Kayla's diorama entry

Continuing on with our tour of the 2026 BreyerFest Diorama Contest entries, here's a really neat - and dramatic - scene from Kayla Blaine. 

She writes: Mine is called “Hoof Helly Aa”.

It is based on Up Helly Aa, which is a traditional fire festival held each winter in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. Up Helly As celebrates Shetland’s Norse and Viking heritage with torchlit processions, participants dressed as Vikings, music, and the dramatic burning of a replica Viking longship. The festival usually takes place on the last Tuesday of January and is one of Scotland’s most famous cultural events. In my diorama, I decided to bring this beautiful celebration to life with both classic and stablemate sized models.

I dressed the stablemates up as Vikings that are helping ignite the fire.

 Within the fire, is a re-sculpted classic model to represent the dragons that they light on fire.

Here are some work-in-progress photos that show how I made it.

Thank you, Kayla. This is awesome. I really appreciate how fiery your pictures are. Good luck at BreyerFest!

Donna's diorama entry

From waffles to flowers! Here's a look at another outstanding 2026 BreyerFest Diorama Contest entry.

The Beetle's Ride

by Donna Houchins

This diorama is inspired by the Odense Flower Festival, which takes place in Odense, Denmark every August. It is part of the H.C. Andersen Festivals celebrating Hans Christian Andersen, who was born in Odense in 1805. Each year has its own theme centered around the worlds created by H C Andersen. Large scale, creative flower and plant displays interpret the annual theme.

While H C Andersen is famous for many fairy tales that have been retold throughout the world, he also wrote a wealth of stories that are now more obscure. My diorama depicts one of his stories that centers on a beetle and a horse – “The Beetle Who Went on his Travels”.

In this depiction, the beetle is riding on the mane of the Emperor’s horse who wears golden horseshoes. It is created with dried plant material over the Breyer Freedom Scale “Brabant” horse, and depicts a floral installation as may be seen in Odense during the festival. The beetle is created with leaves and twigs. There are approximately 2500 small dried flowers in this diorama!

I had a lot of fun making this, though at times I was questioning my life choices while gluing on tiny flowers with tweezers!!  

Thank you for sharing your entry with us, Donna. This is wonderful. I doubt you'll need it, but good luck at BreyerFest!

Mikayla's diorama entry

Jessica Griesheimer wasn't the only person who read the description for this year's BreyerFest Diorama Contest and thought, "Waffles!" 

Mikayla Herrera had a very similar reaction. She writes: Ponies and waffles!

My diorama was inspired by the Swedish celebration of Vaffeldagen! (waffle day). I created a scene of a small countryside cafe serving up waffles for their customers.

I didn’t have too much time so mine is simple, but I love it! 

Thank you, Mikayla, for this completely different but still awesome take on waffles. I love it, too. Good luck at BreyerFest!

Jessica's diorama entry

Last Friday was the submission deadline for the 2026 BreyerFest Diorama Contest. This year's them is Nordic Celebration. 

Here's the details, as posted on the Breyer website: Midsummer is a popular Nordic festival that welcomes the summer solstice! Along with Midsummer, Nordic countries have a variety of fun and historical festivals and celebrations. Some celebrate changes in the natural world, like Midsummer, or some celebrate certain saints. Celebrate with us by participating in our “Nordic Celebration” diorama contest where entrants are asked to create a diorama, using any scale Breyer model (excluding CollectA) that depicts a Nordic or Scandinavian festival or celebration. Five winners from each of the four age group divisions will win a glossy version of this year’s celebration horse, Corgi Hill Flinka.

From Walpurgis Night to våffeldage (waffle day) there are plenty of festivals or celebrations to recreate! Let your imagination soar! We can’t wait to see what entrants create!

The possibilities for this are almost endless, but for Jessica Griesheimer, one path was clear. Here's the story of her Swedish Waffleblood.

Did Someone Say Våffelhäst?

by Jessica Griesheimer

This is possibly the strongest exercise of free will I've ever put into a model horse. It's rare that I ever end up sculpting and painting something that is a 100% match to the vision in my head, but this is like I pulled it directly from my brain and put it into reality.

The first step was to look at some waffles. There's so much detail in a simple waffle!

I sculpted the waffle dimples onto the horse in phases, letting each section dry in between so I don't go insane in an endless loop of fixing areas I'd already done. Also featuring the work station of your typical neurodivergent artist. I'll totally clean that later!

More progress on the waffle dimples! Also notice how I have definitely not cleaned my workstation.

Almost fully dimpled! It takes up to six hours for each section to dry, so I just let her hang out on top of my hardware case while I work on other things. Are those other things cleaning my work station? No. But did I do it right after? Also no.

Progress check point! She's fully dimpled and all buttered up. I was told she looked rather peanuty at this phase, which I honestly can't disagree with.

Top view of the butter pad before final prep work.

Fully primed and ready for paint.

Soaking in the progress before the painting phase began.

Okay listen, trust the process.

Does it look like an awful waffle right now? Yes, but trust me, it's about to get worse.

I feel like this is pushing the limitations of, "trust the process" but after Jenn Constantine's NaMoPaiMo project this year, I felt inspired by her use of undertones and figured this would be a nice opportunity to get a rich "syrupy" color for the mane and tail.

She'll see better days soon.

I told you to trust the process! Now we're baking a waffle horse. On top of the hardware case she goes to dry between layers of pasteling random individual waffle dimples to build up that crispy golden waffle color.

Still a little pale, but really coming along at this point.

Pale side B, but featuring more of her "burnt waffle" eyes, mouth, and nose.

Color and shading are almost finished!

I decided to go with a pearlescent yellow for the butter to help bring out that glossy shine right before it melts.

Spare no detail. Even the underside of the Waffle Horse is shaded.

Don't mind me, just giving my Waffle Horse a sun tan to let the syrup cure.

Gotta take our UV resin sun tan very seriously.

The "Almost done with my diorama!" checkpoint. Horrible lighting, but the resin syrup set beautifully.

Needless to say, I've been craving waffles throughout this entire process!

Is this a floppy waffle or a waffle horse? Either way, I have accidentally created the most tactilely pleasing ASMR for your fingertips.

If anyone asks, she's a Swedish Waffleblood!

Thank you, Jessica. You are hilarious and your waffle horse is amazing. I could not have hoped for a better way to launch this year's BreyerFest contest season! 

Behind the mask

I don't get a lot of hobby boxes in the mail these days, and when I do, they're usually for Angelo.

Last week, however, I did get a little something for me. It's a resin cast ram skull mask sculpted by Bethany Wurl.

Bethany calls this a fantasy piece, but it's clearly based on one of the horse masks in the Red Dead Redemption II game.

When she debuted the mask at the end of 2023, I thought, "Oh, that's so cool, but I am not a gamer. I do not need it."

In 2024, I attended Anna Miller and Anna Kerns' Jurassic Classic Model Horse Show in Cheyenne, Wyoming. There was a ran skull horse mask in the raffle. I bought a ridiculous amount of tickets in an attempt to win it. I did not.

Since then, this mask has been low-key on my purchasing radar. 

When I saw a friend advertising one for sale, I didn't hesitate.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this, but it's really cool. Suggestions are definitely welcome.

Where's the mustang?

I'm not asking about this mustang.

I pretty much always know where Sage is.

If she's not wearing a halter and attached to either Karen or me, she's in her stall/run,

note the artful placement of poop on the wall

one of the turnouts...

or the field with her friends.

Her "friends".

Sage is not an ambitious jumper, and she doesn't have opposable thumbs. Her options are limited.

But there is another mustang who lives in Sage's stall.

And his location is ever changing.

Every morning, I get to the barn, feed Sage and look for him.

Usually, he's in the run, often next to a poop pile.

This morning he was halfway to the gate.

I find him, pick him up, inspect for new damage and put him back on the shelf.

I always vary the location.

Top shelf, bottom shelf, run side, stall side.

Where's the mustang?

This is the game we play.

Where's the mustang?

Only the mustang knows!