Flatter Footing

I have this really cool piece of scale model footing that I really like using for stablemate pictures.  In particular, I use it to take pictures of stablemate blankets that are for sale.  

The problem with it, and something I fight with every single time I use it, is that it's very uneven.  It was sort of rolled/folded in a box when I bought it.  It's stiff enough that it retains some of the folds.  Because of the tufts of grass, I haven't wanted to try and press it to make it flatten out.  

Recently, I was struggling to make it work (and I just gave up during that particular photo session, the horses kept falling over) and I thought of a possible solution. 

Today I got to work on it!

First, I measured it (10" x 10") and then I used the laser to cut out a piece of MDF that size.  

Here's lumpy, bumpy piece as I've been trying to use it. 

I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to glue it to the base, but I decided to start with some tacky glue down the center.

I grabbed a small piece of cardboard, thinking I'd use it as a spreader, but I just ended up using my finger, haha.  

Glue spread out, I centered the piece of footing and carefully pressed in down along the middle.  I noticed I was slightly off center and tried to reposition it.  Nope.  It was instantly stuck.  Well, that's good!  

Then I decided to just work my way toward the edge, from the center, and glue it down in sections.  Here you can better see how uneven it was.

Each time I put on some tacky glue,

and spread it with my finger.

I cleaned off my finger then used my finger tips to press down and toward the outer edge, along the shorter grass paths.  I also pushed down in some of the tufted areas, for good measure, and then sort of fluffed the grass up again.  

One side mostly glued, I hadn't done the very edge here yet.  I think it's looking flatter.

All done!  That looks better...

Moment of truth!  I put it back in my photo area, turned on the lights, and plopped down a horse (the very one who kept falling over during the latest photo shoot that was cut short).  He stands!  

No Show

This is "old news" to some of my readers, but it's the first time I've felt up to blogging about it and I thought a follow-up to my previous triumphant, light-hearted post was warranted, before moving on.

About a month ago, I attempted a sweep of the performance division of a (fun) show with a Smoky.  The show was being held on Facebook. 

Sometime after entering, I made the decision to deactive my Facebook.  I've talked here before about my struggles with depression.  Add on anxiety and an official diagnosis of ADHD, plus well... just, 2020, and I was in bad shape.  I needed a break from the "doom scrolling" and I was also feeling battered after breaking my silence about current events over the summer; then dealing with the fallout that came with using my voice for the first time, after reading so many others' opinions over the years.  I think that about covers the "why". 

So, I shut down my Facebook.  It's still there, just on hold, hidden I think.  Unknowingly, when I did this, all of the Smoky pictures, and my other entries, vanished from the show - just before judging took place.  After all of that, I wasn't in the show.  I took the news..  really hard.  Embarrassingly hard.  It wasn't "just" a photo show or a fun hobby thing for me, it was so, so much more. 

I wanted, needed, to be a part of something light-hearted and fun.  Sure, it was fun taking the pictures - but then to be "shut out" of the show, accidently, by my own decision in trying to do a good thing for my mental health, was... hard.  It was also, as I felt, probably my only legitimate chance to show Smoky in an entire performance division and not have it be a gag or a pile of throwaway entries.  It was a chance to show performance and not have the stress of trying to do everything perfectly or deal with a lack of proper equipment, set ups, props, and so on. 

I really had gotten "in the zone".  I was speed building tack (namely western and english bridles for him) and coming up with crazy, fun ideas - as fast as I could finish the previous one.  I innovated, a great deal.  I'd get an idea: "Ohhh, that would be awesome!...  But how can I do it?"  and then I'd do it.  the clothesline, the out of focus romping (fleeing) dog in the foreground, those were just a couple of ideas I had no idea if I could do, until I did them.

Then, it felt like it was for nothing.  Not nothing, I have the pictures, I'd had fun, I'd learned things.  Those are what the rational brain says.  Irrationally (?), I was crushed.  I also beat myself up mercilessly for being so upset.  This whole situation is SO the definition of a "first world problem", of "privilege", yes, I knew that.  Still I felt broken, and felt broken for feeling broken, and so the spiral went.

Next up on the big photo show radar was The Field of Dolls Photo Show.  I had joined the FB group,  downloaded the show packet and class list, and had my eye on plans for it.  Then, when things went "bad", I didn't want to make any plans.  I was just done.  It's been quietly in the back of my mind all month but I still wasn't feeling up to even trying.  

A few days ago, on a Skype call with my friend Anne, she mentioned that entries were due in a couple of days.  I, half jokingly, said maybe I'd try to throw something together.  In that same chat, she and I both marveled over Troubadour, the newest addition to my herd and, in her words, "a total dream horse".  

Yesterday was the day, as Anne reported to me (being that I'm still off FB and out of the loop), entries would be accepted until the password was changed this morning.  I had other things loosely planned for the day, but I decided to "to see what I could come up with" intending to..  um, maybe "half ass" a few pictures and see how I felt.  At first I was not feeling it, but I kept going. 

This led to a near full day of playing with supplies, tack, props, dolls, and speed building two more bridles - english and western - this time for the stunningly beautiful Troubadour.  A "real" performance horse, not my all time sentimental favorite who is "not" a performance horse.  It doesn't feel like an over exaggeration to say that yesterday was a battle.  I cried, more than once, and raged against an inner voice saying things like "why bother, you're wasting your time, this isn't going to go well either" and other lies that we sometimes tell ourselves.  I said okay, whatever - yeah, sometimes I almost believed it - but I kept going.  

I tried to improvise with what I had and come up with stories.  It feels like a bit of a bad idea to share them all here now, so maybe in a future post.  For now, here's one picture that I took when testing out tack and setups.  Then I stopped, looked at this, and smiled.
  

Oh, and the Smoky pics?  Well...  I came up with justifications to put one of them in each scene class in the "fun" division.  

I don't want want to jinx anything, but... I think I'll be okay.

Bad Performance? All Of It

 At The Jennifer Show last year, there was a class called Bad Performance.  Unfortunately, I didn't actually see it, I think I was busy getting my ginormous Stagecoach entry ready for the Big Dreams class.  I've seen some pictures from it and have heard a lot of people talking about how great it was - most recently, the Mares In Black podcast. 

Speaking of the podcast: they are having a Spooktacular photo show, which is now being judged.  They had an interesting class list of prompts for class names.  They encouraged people to think outside the box.  For their performance classes, they offered two options: Consistency - the same horse doing all (or most) of the classes, and Specialist - a different horse in each class.  

The formation of my ideas could be an entirely separate post, but I'll summarize it for now by saying:  I entered every performance class with a Breyer Smoky.  You might be saying: "How?!" or "Why?!".  Well, the "why" could be its own post as well and maybe it will be.  Actually I think this whole affair may result in several posts, possibly even the resurrection of this blog?

The "how" will be shown here, at least in the final photos I entered.  In my head, I was telling a story of a rambunctious horse who changed hands partway through, but continued to get into trouble and have adventures.  Then had his biggest adventure when he took to the sky!  Though the pictures are out of order in the show albums and I didn't take them in order, I'll put them in story order here.

This Smoky's name is Indy.  He came with the name and that's ANOTHER story.  



First up, for the class "Strappy"

Don't forget to check you connector strap, kids!  Don't want that back cinch going TOO far back...

"Home on the Range"

Indy: I'm freeeee!
Larry: Get back here, you son of a....

"Stock Market"

It was a quiet day in the parking lot of the local super market, when...

Hey, where's that cowboy guy who was looking for his horse?

"What Could POSSIBLY Go Wrong?"

Look, a kid's horse for sale.  He looks great!  He and Little Billy could grow up together!

"Drama Llama"

What is that long-eared horse eating devil creature?!

"Just Dance"

Practicing at home for Hunter class, but Indy doesn't want to be a Hunter.  He wants to DANCE! 

"Sliding Scale"

After eating some mushrooms in the pasture, the weirdest thing happened.

"Action Park"

After bolting, Indy finds a dog park.  Fun!!

"All Dressed Up"

Indy is wearing a fancy new English saddle and bridle, but that's not enough for this forward thinking fashion mogul.  That clothesline over there should do the trick.

"Fly High"

Indy has really done it now.  He ran off, got himself lost, and stuck.  He was found and is now being airlifted to safety.

In summary, I see the idea of a Bad Performance class and raise it to an entire division.  Hahaha.

This was SO much fun and many much needed laughs were had.  Starting out, I wasn't sure if it was possible.  Then, when I came up with ideas for a class ("carry him with a drone!" "wrap him in a clothesline full of clothes!"), I wasn't sure I could pull it off.  Each time I did, and looked at the pictures, I couldn't stop smiling and laughing at the whole thing.

I must give thanks to my friend, Jennifer Buxton, for the encouragement along the way.  She entered to show too and we were sharing our creations as we came up with them.  She's always a huge inspiration for me, especially when it comes to taking model horse pictures.

Thanks to my other friend, Susan Bensema Young, for the gift of Indy and the delightful phone call a few photos in.  I had sent her a few pictures of this to share his adventures.  That was before he flew!  

Thanks also to my husband, Jeff - the drone pilot.  :-)

I have no idea how I'll do in the judging but, I already feel like a winner.  This was awesome and I want to do more!!  

Stay tuned for more on this.  Thinking I could do posts on:

Other ideas and pictures I had come up with in the beginning.
Why Smoky?
Behind the scenes, setting up these pictures.
The story of Smoky's flight.  

Which should I do first?  

Show String: New Faces

Last month I sent off my first entry for the 2017-2018 show year with MEPSA.  The results for the first division (OF) came out yesterday.  I thought it'd be fun to share several of the new faces that went to the show.

However, first is an old face, he showed last year, but I'm happy to say that he placed 2nd in the Arabian class at this first show, qualifying him for next year's Championship already.

His name is Denar.

Some of the "new" additions already had names and have gone to some live shows before we all moved to Japan.

All of the rest of these pictures were taken last October at the beach, looking east across the Pacific.

This is Strawberry Fizz:

Big and Rich:

Now to some horses that needed names.  I pulled inspiration from song titles and...  mostly from Game of Thrones.

Shameless, named after a song by The Weeknd:

Party Monster, another The Weeknd song.  She placed in Light Type Mare and the American Saddlebred class:

The North Remembers, from Game of Thrones.  He placed 2nd in Appaloosa color, qualifying him for the Championship next year.  He also earned top tens in Light Stallion and Carriage Breeds.

Kissed by Fire, another Game of Thrones-named horse:

Red Viper, another from GoT:

Cookies n' Cream, my daughter actually named him for me a few years ago.  I set her pictures of a few unnamed horses, before I went to a live show, and that's what she named him.  For his MEPSA debut, he placed 3rd in Appaloosa breed, qualifying for the Championships.  He also got in the top ten for Stock gelding and Appaloosa color:

Attraction, he's one that's had a name for a while now.  I named him after the theatre group that does stories using shadows, they were on Britain's Got Talent (or some related show) and were amazing:

Oathkeeper, another Game of Thrones-inspired name:

Galaxy, he's had that name for a long time:

Eastwatch, another from Game of Thrones:

Breaker of Chains, one of Daenerys Targaryen's (many) titles in Game of Thrones:

Jose, a little Donkey custom that I painted a looong time ago:

Samuel, another Donkey foal that I painted many years ago:

Roberto, the third amigo, Donkey foal custom I painted a long time ago:

Stormborn, another of Daenerys Targaryen's names in Game of Thrones:

Siglavy Estaria, someday I need to create a mare named Estaria, this is already her second son.  I also have an old custom Lipizzaner of mine that I named Pluto Estaria:

Dark Words, another inspiration from Game of Thrones:

Blackwater, yet another Game of Thrones name.  He placed 2nd in the Clydesdale/Shire class!:

Spoils of War, another from Game of Thrones, but the phrase is a common one anyway:

Chimney Sweeper...  I have no idea, he looked sooty, his tail is kind of sweeping the ground...?  Sometimes I come up with epic names, sometimes I don't.  Haha, I still like this one though:

I'm eagerly and anxiously awaiting the results from the AR and CM divisions of this first show.  It's fun to show OF, but the AR/CM horses are the ones I'm most invested in.  ;)

Quick Post - Beach Picture

Today we went to the beach again so Jeff could fly his little fleet of quadcoptors and I could attempt to take more horse pictures - hopefully for photo showing.

The sun was bright today, the opposite of the problem I had last time, when it was dark and stormy.  I haven't decided if the pictures from today are too bright and washed out (I really hope not...) and haven't resized any of them yet to share, save for this one.

He is Apollo, named for the god of the sun, inspired by his brilliant copper coat.  Can't you almost picture him racing across the sky?

Much like how I thoroughly enjoy creating things, but not so much the process of getting them documented and listed for sale or what have you... I enjoy taking pictures, not so much the formatting and attempting to edit them.

I hope the pictures I took today will be good enough to use.  I'd like to go out and get a BUNCH more this week, of other horses, before sending out my next MEPSA entry/entries.  So far I've been entering the same string of horses/photos in the Mini Specialties, but I have plenty more minis to be able to add a bunch more to my string.  Also would like to start entering some of the other shows too (larger than Mini).

Photo Show Photo Shoot

Today was exciting; I did my first quick little photo show photo shoot in...  a long, long time!

I focused on my custom Stablemates for today.  It was so much fun to get fresh, new pictures of the old horses, and to finally get some nice pictures of the new(er) ones.

Tomorrow I'll be labeling pictures and getting them in the mail!

Braymere Winter Photo Challenge - My Entries!

Jennifer Buxton of Braymere Custom Saddlery is having a Winter Photo Challenge.  I've been dying to enter ever since she announced it, but the Stock Show preparations - and then manning the booth - have taken ALL of my time lately!

Today I have a half day of sorts from the Stock Show (I had to come home early to laser some new things) and I decided to sneak in some picture taking so that I could enter!  ;)

Here we go!


1. Vintage
I couldn't decide if I'd go with some of my first OFs, or one of my first customs.  Today I realized that I could do both in one family.  Here are the family Arabs in charcoal.  The stallion and foal are unmolested (other than being played with by my mom.. and me), but alas, the mare is sporting possibly my first paintjob on a Breyer (or as far as I got anyway)  So, here we go - vintage OF AND custom, all together (bonus for the snazzy vintage "leg wraps" the FAS is sporting... ha!):

2. Nekkid
Nekkid baby! 

3. Scale issues

Brave little micro mini says:  "Run for your life, cow, I'll hold off the giant dog!"

 

 

 

4. I see spots

Indeed!

 

 

5. Unbridled passion

Smokey, running wild and free (inside the house... on a cold day...)  ;)

 

 

 

6. Rare breed

This is the rarest model I've ever owned.  She is also uber rare to me in that she is the first big thing I've EVER won in any kind of a drawing.  I've never had any kind of luck in that sort of thing, but if it was all saved up to have her, it was worth it.  When they called my name, I didn't even know what to do.

 

 

 

 

 

7. Portrait

An old portrait model I did of an old horse named Sonny.  He belonged to a friend and fellow boarder, many years ago.  He passed away right before I gave her this model.  It wasn't meant to be a memorial of him, but it ended up that way.  I'm glad I was able to do this for her and that she liked him.

 

 

 

8. Conga 

Smokey is not one that might be normally seen in a conga, but I have a bunch of them.  He was my very first Breyer, the one that started it all.  Now I have several and even more in the body box that aren't here!

 

 

 

9. The great outdoors

Rose and her sleigh on Christmas morning

 

 

10. Best in show

Darkness Falls, my first ever Overall Champion at a live show and a most unexpected one.  He took the honors for Overall Champion OF Breyer at my first live show in over a decade.  I felt like a little kid again.  And like any good stallion, he added more mares and foals to the herd.  ;)  (pictured with his winnings - rosettes and moar horses!)