Table portraits 11.

This pile of pictures is still from spring 2021, and now includes the 2018 Yule model, Celestine. In my collection she got named Catita, nicknamed Katti (kitty). This is one of my favorite horses, probably, and I find her really photogenic.

Taking color photos under the yellow worklamp and using spreading tools is usually lame, but same cannot be said about monochromatic photos. When I don't need to think about the color of the light, things get much better and I actually feel inspired - and I will not have to worry about editing my photos too much. That is why this bunch only got these few pinkish and yellowish shots before black and white.

What I mostly like in these is how the light spreading tools - foil cardboards - cause highlights on the pearly finish of the model. This may partially be thanks to the lamp being set so close to the horse. 

You can also see how I often do photos like this: I take multiple shots of each angle, zoom in, zoom out, play with focus spots and lightness/darkness. I will keep the contrast rather high, because I want it there anyway. 

And after photographing the head from every side, I focus on the horse's body. 

The next batch is about a mystery repaint who came from USA.

Table portraits 10.

Here comes the tenth part to the table portrait series. Now the focus is in the Enzo model, who in my herd goes by the name Aldemir.

I can say I really enjoyed photographing this model, or rather his head since that was the only option to begin with. He is photogenic. But once again, the most balanced photos are the ones which I edited more than a little; mainly to remove the yellowing, of course. (I am so happy I no longer have to photograph these on the table... But that also means the options for spreading light are gone.)

What I do not understand is how many people seem to hate this mold, or at least dislike. He is unusual, yes, but should everything be just perfect quarters, thoroughbreds, friesians or shires? I don't think so. The weird leg positions may be due to the gait. I also am not really that crazy for exotic breeds (I just want everything to be tack friendly, no matter what), but I can still find it interesting that I now happen to own a plastic model of a breed I most likely will never see in real life.

There was really one night splitting this photo bunch into two; the camera batteries died in the middle so I had to take a pause. 

He does have odd anatomy; so narrow barrel and a narrow, long head. I just think it is meant to be like that. Something in that oddity intrigues me, and I take it as a realistic challenge - I want to design a saddle which can fit this mold's weird back. Saddles are already hard to design as is and for the more normal horses, but anyway. 

I know everyone among the American readers knows what the Mangalarca mold looks like, but same cannot be said about Finns. So just in case any Finn (or otherwise European) reads this and is not so deeply in the hobby, I dare to include the wholebody photos of this mold.

He is really, really narrow.

I made Alde's halter with some story behind it: his owner is a blind or nearly blind person, and thus the tack needs to be in contrast to the horse's color. The lead rope has some knots so she can feel where exactly she is holding, and there are chains in the tack "to make sure" the horse listens to her, for safety reasons. I don't think it will go exactly like this with real cases of blind people with horses (especially the chains are unrealistic) but I don't know any, and this is fiction. (To be honest, I quite wish Alde was a gelding. I don't see a point in anyone owning a stallion in most cases. Then again, I don't think Alde's owner is ever alone when handling and riding him.) 

I remember regretting how I didn't make the halter symmetric... The buckle side is so much more detailed.

Trust me, this photo is not similar to the previous one, and I cannot decide which one is nicer, so I posted both...

Next time I show photos of one Yule model.

Table portraits 9.

One more portrait bunch from spring 2021. This time it's short... The horse is Kentucky, who in my herd goes by the name Huligaani.

For once I actually took photos of the kind I wanted, it seems! I can judge the editing levels by the fact that I save the heavy edits apart from the originals, just to have the latter handy in case it's needed - and to not get blind for what I do. But definitely, these are about how they came from the camera, which is what I always try to go for when I photograph.

My favorite of the whole bunch.

At that point I had played with contrast and rich colors so much that I wanted to desaturate a little. It didn't work very well, hence why I only saved two photos of that kind. Overall I quickly learned how soon one can photograph this model's head and have no need for more. That doesn't always happen. 

Since I photographed some horses only a little, I will include also Afore here. He's a classic scale buckskin gelding who was sold as a dun stallion in the Pony Power set. For some reason I don't feel like he was very photogenic, but it is also possible I simply had run out of inspiration and setting ideas at that point.

That halter could be better... But also a lot worse. Overall, it fits Afore so he can keep it. And it is in my studio's colors!

In the tenth post I will show the mangalarca marchador.