How to Decorate a Base With Static Grass - Part Three

 

After parts One and Two of this series, our base is looking pretty good. It's covered in a nice lush layer of static grass, and if you wanted, you could just finish the bottom and leave it as is. But I wanted to add a nice dusting of snow to this piece, so I'll be covering that as well.

In the Studio - Painting and Sculpting

Using a telephoto lens probably wasn't the best choice here; poor Truffle looks a bit squished from this angle.

I have a lot of different projects going on a the moment. Probably too many, and I probably should just pick one and finish it before moving on to something else, but I've never been able to get that to work.

Lots of Spots

 

I've been working on the second artist's proof Truffle quite a bit over the last couple of days and thought I'd share a picture of my progress. He still needs a lot of work, but I like the way he's going and think he'll really start to come together once I start working on his points and blending everything together.

How to Decorate a Base With Static Grass - Part Two

 

If you haven't already, I recommend reading Part One of this series, where I showed you how to prep a base for static grass application. In part two, I'll show you how to go about adding the static grass.

 

How to Decorate a Base with Static Grass - Part One

I first learned about static grass last year while looking for tutorials on how to make plaster rocks for a diorama project. I thought it looked pretty cool, and a few months later I was able to get a static grass applicator and think it's the best tool I've tried so far for creating realistic grass for model horses.

 

Most of the static grass tutorials I've found have been on model train sites. I haven't been able to find any model horse sites that even mention it, so I though I would do a tutorial on it here and hopefully introduce more people to this cool material.

In the Studio - Spots and Sparkles

I've just realized I haven't done a post here in over a month. August ended up being a really busy for me, especially since I managed to do a trip to see the eclipse, but hopefully I'll have a bit more time to work on horses now.


Diamond Ring just before totality in Grand Island, Nebraska

Hopefully I'll also have some more substantial posts finished soon, but for now, here's a quick update on the two Truffles I'm painting:

What I'm Doing this Weekend

Sadly, I'm not able to go to Kentucky this weekend. But I though I'd do a quick post to show you a few of horses I'll be working on.

First up are the two Truffle resins in the photo above. I'm having a lot of fun with the unicorn. His color was inspired by a certain frozen beverage that was all over the internet earlier this year.

I just started painting the leopard appaloosa last night. Right now I'm working on getting the layout of his spots right. With appaloosas, getting the spots right is probably the most important thing. It doesn't matter how nice everything else about the paint job is if the spotting pattern is unrealistic or appears contrived. I see some things on this guy that need changing already, but that's easy enough to do at this stage.

Next is the pulling Shire, whom I've decided to call Boxer, at least for now. He's still a mess, and the gold bead eyes are kind of creepy, but I'm making progress.

Lastly is another new sculpture, which will hopefully start to look more like a Thoroughbred at some point. I'm tentatively calling this one 'Hello Seattle.'

So if you are going to Kentucky this weekend, I hope you have fun, and if you're not going, at least know that you're not alone!

In the Studio





Tonight I thought I'd share a couple of picture of models I'm currently working on.

 

First up is a Truffle resin I'm resculpting to a unicorn. This guy was a second that came out of the mold with an incomplete tail. He is one of the few Truffles I've made so far that has a magnetic base. There's still a bit more resculpting and a lot of prepping to do before he's ready to paint.

And this is a new sculpture I'm working on. He's 1:12 scale and still very much a mess at this point, but hopefully you can sort of see what I'm going for. I've gotten a bit further since this picture was taken; he doesn't need a block of polymer clay to stand any more and all the aluminum foil has been covered up.




 

Unpainted Truffles Availible!

 

Two unpainted Truffle resins are now available! Click Here (or on 'Truffle Resin' in the sidebar) and click on the PayPal button to order.

More Unpainted Truffles Will Be Available Soon

I plan on having some more unpainted Truffle resins available for sale this Friday, June 30. I plan on making them available at 10:30 p.m. (EDT)

I will be posting here on my blog and on MH$P when the sale starts, and will ship all paid orders on Monday, July 3.

Thank you everyone for your interest in my work! Very soon I'll be posting about my next sculpture currently in progress.

Original Finish Model Reviews #1 - Cracker Barrel Blind Bag Stablemates

  

 
Today I thought I'd try something new: a review of some of my newest original finish models.  This review is just my opinion and is based on what I have personally observed. Some of it is merely speculation, and it is entirely likely that some of my speculations are either partially or entirely wrong. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if people seem to like this I might do some more of these reviews in the future.

Anyway, last week I heard there was a new set blind bag Stablemates that had been released. At Cracker Barrel of all places.

Dapple Bay Truffle

 

Today I wanted to share the first artist's proof Truffle, done in dappled bay with a blaze and left hind sock. He was done in airbrushed and hand painted acrylics with just a little bit of colored pencil for some of the details. The removable base was finished using a variety of materials, including sand, flocking, and static grass. The base also has a suede leather bottom to prevent it from scratching surfaces.

He is available for offers until Sunday night on MH$P here.

Creating Truffle - Part Two

Truffle on February 17, 2016. He's looking a lot more refined, and even has a tail bone

I haven't been able to find any of my progress pictures from 2015. Fortunately there wasn't anything particularly exciting to show. I just worked on him on and off between other projects, and he spent a significant amount of time just hanging out on the metal edge of my TV cabinet.

Creating Truffle - Part One

I thought it might be interesting to do a series on Truffle's long journey from being bits of bent wire to a finished resin. This isn't meant to be a tutorial, just a series to give anyone that may be curious an idea of how I did things.

Truffle Now Available!

A few Truffles are now available! See here for more details: http://modelhorsesalespages.com/view.asp?id=1273563

Removing Paint from an Original Finish Model - Part One

Today I was cleaning and found a Breyer Goffert I started etching ages ago and eventually gave up on. The black paint on this guy was really thick and I just didn't like how he was turning out, so I moved on to other projects and basically even forgot I had this poor fellow.

More Pictures of Truffle

Just wanted to share some more pictures of Truffle. I should have some pictures of my first painted copy soon. He looks great in color!

Fixing Models with Acetone

I added a new horse to my original finish collection today:


 

Last year, Breyer released a special run for members of their 'Collector Club' on Christmas Day. It was a gambler's choice style run; if you bought a model you didn't know if you would get red, green, or gold. I got the gold.

I'm never happy just having one from a set, so I've been trying to find the red and green for reasonable prices. Since this poor guy's tail was not attached, he was about as reasonable as I could possibly hope to find.

Truffle!

I'm proud to introduce 'Truffle' the Trait du Nord, who is the first original sculpture that I've actually managed to finish. He's mini sized with a detachable base, and this is a picture of one of the very first castings. I'll hopefully be posting more details about him soon!

Welcome!

Welcome to my studio blog! Here I'll be posting updates on current projects, as well as tips and tutorials.