Homegrown

There's a certain awesome feeling of owning someone else's work, especially when it's top rated stuff. I don't have many, but my awe-inspiring Amarna Arab has to be one of my prides of my collection. And don't forget stuff your amazingly talented friends make for you:

CM by Samantha Kroese

And then there's that feeling you get when you make something yourself that you're proud of. It doesn't have to be good, or even sell, but if you like it and it makes you happy and gives you -that- feeling, well, that's better than anything!

I've been painting a lot more this year, and while I still have a loooong way to go and I'm not fooling myself about it, I've also gotten to the point where I can make stuff for myself that I want and like and don't have to pay someone else to do it for me. I'm still only at the -paint toys stage- but I've slowly ventured into Breyer Classics and one Breyer Trad. (Poor Totilas, he still doesn't know what hit him hahah).

My home grown stuff wouldn't sell diddly squat against the talent that's easily available on eBay and for great prices, but you know what? That's totally okay with me, because I always paint stuff I want to keep anyway! Can't wait to see what else I end up creating this year! <3

Tentative CM'er

I hadn't yet gathered the courage to cm a perfectly fine model (straight out of the box, in fact), or to paint a Traditional size, but today I finally did both.

I managed to snag an extra Totilas for cheap from Tuesday Morning. I figured even if I ended up keeping him as a messed up cm, he'd be worth the experimentation. Or resell as a prepped body. I already knew I wanted to try my roaning technique on him. And black is my favorite base color so I didn't have much to change.

He still has a lot of flaws. Thank you bare wind and slight vibrations in the deck for knocking him over -twice!- and for the sealer for randomly dappling in one spot, and for the acrylics I used to not match the undershade so the shift is obvious....oh well. He still turned out fairly nice! Nice enough for my breeding shed!

It's too bad I couldn't just do the roaning part and have someone else touch up the rest! I am glad I opted for the higher sock in the back and the blaze....just enough to set him apart from the regular release, aside from the roan of course.

I did attempt to cover up the scratches on his hindquarter he sustained when he fell with some black roan flecks, but it's on the side I won't be showing so I'm not too worried about it. You can see the dappled dried sealer is on that same hindquarter, too.

Thanks for looking!