What else do I want to collect besides horses?

I have collected plastic horses since the early 2000's, when I was more or less ten years old. Horses are among my favorite animals and I draw and mainly collect them, but there are so many other animals I could also want in miniature. Let's make a list of them. 

A really old photo. The collection has since moved into other shelves and some maybe even to plastic tubs.

From equids, I could prefer to get donkeys, and more mules. 

Cats - I am a crazy cat person, and have lived my entire life with cats. To me, they are way easier to understand than dogs, and people who think cats are evil or not cabable of emotionally bonding with you are weird. My cats clearly want to be with me more than I allow them to, and I wish I could make them able to spend their time with me as much as they prefer. But anyway! I do have a largeish herd of Schleich cats and some other plastic cats of the same scale. I also want to customize and repaint some, but Schleich cats are pricey and I just happen to stick with the horses instead when it comes to my customizing projects. 

Schleich cats on a scratching tree which was made by Kave.

Cats are sometimes seen in my drawings, but I never understood how to draw them, and having a long pause will not help me get back to sketching them. Maybe having real reference material at home is the problem; I can see what I do wrongly, and cats don't care if I want them to show a certain position or a detail from the tabby pattern... Now it's hard to imagine that there was a time when I almost remembered how to draw tabbies from memory only, and it didn't take much time. 

Most of these were sketched from photos.

Also some of my dolls are cats, naturally. In fact, the first entirely selfmade doll of mine is a cat, because I wanted something different from the usual rats. 

One of the biggest reasons to why I want to learn to sculpt and customize cat models are the limited head positions in Schleich cats. I know cats and how their mind works, so I have had a lot of fun with placing the plastic cats into various spots in the Rat Room, for example on top of a cage or something. Well, I wish these could look like glancing up or down instead of to the side or forward... Cats are liquid and bend into way more positions than the toy world lets you see. 

That tuxedo tom, Ryysis, seems to have gotten some personality traits from my own late Figaro, who also was a curious troublemaker.

I have witnessed how a big chubby cat melts into a sofa during a sunny morning.

Some big cat models by CollectA, Papo and Schleich may also interest me, but to be honest, I don't trust their catalog pictures since they usually don't match to the quality of the models which are actually sold... 

Dogs - I am not a dog person, but I like them as a species and need them for my traditional scale modelverse. Thinking about what kinds of dogs my dolls could share their lives with is fun. With dog models there is almost similar problem as with cats: they only come in a short selection of lame poses. Most are made to be intact males in show positions, which doesn't interest me and will not serve for the story photo purposes at all. I want pet dogs, not show champions! And more mutts, please. 

This Schleich dog was so ugly that it seemed perfect for a modelverse.

Rats - No comment.

Mice - I am a rat enthusiast, but mice are nice too and they probably get done more in miniature than rats. People generally assume mice are cuter, which is not true, but at least they come with the giant ears which people also want to put on rats although it makes zero sense. Make the animals look like what they are supposed to be!  

Mice in a pencil case. The red mechanical pencil is similar to one I own.

Other rodents - Nutrias, muskrats...

Dinosaurs - These are my oldest interest ever, and I still have all my childhood toy dinos with me. There's over 300 of them. I will never understand how a dino freak changed their collecting direction from them to horses, but at least I now know what quality the plastic dinosaurs can come with - as a kid, I never knew about Papos or other brands which make very detailed dino miniatures. I now have a few, but that's not enough - and I don't think I have space for anything very big. Sad. 

Apparently even dinos practice that awkward fake smile when they know they are being photographed...

Among dinos I have to read also other prehistoric creatures, and one of them is dunkleosteus, the giant bony fish. I don't know why, but something in that fish fascinates me.  

Other animals - Bats, crocodiles, lizards, moonrats, shrews, opossums, squirrels... The list goes on! 

From things which are not animals, what do I want? 

Cars - Hmmm, cars couldn't be bad, but I could be picky with them and will not have space for any. I have painted one car once, and I was terrified because it was a limited edition model, and my acrylic painted details didn't go very smoothly... I also only bother with the older car types, and have no other knowledge than visual. Hah. 

I painted ladybug markings to this Beetle... And it went to my aunt.

Dollhouses - When I became a model horse dork, it didn't take long that it expanded to other minis too. Dollhouses are very popular in Finland and here are clubs, special stores for them and blogs too, but I have never been able to do anything with them. The standard dollhouse scale is 1:12 alias classic, and my modelverses have always been in smaller or bigger scales. And naturally, I will never have the space or money to get a dollhouse, even if it was "small"... Yet my criterias are too big and nothing sold in stores will match them. Here we are. 

Do I possibly enjoy crafting cages a little too much?!

That's the basic list I can think of now. Of course it is not so simple really, and I may remember many interesting "I want a model of that" cases later.

No more Breyer news

The title should really be "No more Breyer news in hobby blogs please", but it could be too long. I prefer to keep blogpost titles short enough.

What is it about? Well, many hobby bloggers write mainly or only about Breyer release news and model reviews, and the clubs and events related to the brand. Some of us do not, and some, like Horsiemama blog's Lynn, have an explanation to why they don't write that stuff. I just read Lynn's post and about want to scream how thankful I am to her for not sliding in the same pulka as "everyone else" already. 

When you have no sleighs or carriages, you must improvise. My dolls did, and sometimes they really should not.

You ask, why am I thankful for that? Uh, because I am so fed up seeing the same news everywhere! And not only that... First, I am European. Nearly all of those news bloggers are American, and I feel that most hobbyists there live in a bubble: they forget that here are hobbyists outside USA as well and that they Americans have a damn privilege in their side. 

The second annoyance is about money. Yes. Money speaks. Americans are lucky because Breyers are sold mostly there and most collectors are there, but try to imagine being an European. I windowshop from American online thrift stores a lot, and always have to ponder that I should not only pay the prices of what to buy, but also pay shipping and customs (if the products have any financial value). Shipping can cost as much as one horse's price in a store or a lot more. These days you cannot ship anything from outside EU into EU without having to fight through customs. It is a fight even if you have nothing to pay in the end. Think about that. 

A rat lady nearly being run over by her son's horse.

I am Finnish, and Finland is said to be one of the most expensive countries if not in the world, then at least in Europe. I have never lived anywhere else so I cannot really compare, but having this bunch of countries with the same currency I can at least compare prices. Finland is pricey, especially after what has been going on in this country-neighborhood recently. 

Third, all the clubs. You Americans can play with special releases there, and some want to conga some molds or only collect special runs. Yea, nice, but not possible for an European if you aren't somehow super rich and/or ready to fight with all the shippings and customs (and paying massive prices for just pieces of plastic). Too bad that some of my favorite colorations seem to only appear in the special runs and limited editions and not in regular runs. Regulars have nothing wrong with them, and I am happy having what I have, but I could really like some specials too. Not because of them being specials, but because of some nice molds and yummy colors being combined just ideally for my tastes. 

I want all the splashed whites with bald faces and skull spots!

Fourth, let's face it, it is boring if everyone is telling the same news all the time. I only read those collecting news if there is some drama I know about, like the current storm about BreyerFest themes, and will enjoy that with mental popcorns. But otherwise, no, I don't care. Many blogs don't end up in my reading list only because they are unoriginal like that. 

Not sure if I scrutinized a lot of anatomy references for this or not, but I never finished it.

So, is it possible to write Breyer stuff interestingly? Yes. As I said, drama is delicious. And I do read the Horsiemama blog, so, guess why? Lynn writes about interesting hobby phenomenons and oddities which I couldn't even know about otherwise. The ability to stick eyes into ridiculous little details is what I find great in this hobby; if you aren't a sculptor or a tackmaker, then you can at least be a factory model expert with a lot of experience and history. When I windowshop, and if I am getting some models in good condition (alias not going to be customized), I usually try not to check from IYB what they are. Getting something possibly rare or unusual is awesome, and I could call myself lucky if such happens, although I'm not exactly chasing for rarities. Identifying the new collection members only when they have arrived makes it more exciting since at that point I already have them and can allow myself some feelings about them. 

Uhma, a fictional cat I drew for a real life childhood friend.

This post is kind of a continued part to what Kave wrote in our TLM blog in 2020. We share the feelings she mentioned and I just ranted about, and are not the only ones. Here in Europe are many who feel like Americans often forget there are hobbyists elsewhere as well. 

I could also play with fire and mention one thing, which again is something I share with other European hobbyists: Some Americans learn about how much harder modelhorsing can be for us Europeans, but then they decide to ignore it. Apparently some want to keep their bubble sealed and do not care about the fact that not all people are able to hobby in the same level as they in USA do. Like they don't want to be bothered with our problems and possibly help with the situation, and instead decide to leave us here like we didn't exist. At least having some empathy and understanding could be nice.

Brookside Pink Magnum.

I am lucky to have a personal "hobby dealer" who helps me get models and other stuff from USA. She is a really good friend of mine and also a fellow blogger. I found the hobby in 2009 and back then could never have imagined that more than a decade later I have a friend who has helped me in my hobby life this much. Like, look, I could not have Templado, Old Glory or the 70'th Anniversary Saddlebred models without her help. I owe my friend a lot - and some of that I will pay by painting her something. 

Templado, one of my old "hobby grails". My bad photos don't do him justice... And this is said by someone who has been studying studio photography recently.

Painting plans for the future, in case I ever end up with two Nokota bodies.

Speaking of owing someone something, it could usually mean paying shipping costs and such back with, well, money. I do that. But I also feel the hobby has become full of greedy idiots in recent years, and people hoard pricey limited editions and special runs only to resell them to others and with a lot higher prices than what their original costs were. Many also get those for customizing ONLY because it "lets them ask a higher price" when the custom gets sold. Blergh! I run against that trend by doing things for free! And seriously... I can say this as a professional artist, but if you want to sell a custom with higher price, just put more effort to it and kapow, you should be able to sell it with bigger price no matter was the victim a RR or SR! Leave the specials OFs for us who really genuinely want them. Blah. (Finnish language does not have an equivalent for "please", so my command is... well, a command, not a suggestion.) 

So, it seems like this post mutated from a random comment post into an actual rant about cultural differences between continents. And I want to end this post by saying I do not mean ALL Americans are like I said, not ALL Europeans struggle, not ALL American collectors have it easy nor are they unaware of the rest of the world, and I didn't mention any bad apples by name. I never mention bad apples by name. Hope this writing made at least some people think.

Table portraits 20.

The table portrait series continues, and we are still in autumn 2021. This time the models in question are a bit unusual, because they are not Breyers. I made the first horse myself somewhere in 2017, and he was and is my first original sculpture who also got finished. The second one is my OSC as well.

His name is Passmore, alias Passi, and he is... not a draft horse. I don't know what he is, because he looks like a large horse but he is meant to be in traditional scale, where he is more comparable to ponies than horses. 

All I can say is that he's recognizable for something made in my personal style, and I do not mean that as complete positive; he is ugly. I can find Passi's face photogenic, but that's it, and he is not the model I could use when I introduce strangers to the model horse hobby. 

The second OSC to be shown is also from 2017. In fact these two were finished at the same time, but Passi is only technically older. This roan mare is officially named Blue Tears, alias Tilda. Her breed, mosteasy, is a fictional one and not meant to be pretty, but my sculpt made it even worse. Way, way worse. I only tolerate her head, really... 

That halter on her is old and outdated, but it being too large to Tilda has some story meanings. I could really change the buckle to a better one and also redo the connector, but I will not remember it the second time I go to the art room. (Plus, it is a trash halter. They usually don't seem to be worth much attention, although can be nice to make since I get to use all the leftover leather strips to them.)

Tilda is small, even smaller than Passi. She could be probably a bit over metre tall on the withers if was real, and... That is really small. It is clear that an A4 paper isn't enough to draw a sketch to which you use to make the armature with. It has to be at least A3, or bigger. I have since started to use the cardboards from Breyer traditional boxes to sketch sculptures on, and I also calculate and mark there the withers height I want.

The next horse to be portrayed is a Breyer.

Table portraits 19.

Table portraits from autumn 2021 continue (while I try to cook up something else to publish than just photo piles...). This time everything is monochromatic, and I have changed the settings a bit at times.

The model is Catch Me on the Cantering Warmblood mold. My individual goes by the stable name Maksi (Maxi). He seems photogenic, but maybe his coloration doesn't make hip "pop" from photos well enough... Maybe I should use a dark background instead. 

If you compare the first photo to the ones that came after it, there are tiny reflections which the other shots don't include. I guess I tried to spread the lamplight with the foil-covered cardboards and it didn't do much, so I continued without. When seeing that now, I think I should have continued to use the spreading tools.

Unlike in Ruska's case, I was able to take closeup photos and it didn't feel weird or useless at all. And in case some (many) of my photos look like they have been taken from a bit too above and not so much on the horse's level, the reason for that is only because the backdrop paper wasn't large enough.

These were also edited very minimally. The joys of monochromatic photos. No need to rip nerves into pieces thanks to stupid lamplights (my arch enemy). Though, I mainly left the editing minimal because otherwise I could have taken the contrast too far (I like to make bright brighter and dark darker), and the smooth atmosphere could have been gone then. 

Seriously, the next time I take photos like that from this horse, I am sure to put a bridle on him.