The march of new reveals continues!

 Another exciting new reveal today, readers - the palomino Vermeer! Behold! 

Whew, they're making 2,000 of these guys! Well, it's a brand-new mold, so it'll probably sell well. I definitely want one! From the blog:

Georges Seurat was a young artist (he died at age 31) who lived and worked in France during the second half of the 19th century, and is most well-known for his use of pointillism in his paintings.  These incredible works displayed Seurat’s knowledge of color theory as he created stunning images composed solely of tiny dots.

Our Seurat for this year’s BreyerFest celebration isn’t composed solely of dots, but his many dapples reminded us of Seurat’s amazing paintings.  He has been done as a handsome dapple sooty palomino with a pearly mane and tail on the Friesian Sporthorse (mold #806), sculpted by Lynn Fraley and recently released in the 2020 Premier Club.

I don't know if comparing their own company's dapples to pointillism is really a good thing, considering some of the complaints I've seen about crapples, etc., but...whatever floats your boat, I guess. Anyway, I'm excited for the next reveal! 

And yeah, Featured Model was on hiatus last week because I totally forgot about it. I'll get something posted this week, I promise!  

The next reveal!

 Sheesh, I'm a bit late with this one, I know. I saw the reveal earlier, was going to write a post about it, then saw the bit at the bottom that said there was more coming later and forgot about the whole thing completely...until now. Anyway, here he is - Gran Cavallo! 

From the blog:
 

In 1482, the Duke of Milan commissioned Leonardo Da Vinci to create for him what would have been, at the time, the largest bronze horse statue in the world - standing at a massive 26 feet tall. In preparation for his creation, Leonardo did an extensive amount of research on horses, and even wrote two separate treatises dedicated to the project – one on horse anatomy, and the other included detailed project plans for this commission. Leonardo’s Horse, also known as Gran Cavallo, was unfortunately never created and the original clay model was ultimately destroyed.

Never mind the fact that the model doesn't look anything like the sketch...oh well. He's pretty, but I'm conflicted about him - a few months ago I decided to cull all of my Peruvian Pasos for shelf space, but haven't managed to sell any of them yet, so...I still have them...and this guy could easily be added to the collection...but I don't have room for them! Blargh. I guess I'll have to do some thinking about it. Anyway, he is definitely pretty! 

Pech Merle!

 Exciting news, everyone - the Breyerfest reveals continue! Say hello to Pech Merle! 

According to the blog, he's inspired by ancient cave paintings in France. He's done on the John Henry mold and will be a run of 1900. Sheesh, that's a lot - John Henry isn't the most popular mold, so I hope they can get all those sold. The color is amazing, though! I really like his two-tone tail. Nothing I need to buy, but that frees up funds for other things! 

So that's it for today. Looks like we're getting another reveal tomorrow - I can't wait! 

 

Uff-da, indeed!

 Well, we already have our first Breyerfest 2021 model reveal - Uffington! 

This brand-new longboi was inspired by the Uffington White Horse in England. Pretty! I like him a lot - and we even get a price and piece count with him! Excellent. I can't wait to see the rest of the reveals! 

Oops, they did it again...

 Lots of exciting reveals have been happening lately! For instance, Breyerfest tickets have been revamped - among other things, there will be a VIP ticket option that lets the buyer select their special run models and pay for them ahead of time! I hope this means we won't be stuck frantically refreshing our browsers all weekend again. See more about the ticket changes here. 

Also, a number of images of this year's Breyerfest models were leaked today, which brings back fond memories of the time someone made a website mistake and leaked all of the auction models, or that other time someone made a website mistake and leaked Breyerfest models and other upcoming releases. Fun stuff! The last time was 5 years ago or more, so I suppose it was about time for it to happen again. But, since Breyer has already announced they're going to reveal all of this year's models by the end of the month (!), we don't have too long to wait before they get officially revealed! I can't show any of the images here, because I don't want to end up with lawyers going after me. Here's the list of models I saw (I'm leaving a big space here, so if you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading here!
































Altynai in cremello (named Uffington). More like Uff-da, am I right? I know, I crack myself up...
Vermeer in dark palomino
Spanish Fighting Bull in a brown pinto
Valegro in rainbow pintaloosa with gold spots (!!!!)
Peruvian Paso in dark bay overo
John Henry in bay extended blanket Appaloosa
Marwari in chestnut pinto
Bristol in bay with brindling stripes down his side (portrait of Queen of Hearts?)
Rainbow zebra(?) American Dream
Blue roan pinto Troubadour (raffle model?)
And the Best of Breyerfest Stablemates set (mini Nottingham on Darwin, mini Tom Thumb on the G3 Highland Pony, mini Perrault on the G2 Paso Fino, mini Camelot on the G3 Quarter Horse, and mini Happily Ever After on the Warmblood Mare). 

No idea if there are other things to reveal (probably), but I'm super excited about that Valegro! Can't wait to see the official photos soon! 

New year, new announcements!

 Hello, readers! There have been a lot of new reveals and announcements today - I'll start with the new Breyerfest Celebration Horse/ Model! Say hello to Danash's Northern Tempest, or Dani! 

And here's her model!

My reaction: WOW. This is a much more appropriate choice for Celebration Horse, and the model is amazing! Look at all those details! This may be the best Celebration Model Breyer has ever done! Too bad I don't collect True North...and can you imagine how much the glossy ones will be worth? Holy crap! I hope they give away a few more of them this year...well, anyway. 

On to the sadder announcement...Breyerfest 2021 is officially virtual again this year. While I'm not surprised the decision was made, it's still sad to know we won't be gathering in Kentucky this year. Let's hope Breyer can iron out some of the wrinkles from last year, eh? 

I do want to talk about the Kentucky Horse Park, though. The past year has been hard on all of us, and the KHP is no exception. Since we won't be traveling to Kentucky this year, I think it would be a very good thing if collectors would take some of the money they would have spent on this year's trip and donate it to the KHP. Here's their donations page - you can pick from a number of different areas your donation goes toward. I'm not sure how much, or any, funding the KHP gets from the Kentucky government, or whether they're eligible for any of the business loans from the federal government - and we all know the KHP needs all the help it can get anyway. I've asked Breyer to make the KHP one of the Breyerfest beneficiaries in the past, but it never seems to happen. I hope collectors can help the KHP survive! 

And lastly, the Coal model for this year's Christmas event has been revealed! I don't have a photo I can use yet, but as I suspected, it's not a black Icelandic - they used the Galiceno. It makes sense that they would use a different mold since we've already had a glossy black Icelandic (two, if you count the auction model from 2014), and they were probably angling for a mold that would have the same or similar size and weight to the Icelandic, so I can see why they picked it. My Jol models aren't scheduled to arrive until Wednesday/Thursday, so I'll be waiting until then to see what I got! 

Featured Model - 1/1/2021, 2017 Auction Idocus

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model I don't own but would like to, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it (Happy New Year, by the way)! This week's model is...the 2017 Breyerfest Auction Idocus! 

This guy was a "Dark Bay Reverse Brindle," produced on the Idocus mold sculpted by Sue Sifton. 

Isn't his color interesting? Due to the complexity of painting brindling, we don't get brindle models very often - the only mass-produced one we've ever had was the brindle variant of Diesel back in 2016, and his paint job still left a little to be desired. So it doesn't seem likely that we'll get a mass-produced brindle model in the future...but never say never, I guess. 

This model is also one of the handful of releases that have featured the braided version of Idocus - and I don't know what it is about this hairdo, but I find him infinitely more attractive with the braided mane. Honestly, if they just did him with the mane on the other side of his neck, I'd probably like him more - I think the issue is with having his mane lay on his show side rather than the off side like usual. I'm also not a fan of banged tails, so that doesn't help either. But that's just my personal preference. 

Anyway, when will we see another Idocus? He had a (braided) special run for the Seattle Soiree last year, but isn't currently being used for anything else. He's never been the most popular mold, but maybe he'll get a web special this year? It may be a while before we see him pop up again, honestly. I don't anticipate seeing him used for Breyerfest or as a Collector Club special run, so your guess is as good as mine. In any case, I hope he still has a braided mane/tail in his next appearance!