Kristen's BCC entry

There was a time - not all that long ago - when I really did not like fantasy horses.

If you asked me, I would tell you that horses were perfect as is. There was no need for horns, wings, lion tails, scales, fins, fangs, cloven hooves, claws, tentacles or suckers.

Please, for the love of god, no suckers.

But here's the thing: If you do something well enough, it's hard not to love it, and every year the artists participating in the Fantasy division of the BreyerFest Best Customs Contest force do fantasy really, really well. Despite myself, I am forced to love it.

Forced, I tell you.

One of the artists doing the forcing this year is Kristen Cermele. 

In this piece, Kristen creates an entire magical fantasy world filled with kirins...

and dragons.

She writes: I love spending time in the forest, trail riding and carriage driving, which is where I brainstorm most of my fantasy creatures and ideas. The concept for this piece didn't start with a big story, or a mythical animal with special powers, but rather the idea of trying to create a little, unassuming moment in time.

It's always fascinated me that while I'm walking through the woods, there are animals that are watching me and living their lives while I can't see them.

I've also been experimenting with making “tiny things” bigger with model horse art, rather than what we have to do with our realistic pieces, which is miniaturizing. 

These are tiny things, a small dragon horse and a kirin, who instead of being as large as a deer or a horse, is as small as a ferret.

We don't know exactly what this scuffle is about; the kirin is a herbivore, and while the dragon could technically eat the kirin, she's really much too big, the dragon mostly eating insects, snails, eggs, and smaller lizards. 

They are most likely fighting over territory, the kirin wanting the shade the mushroom provides, while the dragon wants to stalk the slugs that inevitably will come to feast on it instead. 

My other goal with this piece was to sculpt the way I draw, with swooping stylized lines.

The more I sculpt the more I want to try and merge my my flat art with my model horses, and this is the first time I feel like I've really done that. 

The dragon was created with a Flash.

The Kirin started as a Mangalarga Marchador (Imperador).

Thank you, Kristen, for forcing me to love fantasy horses. The next time I go on a ride in the river bottom, I'll be keeping an eye out for all the tiny kirins and dragons!