Four New Completed Customs

The aim at the moment is to be completing on average a custom every day. We are definitely not hitting that target but I am painting far more than I have been previously and we are getting a fair few completed, so that is something!

I've been trying to work through lots of the unpainted resins and pewters as well as doing a few other customs. Whilst I usually keep most of my little resin and pewters for the micro army I am also trying to be discerning and rehome a few of them as the situation is getting slightly out of hand (you know things are bad when you literally cannot fit in any more micros).

Last week I got four models completed, apologies the photographs aren't very good I had a killer migraine yesterday and was trying to take the photos with said migraine, which was maybe not the brightest idea I'd ever had!

Anyway let's go through them:

CRS Economy Plus (Turbo)

Turbo is a Maggie Bennett Turbulence micro pewter. He is one of the micro club subscriber models (I think he's actually from this year). I really love this little rodeo horse but he was definitely living up to his name whilst painting.

Firstly he is a bit of a wobbler, but kept luring me into a false sense of security by looking like he was stable, allowing me to spray sealant and then flipping over once I'd left the room. Helpful. So he ended up having to have several repairs done on his coat.

That said I was so happy when I finished him and went to do his final seal. And then the nightmare happened (for once it was not me accidentally spraying him with primer). The sealant did the white dust. I did my best to recover the situation, gave him a bath and sprayed another coat but he did have to have extra pastel added and some repainting. He very much lost the richness of his colour on his show side (of course it was his show side I sprayed first). I don't think it ruined him as he's a snowcap spotted so you would expect some dustiness in the coat, but it really annoyed me. I'd been so happy with him.

Anyway he has been painted to a chestnut snowcap spotted. I went for a red halter and then put his initials on the noseband in white (similar to a horse I'd looked at for reference). He will be shown as a Grade Draft as that seems to suit the general draft mix rodeo horse that he is sculpted to be (and frankly I can't be bothered to come up with an exact mix). 

Named Economy Plus after the Kaj song which has been stuck in my head since it came out and his name made me think of aeroplanes which made me think of the song and got it stuck in my head again (which it now is again because I've written this). Also it worked well as a name that could be abbreviated down to be put on the front of the halter.

Maybe It's OK

Maybe It's OK is the 17th Teeny Tiny Night Heather resin that I've painted. As this was the last one that I have I wanted to go with a traditional Fell Pony colour. I had thought about keeping her but I do have my super small one who is painted to a Fell Pony and two black Fells on essentially the same mould seemed a little bit much (space people, space). So I've decided to rehome her, just like the other 16 of them (yep I've never actually kept one I painted). I made sure to make her a decent purebred Fell Pony by ensuring she had no white markings. I did give her lots of depth and shading in her coat though.

She's available here: https://chestnutridge.co.uk/products/maybe-its-ok

Numb Encore

Numb Encore is another Maggie Bennett micro. This is Ducat who was released in December 2020 along with his brother Dosh. Dosh has been painted up already and joined my collection as a lovely light bay Clydesdale with heavy white markings. For Ducat I went with another bay but this time used a reference of a much darker foal with some lovely contrast shading. I wanted to go with a Clydesdale again so added typical heavy white markings on the legs and face. He turned out really nicely.

Again sense has prevailed (I have so many ARC foals) and he is going to be rehomed. I do feel a bit bad separating him from Dosh but maybe you have a Dosh in your collection who needs a Ducat to be friends with?

He's available here: https://chestnutridge.co.uk/products/numb-encore

Bisexual Pride Necklace

To finish I have a really cute little unicorn necklace. I absolutely loved painting the rainbow unicorn with gold mapping and wanted to spend some time doing some more models with a similar technique in different colours. I decided that doing a range of pride flags would be a really cool way to do this and obviously started with the one with the best colours, the bisexual pride flag.

I used the same technique as the rainbow unicorn, using Maskol to map the markings and then airbrushing the colours. I maybe should have thought more about the pattern used in that the purple is quite hidden but I'm really happy with how the colours turned out.

The model had already been prepped to be a necklace so I kept that and added a purple cord with gold hardware to match the model. Every collector needs a Mini Whinnie necklace and why not also have one that has your pride colours on?

He is available here: https://chestnutridge.co.uk/products/bisexual-pride-mw-necklace

Three New Resins

I've been busy painting recently and have started to try and put a dent in all the unpainted micros. Probably pushed on by the fact that I literally do not have any more space for unpainted micros (although it is worth noting that I also don't have any space for painted micros so we are in a little bit of a predicament).

I've got three finished over the last few days, two heavy horses and a Morgan. I prepped these models over a year ago with a plan to take the Shire to Recycled Live. But, like many things, when I fell pregnant again that got pushed to the bottom of the todo list and nothing got painted until I went on maternity leave seven weeks ago!

So let's go through and see what I completed

First up we have CRS White Marble aka Pierre.

Pierre is a Maggie Bennett Donner resin from 2017 (yes that is how long some of these horses stand unpainted on the shelf for, I'm pretty she he is not actually the oldest one). He was sculpted as a Boulonnais and as I don't actually have a Boulonnais in my collection I decided to go for a standard grey and keep him.

He has been painted to a fleabitten grey. His base colour was done with pastels and then he has hand done fleabites with pastel pencils across his whole body. He was finished off in hand painted acrylics. I went with a heavy metallic grey for the base to contrast his light body colour.

Second we have CRS Blakemore

Blakemore is a CF Micro Pewter Shire (Winston). I purchased the full set of CF micros when they were released, this is the third one to get painted and joins my Exmoor and Welsh D. 

He has been painted to a traditional Shire black with four even white socks and a white stripe. I really just wanted your bog standard traditional Shire colour for him. He has plenty of shading and some lovely sunburnt highlights in his mane and tail. Blakemore is also staying with me as I didn't have a single ARC Shire before I completed him.

Finally we have 'On My Own'

As the name suggests this is the only sales piece of the batch. He was painted with the intention to sell but I fell increasingly in love with him the more work I did on him. I very much want to keep him but he was done as a sales piece and I think should probably be sold. I have, however, put him in my micro cabinet and can't say I'll be disappointed if he ends up staying with me for some time!

On My Own is a Maggie Bennett Armstrong micro pewter. He was sculpted as a very angry Morgan Stallion. I love how much character he has and I think the fiery chestnut really suits his personality.

He was painted in airbrushed acrylics with pastels and pigments for shading. He was finished in hand painted acrylic with white flecking across his flanks, four white stocks and a white blaze. I think this dramatic colour works so well for such a dramatic little horse.

He is available now at Chestnut Ridge priced at £100. Click here to give him a new home.

Which is your favourite from this batch? I hope you like the colour choices as much as I do!

Two New Customs

I feel like I haven't really painted in ages so it was really nice to sit down and get some painting done over the last few days.

I needed to finish the roan custom that we are giving away this month on our Facebook page but I also wanted to work on getting some of my resins painted. I am getting slightly bored of the passive aggressive comments from my husband about how I never paint any my resins and how many unpainted ones I have, so I am working on making sure that several get complete!

I had a nice morning finishing these two off and listening to my audiobook. The light was good, although I have also added a new light to my study which means I can now easily paint on dark dreary days (like today for example)! I also did a bit of work on a few other models that I have been working on for a while, but these are the two that I finished.

Roan Fighting Stallion

The first model is this gorgeous roan fighting stallion. This model is Stablemate scale and is the M1 Fighting Stallion. I love these cute little shrinkie Traditional scale models and adore painting them. They always look so lovely.

When I was thinking of what model would be a great choice for the roan prize to be offered in my competition this guy just struck me as the perfect choice. As a Mustang I have real freedom of colour and roan suits him so well. He will be an easy model for his new owner to show as the colour suits the breed well.

He is painted with airbrushed acrylics, pastels and hand painted acrylic details. I started with his base coat using an airbrush to build the colours up slowly from light to dark. I then airbrushed white paint to give full roaning across the coat. I used hand painted acrylics to add some more detail to his roaning and then some pastels for a little bit of shading. His details were finished off in hand painted acrylics with gloss on his eyes and hooves.

I named this cute little guy Keep Your Eyes on me. As always he is named after a song, do you know this one?

If you want to give a home to this model then head along to our Facebook page and enter our look-a-like competition. This is open until April 30th. Click here to see the post.

Perlino Cob

The second model is a super cute little resin cob. This is one of the Maggie Bennett micros. I have so many of these guys it is getting completely out of hand so I always feel good when I paint one!

The model is 'Offerman' and is a Pewter micro that was released as part of the club in 2019. So yes this poor guy has been sat here for nearly 6 years with no clothes! At least he is finally finished. He is a cute little bowing Cob with plenty of fluff.

I have named this more CRS Phosphorus which just seemed to suit. No shortened name, he can just be Phosphorus!

I painted him to an adorable perlino colour. I wanted to do a perlino as I actually don't have a solid custom perlino so I thought if I had full freedom of colour with a Cob I would pick a colour that I did not already have! I gave him heavy white markings as is often seen with American style Vanners.

The model is painted with airbrushed acrylics and then has been finished off with some pastelling. I used some of my new metallic pastels to give her coat a slight shimmer, something which is often seen on double cream models.

Which is your favourite out of the pair?