I’m also excited to announce the creation (finally!) of my Tutorials page. I’ve done my best to gather all the great hobby tutorials out there into one place, organized by topic. I’ll continue to update it as more tutorials are published. You can find the page in the main site menu under References.

A big thank you to all the great hobby people out there who are making tutorials to help others learn. I would certainly not be where I am today without online guides! I especially want to thank Jennifer Buxton, whose great blog inspired my own and who has graciously allowed me to link to her many wonderful tutorials.

The appaloosa is all done:

I like how his appy markings turned out. I did them in a combination of acrylic, pastel, and pencil.

Not too long ago I was thinking I’d need to re-start the Morgan. He was looking really orange and not behaving. But I’m really glad I stuck it out, because this is what he looks like now!

His pastel body color is more or less done. I did the mane and tail last night and will be continuing his other details this week. I’m rather chuffed with his transformation. He definitely gets the ribbon for “Most Improved.”

Big thanks again to everyone who voted for their colors!

The photo I did fail to take were the ones showing the original issue. This borrowed picture of another OF shows the issue a little- notice how the fetlocks on the near side end lower down then those on the off side? The cannons and hooves are significantly longer too.

To adjust the legs, I more or less followed the same steps I would to fix a broken leg. Although I did have to “break” the leg first- or , to be more precise, I sawed it off with my dremel.

After paring down the amputated legs a bit to match the others (as well as the hooves on both sides), I reattached them using a metal pin and super glue.

The next step was filling in and resculpting with epoxy. And a whole bunch of filing and filling to get the hooves even and flat. But now I’ve got a much more balanced and correct horse.

When we got home and Cochise was back in the summer pasture with his herd, Robyn suggested that we clip Thistle, who hasn’t shed out her winter woolies. All the other horses have their summer coats on, but poor Thistle was still sweltering under a lot of extra hair. We set out to rescue her from the heat.

But of course the best thing about clipping a horse is that you can shave designs into their butt. We’ve already done stars, hearts, and initials, so we decided to try something new. Thistle’s nickname is “The Pufferfish” because she puffs up when you saddle her, so we went with a nautical theme.

For optimum precision, we opted to paint the designs first. So I fetched Robyn’s amazing Beauty Box. The Beauty Box is a magical tub containing everything you could ever want to decorate a horse. There’s the usual rubber bands and show sheen but also hoof glitter, clip on flowers, Kool Aid (yes, it works) and paint.

I used the white paint to draw the our designs on Thistle’s rump. Then Robyn (the more skilled clipper) did the shaving.

After we finished clipping her (you could almost hear her sigh of relief) we washed off the excess hair and the paint. She grazed in the sun while we brought the other horses in for dinner. And behold, the finished artwork!

Teehee! I don’t know any other pony who has a sailboat!

Now that the horse’s have their summer coats it’s easier to take pictures of the hair growth patterns. I took some of Alice’s whorls and one from Cochise’s back to catch the way the hairs go along the spine and down the hindquarters.

Alice is extra fun to photograph because she is really showing the pregnancy now. She’s due in about 2-3 weeks, and has become quite wide. She’s always been the most agile little cat, but now she’s a bit more lumbering, and I hear she can’t roll all the way over. But there’s definitely a little horse inside her! You can feel it kick.

Of course, we’re all very excited for Alice’s foal. She hasn’t been color tested and has some of that funny appy bronzing, but we believe she’s actually a buckskin. Similarly, she’s probably a homozygous appaloosa (meaning she’ll pass on a gene to the foal) but we’re not positive. Dad is a palomino Welsh, so there are some exciting potential color combos! And really, with parents like these the foal will be gorgeous no matter what. I can’t wait to see what we get!

The MEPSA ponies are coming along. This is what they looked like on Monday. The Morgan in particular needs some serious work. I mean, orange much?

And here is a silly, short video of Cochise. I took it from his back while we were cooling out last Wednesday.

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I also made a liverpool, which I thought we’d conquered the other day. But apparently this liverpool had a HORSE-EATING MONSTER living inside of it. So that was fun.

I also made this rather inspired (if I do say so myself) pumpkin jump. I was at a garage sale a few weekends ago and this woman had a ton of these. I’d seen people use little toy pumpkins as model horse props with jumping and trail set ups, and I thought well, why not extrapolate that out to real horses?

In my quest to add fun new toys to our arena, I’m trying hard to find things that are widely applicable. For example, the brush boxes and gate that I shared previously make nice jump fillers, but they can also be used in obstacle or trail courses. The jack-o-lanterns are fun for jumps, and can also be used by the kids when they play horseback games. Or maybe that’s just something I tell myself when I’m loading bags of plastic jack-o-lanterns into my trunk…

An recent unrelated but excellent acquisition are these fun shiny crops. Robyn bought two one day and then sent me back to the tack store for several more that she’d regretted not buying. The red star one is mine

So I’ve been doodling courses on scratch paper and morosely watching the rain, thinking about the muddy cross country course. But at least there’s lots of sweet videos online. So I’ve been watching a lot of videos from past Three Day Events like Burghley and Rolex. I also watched this interesting three part series on finding your distance. Meanwhile, I’m putting the first layers of color on the two MEPSA horses and working to finish up the Saddlebred’s remaking before I add a new mane and tail.

“Chrys” was a new challenge at the time, as I redid her long mane and tail, did my first facial re-sculpting (that mold has some serious asymmetry), and attempted a palomino. She has her merits, but I quickly progressed in skill and she’s looking a bit shabby next to my newer horses. Since I imagined her as a fancy show mare, I’ve been a little disappointed that she’s nice enough to live show. And since I really like the Pebbles ASB mold, I decided to make another mare. She’ll have the same name, potentially spelled with a k. That part is undecided yet.

I acquired my Pebbles ASB body last fall and she’s been waiting for some attention ever since. Of course, being me, I can’t just paint her- I want to slighty turn her head, fix her uneven cannons, trim her hooves to a more natural length, and give her a natural, non-cut tail. But I still want her to be a bit of a flirty show off.

First step, after a lot of sharpie-drawing, was to dremel. And dremel, and dremel. My first session was to chop her 2 uneven legs and her head. I re-attached those, and then went back to dremel off the mane and tail. I had quite an impressive pile of plastic shavings by the time I was done.

I hadn’t thought of this as a drastic custom, but it sure is adding up to be a decent amount of work. I have a lot to resculpt where her mane and tail was, not to mention for the fixing of her throatlatch and legs. And I have a feeling I’m going to end up giving her new ears, as her OF ones are rather… unshapely.

After the dremeling, I went to work with foil, baking soda, and super glue to fill in the holes in her next and haunches.

One nice cheat on this project is that because she’s standing square, I can use her other, non-mangled side to guide me as a resculpt her shoulder, neck, and haunches.

a quick horizontal flip and I’ll have a lovely reference

The next day I got a chance to start adding epoxy. I’m used to making too much epoxy at once, since I’m often doing wee things like a Stablemate’s cheek. But for this Pebbles scale gal and all her holes, I did not have that problem.

She’s got a long way to go, but I’m excited.

The Morgan Stallion will be a silver dapple and the Appaloosa gelding with be a sooty buckskin semi leopard. I’m excited to be working with color again! Once the pastels are out I’ll also be starting work on my Hale resin, who has been chillaxing in the cabinet as a half finished blue roan while I was traveling.

In the sculpting arena I’ve got my WIP Racehorse Ornament coming along. I dremeled off his mane and tail yesterday in anticipation of adding my own. He’s also got ears, although they need some serious work where they connect to the head. And yes, his muzzle is still small while his cheek and jaw have added epoxy. I promise to even out his poor face (and get rid of the scary sharpie).

And, because I am a little crazy, I’ve also started another semi-drastic custom. More on her next time!

I’m torn about what color to paint him. I definitely want it to be something found in Morgans, since he has such nice type. I’ve picked out a number of option and want you to help me decide! As with my previous poll, please vote for your three favorites using the gallery and poll below. Click to enlarge the pictures.