Almost wordless Wednesday

I wasn't the only one who came home from our four Target odyssey with a jar of MiniVerse Milk-Bone Mini's. Alexey also couldn't resist. Which means, Tang was also required to take photos with the tiny bones. Good boy, Tang!

BreyerFest Thursday

Yesterday was the unofficial first day of BreyerFest, and for all us sitting at home, the FOMO is real. Thank you to everyone who has posted photos from Lexington, and especially Nancy Kindraka for this wonderful firsthand report of all the Thursday happenings!

BreyerFest Thursday

by Nancy Kindraka

Up bright and early, ready for the show! And this was the last time my hair was fully down. Stupid humidity.

I spent most of today volunteering at the Resin Renaissance show. 

It went great, except for the fact that the AC was unable to cool the room. It was hot.

Robbie and I managed the raffle. There were a lot of nifty items.

Working with Robbie was great.

There were eleven of these Poet micros in the raffle, each painted by a different artist.

I tried to win these fun pouches but alas, I did not.

The show took up most of the day. I found it to be quite enjoyable to observe the show without having to stress about showing my own models.

Afterwards, I changed clothes and headed to the Griffin Gate for Stone's welcome party. They ran shuttles between the two hotels, which was marvelous!

Riding in style!

The welcome party was nice, and I enjoyed everyone's pirate and nautical themed costumes for the costume contest.

I bought one of Shauna's poop pucks at Stone's marketplace. I love everything about it. (It's too much to explain. Ask me in person.)

Then it was back to the Clarion for some room shopping.

My shopping list is very short this year, and I'm not having much luck. Still, I really enjoy the entire Clarion experience.

Finally, I wandered the Artisan's Gallery. This piece is a fantasy entry for the Best Customs Contest. It's really unique and impactful.

I enjoyed this glow up of Smoky...

and this performance entry.

This was my favorite: A glow up of Patch, on the Rugged Lark mold. It's so good!

Larkie is a favorite of mine, but he's a very wonky mold and a perfect candidate for the Glow Ups category. He looks fantastic! The original is in the box.

A few weeks ago, the artist, Laura Skillern Sailer, posted some hints as to which model she had used for the glow up. I was the first to guess it correctly, and today I claimed my prize. It was thhe perfect ending to the first day at BreyerFest!

Thank you so much for sharing your day with us, Nancy! I hope you enjoy those chips, and I look forward to your Friday update!

Laura's BCC entry

This year, in addition to creating yet another outstanding BreyerFest Best Customs Contest entry, Laura Skillern also wrote, directed and starred in two promotional videos and wrote a blog post about it all.

As one does, if you're Laura Skillern.

Patch Deserved Better

by Laura Skillern

One of my very, very first customs was a Rugged Lark. I airbrushed him with a $20 badger airbrush and a can of air from Michaels to a grulla that was far too blueish grey. 

I proudly plopped him on the table of a local show (another one of my firsts), and proceeded to win nothing. I wasn’t upset by it--just confused. I thought I’d at least done a decent job of painting him, and I was showing in a youth-only division, so the bar was quite low. I probably should have asked the judge for feedback, but I was thirteen.

It wasn’t until yeeeeaaaaarrrrsss later--after I’d gone back to showing as an adult--I overheard someone referring to the mold as “Rugged Lard” and it clicked. The MOLD was bad, not my paint work. To be fair, the paint job was probably also bad, but I was pushing a bolder up hill either way. 

I still have a bit of a soft spot for the mold. Not enough to collect it. I have several congas of wonky old molds* filling my shelves, but devoting space to Rugged Lark is a bridge too far. Even for me. 

I’ve used Rugged Lark for the BCC before. My dun mare from the top of my canyon entry was a Rugged Lark body dremelled down to an armature. But you’d also never guess by looking at her. There was very, very little left of the original mold’s look in the final project. 

This year, I want to keep as much of the mold’s character in my final product…minus all of his faults. 

I had my work cut out for me.

I spent a lot of the long hours of sculpting and resculpting watching The Saddle Club tv show. 

I’d read some of the books as a kid but never caught the show. It was just supposed to be background noise, but I think it did something weird to my subconscious because I felt compelled to make this: 

Shout out to my loving husband for acting as my cameraman. 

I’m not the easiest director to work for, and I can’t make a “simple” model horse video without behaving like I’m making Citizen Kane. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Film & TV, and that part of my brain does not turn off.

Additional hat tips to my “Patch”. 

He stood patiently while I painted his mostly white body into a bay tobiano, and did several loping takes so I could get extra coverage. He didn’t bring speed to his performance, but he at least got into character. 

*If you’re thinking, “I know Laura has a bunch of Shams, but he’s not really that wonky. He’s artsy at least.” Yeah, no, y’all haven’t seen my herd of beloved Morganlanzes. 

Congratulations, Laura. This is everything we've come to expect from you and more. I'm already looking forward to your 2027 entry! Good luck at BreyerFest!

Heather's BCC entry

There was a point in time, about fifteen years ago, when it seemed like everyone who was anyone had a blog. 

Not gonna lie, I miss those days.

One of the blogs I most enjoyed reading belonged to a customizer named Heather Puleo. In it, she shared progress photos of her work, including a drastic Lonesome Glory-to-jumper that was forever being disassembled and reassembled. Even in its rough early stages, you could tell this piece was going to be awesome, assuming it ever got finished. That seemed unlikely, however. The resculpt was so dynamic and so complicated and Heather is so discerning. I wasn't sure it would ever be completed.

Well, never have I been so happy to be wrong! Take a look at Heather's 2026 BreyerFest Best Customs Contest Most Extreme entry.

The Seventeen Year Horse

by Heather Puleo

Way back in the ancient times (cough 2009 or so) I saw a picture of a jumper that just screamed I WANT TO BE A CUSTOM.

The twisty hind end, the neck being used as a counter balance after having flung themselves over the fence from a difficult spot, that horse was all athleticism and stunning.

Quick quick! Who can I chop up into this??

Enter one very tortured, errr, well loved Seattle Slew model on the Lonesome Glory mold. Leggy, refined, this would surely be perfect and fast.

Or more like a series of chopping, grinding, sanding, sculpting and hmmmming every so often for the next 17 years. I would occasionally pick it up and try and figure out what wasn't quite working. Spoiler, there was *a lot* that wasn't working but my knowledge base had not yet caught up to the vision in my head and in my ref. 

This year in March I decided I would try and enter the BCC again and give myself more than three weeks to complete a drastic CM 🤣 But what was I going to do? I have a laundry list of ideas at any given time but I pulled out the poor slightly mangled LG and was like. YOU. I will *finally* make you what I always wanted you to be. 

I managed to scrounge up the two missing legs too! But the head is completely mia. Oops. Fine we will make a new one, even though my preference is to use as much of the original model as possible in the final piece. I mean, if you haven't fought with the base model through every. single. step. of resculpting, is it even a custom anymore? I dont know but that's my crazy logic and I'm sticking to it.

Now someone needs an intense dremel session to remove all the old and honestly no longer good epoxy. Plus she was almost hilariously too wide in the hips and shoulders especially. A few holes are fine right? 

And then finally, we sculpt!

Sculpt the head some. Ooo, yikes…keep going

Checking for symmetry.

Putting legs on!

Taking legs off...

Making notes for adjustments.

Eets a Pony on a Stick

Making more holes.

More notes.

More legs.

And then the vision is finally in sight. This might just be doable! 

…..After another decapitation

The first two weeks of June were an absolute blur or sanding, smoothing, shaping ears, adding veins, hair, details and then finally paint and assembling the jump and getting last minute photos and tossing in the email under wire.

SO, FINALLY, seventeen years in the making, my vision came to life. Twisty, athletic, so very *mare* and a horse my heart would love to ride though my body would almost certainly be left in the dust LOL

OH! Two last things! Even though she is pretty much completely resculpted from nose to tail, her hooves are still original plastic (minus the bottoms which I detailed out)! 

I made sure to match the scale and size of the original model to the point that I could leave them and it amuses me to no end.

And secondly, a beautiful model like this deserves a beautiful name, but in the past few months she has decided to keep her “work in progress” nickname. And thus, she is The Great Cornponio.

Congratulations, Heather. I can not believe you finally this one. She is my favorite horse of this year's BCC season and was more every minute of those seventeen years. Good luck at BreyerFest!