Ooh, pretty!

 Our next two reveals have appeared on the blog - let's start with this year's Best of Breyerfest Stablemate set! 

From left to right, we have the G2 Paso Fino as Perrault, Darwin as Nottingham, the G3 Highland Pony as Tom Thumb, the G3 Stock Horse as Camelot, and the Warmblood Mare as Happily Ever After. Interesting that all of the inspirations this year were from 2011 - I don't think that was the case last year. Oh well - this is a great set! I've always wanted a Nottingham, so it'll be fun to have a miniature one on Darwin. The only other mold here in my collection is the Warmblood Mare, and that dapple gray looks really nice on her. Hopefully I'll be able to snag a set! 

Today's other exciting reveal is a model that didn't appear in the Great Photo Leak of last week! Say hello to Rheverence+! 

Ooh, another Ashquar - yes please! Wow, he looks good in buckskin, and that's certainly a unique pattern. This will be the third time Ashquar appears as a portrait model, after Empres and Thunder. The more the merrier, I say! I hope I can snag this one as well! 

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

It's another day in Breyerland, and we all know what that means - more blind bags!

Oh, joy. What do we get to try our luck on this time?

Well, they didn't get me with the Halloween blind bags, but they done got me with these unicorns on the mini Alborozo (again), the G2 Clydesdale (again), Magnolia (again) and the new Warmblood Mare (again). And all for $25 a pop? What a bargain! Or not...

Unfortunately, I was a dumb idiot and ordered four of them, because I'm a glutton for punishment. At least the shipping was free? I hate to complain here, since I hate all the complaining in this hobby in general, but there are at least three things to be angry about here.

First - USE SOME NEW MOLDS, for Pete's sake. This is the tenth new release for the mini Alborozo in the less than two years he's been available as a Stablemate, and I feel sorry for anyone collecting mini Magnolia - it's the twelfth release for her in the same time period! And we're tired of seeing the G2 Clydesdale as a unicorn - give them a rest already. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say there are dozens of Stablemate molds that haven't been given the unicorn treatment - use them! Or just stop making unicorns altogether if you'd rather do that (but don't do that, I still love unicorns in general)!

Second, are these really worth $25 each? The Fairytale Friends club releases might be worth that much, if you include the cost of the new Mini Whinny molds, but I'm not sure the paint job on these is worth the money. And then we're supposed to be happy that they at least qualify for free shipping?

Third, can we please stop with the blind-bag-everything Breyer is so high on lately? I'm seriously considering calling them tomorrow and canceling my order, because honestly? The only way they're going to stop is if we vote with our wallets and refuse to keep enabling these business practices. I've already decided I'm not going to bother with the regular run blind bag Stablemates next year, if there are any new ones, because I want to be able to just buy what I want without ending up with extras of everything or not getting the ones I do want. It's exploitative, a waste of money, and in the end it's just greedy of Breyer, and I'm tired of it. The randomly shipped/gambler's choice/blind bag conundrum has infiltrated pretty much everything Breyer does (the Christmas Day releases, the Breyerfest surprises, the Vintage Club, so many Collector Club releases of the last few years, the glossy/matte or braided/unbraided Premier Club releases), I wouldn't be surprised if they try to convert everything to that model just to further their business. No thanks.

That rant ended up being a lot longer than I intended it to be, but I think it needed to be said. I don't know if I'll actually cancel my order or not, but the whole thing is just making me angry. If (when) there are more blind bag releases in the future, let's hope I can't get fooled again...

Walmart Mystery Unicorns Series 2 are here!

Good news, everyone! My husband found a box of the new Series 2 mystery unicorns at Walmart yesterday! Check them out!



I even got the chase piece! I've noticed I don't seem to have much trouble getting the chase pieces I don't want. Now, the ones I do want? Never in a million years. But I digress. Here's a closer photo of the chase!




I really do like the color on her - she looks like rainbow sherbet. Mmm! Unfortunately, something went wrong during the QC process (or perhaps the long boat ride from China):



Boo, a bent leg! Hopefully it's an easy fix for whoever I end up selling her to. The quality on the other models was about what I expected - they seem to be able to do a good job on the body color on these, but then they get lazy with the hoof colors and it ends up slopped onto the fetlocks (or higher in some cases). Bleh.

Here's a quick look at the Warmblood Mare next to her:



I LOVE this color! That pink/purple/blue color scheme is definitely hot right now in certain circles - probably due to the Frozen movie's popularity, or it's just big with the kids in general. Remember St. Moritz from a couple years back? More of that, please.

I'm definitely really pleased with the colors they picked for this go-round. One of my central complaints in the past is that Breyer keeps on painting all the unicorns white, or something mostly-white in general, so I'm glad they really got away from that with this run. More colors, please! And more molds, for that matter...aside from the Walking Thoroughbred and the Warmblood Mare in this assortment, I think the other molds have been pretty well played out for blind bags in general and unicorns in particular. Let's see some more variety!

Also, I had hoped some of these colors would be inspired by the Classic Zodiac series from a while back, like a couple of the colors in the first Walmart unicorn set, but it doesn't appear that they were, other than possibly the Arabian (Aries?) and maybe the Alborozo (Scorpio? Maybe? It's probably a reach). I only have one of the Zodiacs in my collection, so it would be nice to see more of those colors get reused.

That's all I have for today - tune in tomorrow (hopefully) for discussion of the 2019 Retired List!