I found some more pictures from the lengthening of the HA Fritz resin’s back. He’s currently in primer stage, but he’s getting close to paint-ready and I’ve picked out color references for him.
I’m really glad I decided to go ahead and do this- he looks great now. Between my upcoming busyness and my complex color choice, I’m sure he’ll be a work in progress for a long time… but it sure will be fun!
My main color reference
Posted in News
Tagged customizing, frankenhorse, progress, repositioning, resins, WIP
One of the pony projects I’m really excited about right now is my beautiful HA Fritz resin, a gift from Caryn. He is so cool and dynamic, and even though the casting was sold as raw he was really quite easy to prep.
But of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I was researching breeds for him and kept seeing that his back was just a bit short for any of the mixes I had in mind. Furthermore, if I ever wanted to show him in performance, saddle fit would be tough. So with the blessings of both Caryn and Horsing Around, I set out to lengthen his back.
The first thing I did was take the above photo into a photo editing program and add length digitally, as a way of testing things out.
I liked how that looked, so I set to work. First I went back and reviewed Jennifer Buxton’s post on halfsy horses. Not all of her tips were applicable for this much smaller scale, but I did make a point of drawing lines across Fritz’s barrel so I could match him up again, like Jennifer did with her Boreas.
Then I did a whole lot of dremeling. The resin turned out to be totally solid, and with those trotting legs it wasn’t always easy to get the dremel blade where it needed to go. I did my best to cut as straight as possible, and to not cut away any more material than I had to.
After that, I pegged the two pieces together with three big wires, filled the gap with aluminum foil covered in super glue and baking soda, and then epoxied over that to get a nice smooth barrel.
And here he is, several hours of sanding and priming later, nearly ready to go:
I’m thinking a mulberry grey or bay going grey for him, but I’m open to suggestions. He’s already so pretty just in his naked white, I can’t wait to see him painted.
This last weekend was my last free one before the holidays, so I took the opportunity to sit down and make some serious progress on the remaining hand made Christmas gifts.
This is what my tabletop studio looked like for most of Saturday:
On the left you can see the mid point of a little project I did for my grandmother. I used this cool tutorial from miniatures.about.com to make a miniature Christmas Cactus for her. It’s about 2 inches tall. I loved the fact that I had all the materials already on hand from my other craft projects. I learned some good techniques that will be applicable to the model horse hobby, too.
One of the ones that’s been haunting me is my 1:48 scale Dr. Who figure. He and his TARDIS have been scary epoxy blobs for a while now, but no longer! They have taken shape, and with some paint they are looking downright delightful.
On Saturday, the doctor looked like this:
And by Sunday, things were looking positively Who-tastic.
It’s always fun to paint something other than horses once in a while, since I get to play with all my colorful acrylics. By Sunday my table looked like this:
Wheeee!
As you can see, I still need to do some miniscule writing on the TARDIS, but Sunday was coming to a close and I wanted to get some fixative on there before I do any more painting. I don’t know when that will happen, or if my eyes will fall out of my head, but I feel a lot better about having this done by Christmas!
Did I mention he’s tiny?
My Christmas gift portrait cob now has hair! Said hair needs work, but she looks a lot better than last month when she had no ears and a wire sticking out of her butt…
Kettil Blacksmith is still in the pony hospital, but he’s recovering from Brokentailitis and will hopefully be ready to hit the show ring in a few weeks.
Progress!
Meanwhile, awesome hobby bloggers are busy making tiny masterpieces. EG of Last Alliance Studios cooked up some delicious looking sandwiches and Nichelle of Desktop Stables made a whole library of wee books. Seriously, the first pictures in these two posts will give you a real double take.
Posted in News
Tagged blogs, customizing, hobbyists, links, progress, restoration, stablemates, Violet, WIP
As I’ve mentioned I’m busy with a new job (wheee!) and adjusting to much less pony time. I’m still managing to sneak it in though, never you fear.
Two of the top priority projects right now are fixes in preparation for the NW Congress Live Show at the end of the month. Kettil Blacksmith had a tough ride to his last show, despite my efforts, and ended up with a broken tail. He now has a double-wired, super reinforced tail.
Since that picture was taken I’ve added acrylic to cover the epoxy patch. He looks pretty good, but still needs some pastel layers to make everything match. Hopefully (knock wood) this will be the last time that tail needs repair.
The other guy in the Horsey Hospital is Troy Soldier, who isn’t a horse at all. This wiley mule came to the Harvest Halter Live with some ear tip rubs that I hadn’t noticed. I did a quick n dirty fix with a brown marker (thanks Vicky!) and he managed a red ribbon in his breed class, but he needed a real fix. Luckily, I’ve been keeping notes on the colors I use on recent horses, so I knew what would work with a minimum of fussing.
I have some more projects on the to-do list before the show, but that hasn’t stopped me from rashly chopping off some heads and starting a new project or two. If anyone has a Chips TB head they don’t need, I’d love to take it off your hands…
Meanwhile, I’m also working on two Christmas projects. My Welsh Cob portrait is just about ready for hair. And this thing is, believe it or not, coming along…
I know of one or two of my readers who might guess what that is. Need a hint? I’m just a madwoman making a box…
