green, and glossy metallic sparkling green with filigree, with 24 glossy black Hucks thrown in there too (edit: it's my assumption that the Coal models will also be on Huck). I'm using past tense to refer to these items, because not long after the surprise went live, the page was scrubbed of any reference to Huckleberry Bey or the four colors. Uhh...is somebody asleep at the wheel in NJ? Why are they doing this in the sloppiest way possible? Did the higher-ups already check out for Christmas and leave the interns in charge? Why is this being done so haphazardly? 

I guess I'm glad about the Huck reveal mistake, because like I said earlier, I would have been pissed if they actually intended to make us wait until Christmas to reveal the model, while still expecting us to buy it a week beforehand. I was fully prepared to close the page and not buy anything at all until I saw Huck in the description. But now it seems the Huck reveal was a mistake, and they weren't intending to tell us the mold at all? This is a lot of money to be spending on a gamble - if I'd purchased these not knowing what they were, and then had it end up being Big Ben or Gem Twist or some other Moody mold I don't collect, I'd be super upset! It was bad enough buying the 2020 and 2021 Breyerfest surprise models sight-unseen - I really don't need that to become a regular occurrence! Not to mention the fact that the model price has gone up to $145 and the piece count breakdown (2624) evens out to 650 models per color - so if it turned out to be an unpopular mold, I'd likely end up having a hard time getting my money back. 

My best guess as to why they're doing this is because they don't want to have people in the office on Christmas Day trying to figure out the inevitable technical glitches (many people outside the US were charged for shipping when they weren't supposed to be). Add that to many customers' repeatedly voiced desire not to have to be haunting the website on Christmas and a heavy dollop of the usual Breyer ineptitude, and here we are. 

Okay, anyway, with all of that out of the way, let's talk about the colors themselves. Here they are again:
Glossy metallic sparkling red
Glossy metallic sparkling red with filigree
Glossy metallic sparkling green
Glossy metallic sparkling green with filigree

Before being scrubbed of information, the website said the models would have bald faces and stockings shaded by hand, and black muzzles and inner ears. Let's take another look at the sneak peek from last month's Collector Club newsletter:

I dismissed this being a sneak peek of the Christmas release at the time, but now that all of this *waves hands wildly* has happened, I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying this is probably the "glossy metallic sparkling red" color. Well, it looks promising, at least! As for the "with filigree" ones, I think the common assumption was that the mention of filigree meant they'd be a red or green filigree, but there's some speculation that the use of "with filigree" means they could end up looking more like the Swirls'n'Snowflakes Stablemates. Sounds good to me! So if that's the case, they're probably basically like big versions of the red and green Swirls'n'Snowflakes models. 

Some people were confused by how the models could have bald faces in combination with black muzzles. Since that verbiage has now been removed from the website, I guess it's anyone's guess how they're going to pull that off, though I did see speculation that they may end up looking like some kind of Mari Lwyd reference. So we may have some exciting reveals to look forward to! 

I did order four of these guys, since I have a large Huck conga (and like I said yesterday, a glossy black Huck would be great!), and only realized as I was checking out that...since we're flying back to our hometown tomorrow, if these models get shipped this week they're likely going to arrive here and end up sitting on our doorstep until we get home. Curses! Now I'm wishing they'd kept the release on Christmas Day after all! I did send an email to Breyer requesting that they not be shipped until after Christmas, but I haven't gotten a response yet - I may have to call them in between flights tomorrow, I guess. 

That's all I have to say about the Christmas models, but we did get one other tidbit today: the full-body reveal of Lanin in the Stablemates Club! 

So it looks like most or all of his mane is gone, but the tail is more-or-less the same? It looks like the tips are different on the tail, but it could also be a horrendous cutout job in Photoshop, so I'm going with that. Mirado looks a little weird without his mane, but not nearly as weird as the maneless Nokota, so I'm okay with it. Let's hope we get some more SMC reveals this week! 

Finally, a Stablemates Club preview!

 Well, I have good news - we finally have a preview of a 2024 Stablemates Club release! Not before time...but I digress. Here he is! 

He's a Mirado with roached mane and possibly a modified tail! He's kind of like a small version of this not-well-received Nokota auction model from 2022. I'm cautiously optimistic about this guy, but it's not enough to join the club just yet. I'm guessing this is the polo pony they hinted about earlier, but I demand more! At least give us the outlines like usual.