Model project, #4

The project horse is coming along. I have started painting and have worked 2 or 3 days on him with pattern and shading. Tedious work and I am too much of a novice. I don't plan to post any more photos until he is done and in the mail because I don't want to risk my partner stumbling across this blog and ruining the surprise :)

Riding time

Getting back on track here with reporting my ride times... lol

Last weekend Ruth and I were able to go out and have a very nice extended ride at Bennington Lake. We did a lot more trotting and even a couple short cantering stints. The boys were feeling really good. We rode a lot of the different trails out there and I would guess that we could have covered 7-8 miles.... maybe?

Now my aunt Kim is in town, she is the one who sent Sinwaan to me, so we are planning a ride with her for this weekend. Just waiting now to see how the weather is the next two days.

Model project, #4

The little horse is coming along. It has been a real trial and error learning period for me. After that last primer job and sanding I decided to paint him white because Matt had brought home some spray gloss. After that I decided I still wasn't happy with some of the rough areas on the neck where I had done work with the epoxy. Some holes and rough areas. ARGH! Matt showed me how to use putty to fill in the holes and then I had to sand him again.

Here we are into mid-November and I still haven't started painting! I don't want to do a poor job on this model, but I also don't want to drag it out, I need the motivation to keep working on him weekly.

After all that Matt thought he looked like he had gone through a massacre.

As of tonight, he is primer'd gray again. I decided I didn't like the white gloss, I am going to have to pick up some white matte as my base coat and then maybe I can finally get started painting in the next couple of days!?

Model project, #3

Time for primer! Ah that's much better. However now I could painfully see everywhere that this poor little horse needed to be sanded. I didn't do a great job adding the epoxy, so now I had to sand the edges to get it to blend in better.



Unfortunately I thought he looked too muleish with his new ears and profile, so I broke off the tip of one ear. Now I have to rebuild that. Oh well, I still have to add more epoxy to his rear to fill that hole.



Now I am back to a multi-layered horse again. But he's so much smoother!



*Update, in the process of trying to get his tail down to a more realistic 'tailbone' size, I lopped it off. So I built him a new one out of wire and added epoxy to it.

Model project, #2

Well as you can see in the last photos on post #1 with this model, the epoxy on the neck was a little rough. I posted some pics on a model horse messageboard asking for tips. I got some! The cocked hind leg needed to be further under the body. So I reheated and moved it under a tad more.





After making some more subtle changes and doing some sanding it got to the point where it was very hard for me to tell what on earth was going on with all those layers.

Riding is a GO

I have just been doing a horrible job at keeping up with this blog lately. The GOOD news is that YES I have been getting out for a ride once a week. It's not much, but it's something. My friend Ruth has been kind enough to trailer us out with her to Bennington Lake most weekends.

Yesterday was my first time riding Sinwaan around the property where he now resides. It was incredibly windy. He acted up a bit. Typical barn-sourness. We worked and worked and worked. Walking and trotting back and forth and all around. He started sweating on his shoulders and behind his ears. Since it was so windy I thought I had better put a cooler on him and walk him around until he was dry so he wouldn't cramp up or catch a chill. I took him to the other paddock and walked him around and then let him graze for about half an hour. He loved that.

Model project, #1

This doesn't really belong in Sinwaan's blog but I wasn't sure where else to put it. I am working on a model horse currently for a "Secret Santa" partner. It sounded like fun, so I signed up, and now here I am trying to do a portrait model. Yikes! I looked online for a week trying to find the right "body" horse to build on. I did not have any luck. I remembered that my mom had a model that might work so I stopped by tonight and bought it from her. This model was included in a "body box" of multiple models that needed to be repainted. Someone had even gone an extra step and added a new mane and 'feathers' to this one.

Well the mane was on the wrong side of the neck for my portrait model, so it had to come off. It's been awhile since I ran a dremel. Have to admit it was kind of fun.

The feathers had to come off too because they were positioned way too high on the rear legs. This model I am portraying does have some light feathers so I will have to add them back on with epoxy once I get it cleaned up. I also cut the tail away from the body while I was at it. I drilled out the ears and nostrils and even the mouth to some degree.

Then I heated the horse up with a heat gun so I could reposition parts of him. I wanted to bring the head & neck down a little to a more relaxed position. I also bent his back leg so it looked like he had that rear foot cocked and resting.

As you can see, the heat gun was not kind to him, it really changed his neck and now he does not look very realistic! I also moved his ears just a bit so they look a little more floppy, like a lazy gelding expression.

I added epoxy now and sculpted his neck. I was happy with it at the time, but looking at this photo and how the light/shadows are catching it, looks like I need to do some more work on the muscles to make it more realistic. I built up his head, making it more roman-nosed. I added feathers to all four feet and fixed the ear-tip that was missing. I had a wretched time with the tail and the mane, but I think the mane will be ok. The tail kept falling (gravity) as I had the model on it's side working on adding detail to the mane. By the time I got to it, the epoxy was hardening and would not stick together very well. So I am going to have to start over on that next time!

All in all it was a satisfying evening's work! I have a very limited amount of time to get this model done. Wish me luck!