Who writes this blog

I mention that I'm not good at explaining about myself, but a bit of information can't be bad.

Random horse from 2016. Micron marker and graphite + softening tools.

Page updated: 4/3/20. 11/8/23. 

I'm from 1995, and I am female. My country is Finland, one of the northern countries of Europe. I grew up with cats and cannot live without. About horses I have no that much (read: any) experience. Most of my horse knowledge comes from books and internet, so while I do not have practical experience, I could say this kind of knowledge is still better than nothing. 

I am those people who do not share their faces or names in internet, but I also have good personal reasons why. The nickname I use in internet is usually Afuze, if there even can be found any variations.

Anatomy & shading practice. The reference photo was my own.

In a personality, I am heavily introverted and like being alone. I am not social, but I am not shy, I just am not interested of being with people physically. Discussing is much easier with someone I share interests with than with a person who I have nothing in common with.

I am autistic, having an Asperger's diagnose on paper. I got it years (more than a decade) ago when I was 12. Another term for Asperger's would be high-functioning autism, which means it's probably a bit harder to spot than other kinds of autism since it has no distinctive symptoms which a stranger would easily see.  

Mule from autumn 2020. Paint shop Pro 7.

My biggest interests and things I do, have or what I just care about: Animals; pets, animal rights, cats, horses, rats, nature. Art; drawing, painting, sculpting, photographing, model horses & tackmaking, miniatures. Science; psychology, ethics, biology, nature, anatomy, behavior, brain function, diseases and health. 

Blogs
I keep also another English-written model horse blog, Thousand Lakes Models, with my good friend Kave. I currently prefer TLM for most of my time, while Visualrat can mainly work as a gallery...

Candy colored mice playing in a pencil case. Derwent Inktense colorpencils and bottle ink on A5 watercolor paper.

Our pets
Our cats do not run freely around yards - instead, they have a cage built at our backyard (they outdoor there every day). I have also harness walked two of these, and they loved it. Our dog slept on bed and sofa with people, got treats as prize and was good at reading people. I always strive to see things from the animal's view and I support positive reinforcement and clicker as a training technique. 

Amigo, born 2004, a black&white housecat (native?), neutered old man. Amigo was put down at November 2021.

Big, cute and greedy for good food.

Lauha, born 2015, a brown tabby housecat (native Finnish cat), spayed girl.

Small, perfect in her own way, shows opinions clearly.

Arwi, born 2015, an orange tabby-white housecat, neutered boy.

Talkative, social, incredibly humorous.

Hiligrimm, born 2017, a black&white longhair housecat (native?), spayed girl.

Playful, greets people with rolling in front of them (and knocking her little head to the floor), very soft and huggable.

Musca, born 2009,  a black crossbreed dog, spayed girl. Musca was put down at spring 2022.

Cute, knows too many words, good in soooo many ways a dog can be.

Briefly about my model horse life:
I was maybe seven years old, when I got my first Grand Champions horse, it was a chestnut stallion with a 'stable'. After having him, I have got a lot more horses during my childhood years. My (and my twin's) imagination was quite crazy, which explains a lot of things today - those toys became our characters, we drew them, wrote about them. We made a fictional world around them.

At 2004 I got my first Schleich horses: the bay shire gelding and walking tinker foal. That happened during some trip outside of my hometown, I remember. Eventually, I gathered a rather big collection of  Schleichs. I also started to see what quality really is, as those were well sculpted (for my knowledge back then... I wasn't aware of Breyers).

My first Schleich horse, a shire gelding called Myntti.

Once during my childhood I found a random website, which had extremely great 'toy horses', with some kind of iberian horse anatomy and really detailed colors. At that time, I didn't know that I had found a website that belonged to someone who hobbied model horses - the models were artist resins! Of course it was in English, and I just looked at the photos, and left the site be alone then. 

Somewhere during 2007-2009, I was searching internet, and found a Finnish gallery website what showed someone's horse figurines. At many of them read "made from..." and I wondered why, what did it mean. How anything can "be made from a Schleich foal"? After that I roamed further that site and clicked some links. From there I found another website with the same topic. It was about the model horse hobby in Finland.

It opened a whole new world to me.

You don't want to see my oldest customs so have some from 2017 instead. Both are based on Schleichs. 

That gallery site, that website about the hobby in my country, and finding the model horse forum with my language. I am thankful. After that I knew that yes, I can have my fingers in the way of how a plastic horse is made.

After already having a large collection of Schleichs, I started customizing; of course. I was not good, I have seen how great an another beginner can make their first victims look.

I had also quite a long pause from customizing, and todays I can say my horses can even look like actual horses now... I hope... I am never pleased, you know. That also is, I once read, a reason why modellers commonly DO this hobby! To do always better and better.

"Peksu" wearing a homemade halter (from 2014).

I got my first actual Breyer horse at 2010, when I accidentally found a PAM from a flea market. It took a few years to 2016 that I really started collecting Breyers, and mostly in traditional scale. My current  collection includes over 40 traditionals, 7 classics, 16 stablemates and a few others by that company. A few are repaints.  

I'm a tackmaker, and I started that seriously during 2013 just to test if I can get along with some fake leather lace and other jewellery materials. Most of those tack pieces were for Schleichs, but I did some for classics and my then three traditionals too. Nowadays I focus on traditional scale tack, and have made halters and ropes, bridles, saddles, martingals... Recently my interest has crawled to the point that I try to replicate my weird bridle designs in miniature; many of them work better on paper, but some also do work like I have imagined. I also am not afraid of colors (despite the fact that I like the earthy colors most of all), and have done bridles and saddles that have very weird color combinations in them. 

Draft hackamore made of reindeer lace. 

Around December 2016 I started making rider dolls wholly by my own hands, and here I am now having more than 40 finished dolls. My dolls aren't just pieces to photograph horses with; they are in focus, too. Or could be, if I knew how to dress them. I am not a textile person and have no idea how clothes are made.

I also know that I just need this kind of challenges; interesting and difficult but not too easy or simple. Simple is just boring, that's why.

A symmetric satin ribbon halter; it has buckles on both sides.

I think about this hobby every day. So it was just one random (not random, that modeller is really skilled and, I think, also known one around the hobby) modeller's website which caused me to become a model horse freak. Not a 'hobbyist' - but indeed a FREAK!