My last Christmas Candy zebra came!

Good news, everyone! My last Christmas Candy zebra finally came, and it's...a gold!



I'm a bit sad not to have gotten a black one, but hey...at least it wasn't a duplicate color!



Like the others, she's really well-done - I didn't see any flaws, nor was she damaged from being crammed into the mailbox by our mail carrier...(not sure why this one arrived via USPS when I clearly saw a UPS guy drop off the other two). Anyway, now I'll just need to get my hands on a blue one! I've been working a lot of overtime lately, so hopefully I can find some extra room in the budget to get one. I hope we get some more exciting reveals soon!

Someone just picked a whole bouquet of oopsie-daisies!

So this showed up on a British Breyer dealer's website today...



Looks like Winx is getting her own Breyer model! But evidently it wasn't supposed to be released, according to a former dealer who posts on Blab. So I'm guessing we'll all get the old cease-and-desist song and dance soon. I'm guessing this is a mid-year release that snuck out early? There's also speculation that she's a UK-only release, which...I hope isn't the case, frankly, because I'm not interested in paying what it would cost to buy one and then have it imported from overseas. I'd most likely just sell all my Emersons instead. For that matter, I'm thinking about solving my not-getting-an-Ambrose problem by selling all my Geronimos as well. The ever-present shelf space limitations and financial concerns are rearing their ugly heads again...

We have an Early Bird model!

Drumroll, please! This year's Breyerfest Early Bird model has been revealed...



Not sure why the background is black...well, anyway, he's beautiful! But I have to wonder why they did another glossy black early bird model, after Sokkar in 2017...

But anyway. The blog says the Early Bird winners will be announced in May this year instead of at Breyerfest. Which should theoretically let the Saturday raffle get over a little earlier...but I wonder what Breyer plans on doing if any of these winners don't show up when their names are called? Maybe they're just hoping that doesn't happen, or they'll confirm things with the winners before the names are announced.

From the blog:

Named after the 10th century Viking settlement in Ireland, Dyflin is the Old Norse derivative of the Irish “Dubh Linn” which means black pool.  The settlement was named after the junction of the River Liffey and the River Poddle that created a naturally deep pool used to moor boats in the middle ages.

Interesting name for an interesting place. I hope I win this guy!

Sleepless Not-In Seattle!

Well, the entry period for the Seattle Soiree has begun - and check out the ticket model! Be still, my heart!



His name is Redmond, and he's to die for! Ugh, I'll be so disappointed if we aren't picked to go. Collector Club members can enter for tickets here. Note that we can only enter to be drawn once - well, you can enter more than once if you want, but only the first entry will go into the drawing. So we don't have to worry about remembering to enter every day - which is probably a good thing, considering the state of my memory lately. Good luck to all the entrants! The drawing will take place on 1/13, but if you aren't drawn in the initial batch, don't lose hope - there's a decently good chance you'll be drawn from the wait list eventually - this happened with my husband back in 2015 when we attended the Sweet Home Chicago event. Also, if you're local to Seattle but don't get drawn, you might just get a phone call from Breyer if they get down to crunch time and still have unsold tickets - they've been known to rope in locals from the surrounding area to fill up the events!

Featured Model - 1/4/2020, Haute Couture

Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model from my collection, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it! This week's model is...Haute Couture!



This handsome guy was one of the special run line items at Breyerfest 2015. He was item #711222 and was a run of 1200 on the Marwari mold sculpted by Brigitte Eberl.

Haute Couture was the hot model of Breyerfest 2015! Everyone had to get their hands on him...which is odd, since the mold isn't super-popular. But he did have a new hairdo for this release, so that probably had something to do with it. Incidentally, the new 'do wasn't seen again until last year's Khalid special run. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of the mane and forelock...but the swishing tail is fun. As for his color, black leopard is always eye-catching, and this guy is no exception. I don't really have anything to complain about with this guy - he even has mottling on his muzzle!

Too bad we don't see the Marwari mold used more often - I feel like he's been overshadowed by more recent releases, which I guess is a risk you take when you suddenly start releasing 3-4 new molds every year for the foreseeable future. We did get the aforementioned Khalid, and in May we'll get some glossy Khalids - I hope I get one! No real predictions about where else we'll see him, with or without his curly ears - maybe he'll be a web special? I don't see him popping up at Breyerfest, but I suppose it's always possible. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long to find out!

Two of my zebras are here!

Excellent news, everyone! Two of my Christmas Candy zebras came today, a day early - behold! A red and a green! I'll start with the red:

I really like them! I wasn't sure Breyer would be able to pull off this type of paint job, but I think they turned out really well.

The eyes were nicely detailed as well, for being simply painted:



I liked the right ear on this one - I kinda wish they all looked like that. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Here's the green!

I love how they nailed the "candy" look to these. Like, even if they aren't candy cane-shaped, they still look almost good enough to eat. Mmm!



They were both really nice in terms of quality - nice crisp stripes and well-painted eyes. They had a couple small pinprick-sized goobers here and there, but nothing major. As for the prices, well, it would have been nice if they were cheaper, but I suspected the complexity of the paint job would mean the prices would be higher in return, so I'm not going to complain about it too much.

My last zebra is still on its way - I'm not sure if it'll be here tomorrow or next week. Crossing my fingers for a Licorice, of course, but I'd be happy with a blue or a gold too!

Breyerfest tickets are on sale!

Exciting news, everyone - Breyerfest tickets are now on sale!



Not a lot of new reveals - they'll still be doing the Breyer Lounge in the Covered Arena as usual - those tickets are $35 each on top of the Breyerfest ticket cost. I can't remember if that's an increase from last year or not! I don't think I'll be springing for those - I would have been more interested last year, since we had our daughter with us and spent most of our time upstairs in the Covered Arena (I was terrified she would come down with heatstroke). The refreshments are decent, though (not that I would know or anything...)

I did see that the Early Bird model is called "Dyflin." I'm going to grumble a little bit here, because they usually reveal the Early Bird model when tickets go on sale....grrrr. Oh well. We can pick our special run times again, which is nice.

There's no costume contest this year, so that'll be something different. Still plotting whether I'll try to attend both of the Celebration of Horses shows at the Alltech to maximize my raffle chances with the glossy Celebration Model...

Info for the Diorama Contest is very specific - entrants are limited to scenes from Celtic mythology or the early history of Great Britain or Ireland ONLY! I'm sure that'll narrow things down.  I wonder if anyone will do a Lady Godiva? If so, I'm rather partial to this painting, myself. Lonesome Glory with a lowered head would be a pretty good match for the horse, and if the rider is in the same pose, you might be able to keep it somewhat family-friendly. Too bad I don't have the artistic skills to pull it off...

As for entertainment, this year we'll have the Freestylers of Piping (bagpipe music) and the Bluegrass Cieli Academy dancers, as well as Sylvia Zerbini! Sounds interesting, as long as nobody gets deafened by the bagpipes.

Guest horses are Ballynoe Castle RM, natch, as well as the driving ponies the Gangsters, Avatar's Jazzman, Stingray, Tempel Lipizzans (cool!), all of whom have new models in the 2020 lineup. The website doesn't say if there will be any other guests to correspond with the mid-year releases, so we'll have to wait and see on that one.

That's about all I could find for pertinent information - hopefully we get some model reveals soon. We're fast approaching the part of the year where exciting reveals are few and far between, so any new reveals are greatly appreciated around here!