While most of us struggle to finish a single horse during the month of February, there are always a few people who just can't seem to put down the paintbrush. In addition to completing their official horse, they also paint one, two or twenty four others. Here's a look at some of the 2025 bonus horses.
In many cases, the extra ponies were the result of online painting workshops. Kim Brandner's CollectA Custom was created in conjunction with Karen Beeson's Tobiano class.
Similarly, Grace Bisnath's stablemate Alborozo,
Liisa Michele's medallions,
and Anne Giles' Friesian were all created with the help of Heather Bullach's excellent and extremely beginner friendly Into to Oil Painting Workshop: Painting Black.
Jamie Heiberger,
Heather Bullach...
and Lynn Cassels-Caldwell all painted bonus babies to go with their official mamas.
I really love that.
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Sarah Biondo...
Maddie Miller's little Fireheart served a completely different purpose. She writes: This guy was my "palette cleanser" for all the times painting a new realistic color (foal chestnut) became overwhelming.
Speaking of little Firehearts, Kayla Lovejoy painted two of them to go with her official model, which was - what else? - a traditional scale Fireheart!
She also painted this one, so that's four models from primer to complete just in February. Talk about an overachiever
Here's another overachiever, although in Daphne Headley's case, it's less "I Did These, Too!" and more "I Finished/Fixed This!" She writes: The red zebra and the foal kept getting UFOs in their paint (both started last year). The Standardbred needed an acrylic rod, since his soft plastic wasn't strong enough and he kept leaning over. So, "correcting" it caused the paint to split - in turn, needed more paint. The red zebra had a similar problem and would only stand on certain surfaces, so when moving her pewter legs after sealing...yeah. Her base is really cool, though! Then finally, the bowing QH just got caught up in my lack of motivation phase and just needed his whites and details done.
As impressive as those achievements are, the undisputed Bonus Horse Grand Champion of NaMoPaiMo 2025 is Sara Runyan, who painted twenty fours micros in addition to her official model. She explains: My side goal was to see how much I could paint in a month and to boost my confidence in my ability to take on commission work.
I used some of these models to trying to work on my dapples (still got a ways to go).
Others were just to try out new and different techniques, some successful, some not.
Most of them were to just avoid painting my signature colors of chestnut and black. Although I still did paint two blacks and one chestnut… Okay, two if we count the liver chestnut, but I don’t usually go that dark, so not counting that one!
Twenty four models are definitely too many to keep the quality I hold for customers, but it is nice to not have all the naked pewter staring at me anymore!
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| Sara's official NaMoPaiMo model |
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When you said 'one, two or twenty four' I kind of had an inkling you weren't kidding. But I didn't really believe it until! Amazing!! Away with 'the naked pewter.' I look forward to next year.
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