Carly's BCC entry

Today is the submission deadline for the BreyerFest Best Customs Contest, and what better way to begin Braymere blog coverage of that event than with a big, beautiful, winged mustang!

This is The Electric Spirit In All Of Us, Carly Kudalis' entry in the Fantasy division.

Carly writes: This piece started as a Breyer Khemosabi, and well, shapeshifted into something electric, energetic, and whimsical.

She may look slightly familiar? 

Sculpted and painted as my wild child who can’t be tamed, Winter, she exemplifies that wild horse spirit, a spirit in all of us when we allow ourselves to unleash it. 

This piece was so much fun to put together. I have such a deep deep love for Pegasus. 

I know unicorns often get the popular reputation, but there is something about flying horses that is just mesmerizing to me. 

And of course I draw my greatest inspiration from my own horses who inspire me daily in more ways than one. It is always such a treat getting to capture them through art.

I hope they know they get sculptures made after them!

Congratulations, Carly. This is tremendous. It's a worthy tribute to your big girl, who most surely knows how inspirational she is. Good luck at BreyerFest!

Making the minis

I was invited to a birthday party for one of my elementary school classmates. We were friendly, but not really friends, and I had no idea what to give her. After a lot of consideration, I went with what was clearly the best possible gift for anyone: a Breyer horse. She was surprised when she opened it. Not because it was a Breyer - my horse girl proclivities were well known - but because it did not need assembling. She'd thought model horses were like model cars. She assumed they came in kits, and you had to build them yourself.

1980 Breyer promotional material

The MiniVerse Make It Mini Animals both are and are not kits.

The animals themselves are like Breyer horses. No assembly is required.

That said, I did have to add eyes and a mouth line to the snake. He looked unfinished without them.

The accessories is where the kit part comes into play.

Some of projects require no more than removing the animal from its carrying case...

and assembling its environment.

Heh.

Of course, I always feel compelled to take things a little further.

Although the props are fine as is, they do look better - and a lot less plasticky - with a little bit of paint.

These are fun, easy projects. 

Well, mostly....

Neither Angelo nor I have had any luck with the fish.

RIP Guppy. You are a bad kids' craft.

If anyone has managed to make the fish look good, please share your secrets! And don't forget, I'll be choosing the winner of the Bag of Fish/Capybara raffle tomorrow. Please leave a comment if you want to try one of these make it crafts for yourself.

Addict behavior

Rerun

If Glamour's baby looks familiar, there's a reason.

He's a dead ringer for Diva's 2025 colt, Halston.

Everyone has remarked on the resemblance.

Size, color, type... It's all the same!

Of course, this isn't entirely coincidental. The two foals are closely related. 

Both are sired by the palomino Thoroughbred stallion Twentyfour Kt Gold.

As for the dams, Diva is out of Destiny, who was a daughter of Awesome Knight.

Glamour was also sired by Awesome Knight.

While the new baby is lacking Halston's star...

he does have the same white hind foot.

Almost identical, not quite twins.

Speaking of Halston, he was bought by one of the boarders. He lives in the pen next to the mare field, and I see him every day.

He's a bright gold buckskin now, and his spring coat has a hint of dapples.

Here he is with little sister, Kalypso, who was also part of Twentyfour Kt Gold's 2025 foal crop.

She was a tiny baby - I used to call her Wee - and she's still quite petite. In that respect, she definitely takes after the Arabian side of the family.

There is one more Twentyfour Kt Gold foal due any time now.

What - and who - will that one look like? Only time will tell!

Bag of extras

Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed a few extra miniatures in yesterday's spoils of the day photo.

They're fish.

More specifically, they're bags of fish.

These are more blind bag toys.

Angelo's kryptonite, for sure.

As he was buying our Series 1 Make It Mini Animals, he also - accidentally - acquired a whole bunch of these.

These are more bags of fish than any one person needs, so some of them came home with me.

Truth be told, I don't need this many bags of fish either. Accordingly, I've decided to give some of them away.

But that's not all! Between the two of us, Angelo and I ended up with four baby capybaras.

I immediately googled capybara litter size and learned the range is one to seven, with three being typical. I decided three was the correct number for my capybara family.

Angelo being Angelo didn't want the fourth, so that one plus his ball full of stuff will go with the fish.

All the usual rules apply: Every comment left on this blog will equal one raffle entry. Old post, new post, multiple posts, it just doesn't matter. However, if you're posting anonymously, be sure to include your name. I will choose a winner on Friday, June 12.