#model horse

Today's model is Nemea, on Breyer's Akhal-Teke mold. This model was released in 2023 for Breyerfest that year. The sculpture is by Heather Puleo.

The theme for Breyerfest 2023 was "Driving Forward", and centered the horse's role in human history. Nemea honored the horses who drew chariots in the ancient world, specifically Greece. The colors, patterns, and images displayed on the model are meant to look like black figure pottery.

(image from qaqooking.wiki)

Black figure pottery was developed sometime before the 7th century BCE. It was made by painting figures and patterns in black or other opaque colors onto the piece, and leaving the background the clay's natural orange color. As someone who loves history and ancient painting styles, I simply had to go for a model that referenced this art.

When I started this blog, I didn't have many models on the same mold as others. I've since ended up with a few doubles, though I haven't done an actual conga yet. I think a conga requires at least three. Or maybe I'm making that up.

Once again, the box looked like someone kicked it. It's not pictured here because of tumblr's 10 image limit.

Each model came in its own paper package. First is Edge of Glory:

Next is Miss Independent:

And finally, the one I was most excited for, (the one I bought the set for,) I Will Survive:

I love her so much! Very happy I was able to nab her before they sold out.

Breyer's traditional scale Fighting Stallion is a longtime favorite, and I always enjoy the chance to give one a makeover! This poor guy was missing his left front hoof when I got him, but I've given him a new one and painted him to a vivid red roan.

Hello. This is my favorite breyer model. I got him as a present from the boy i had a crush on in 4th grade. Later that boy came out as gay, and still later i came out at as a man, but we never hooked up.

That is not important to why i love this horse though. I'm not sure why he became my favorite. I had a bunch of breyers (my mom got me started collecting them so i would be excited to go to antique stores with her while she shopped for Westmoreland glass). But he went everywhere with me. One time i took him to the beach and mom told me not to play with him in the sand because he would get scratched up and i said it didn't matter because I'd love him anyway. She never told me to be careful with my breyers after that. She said she supposed it didn't matter if i wasnt planning on ever selling them.

And i never did sell any. When i was in high school, my dad put most of my collection in storage because it took up so much space, but the storage place was broken into and they were stolen. It broke my heart. I couldnt stand to collect them anymore.

Until about two years ago when i happened to look up breyer horses on google to show them to a friend, and i happened to see Jewel the rainbow breyer, and since then I've spent way too much money on new models. I never had decorators as a kid so I've been kind of obsessed with them.

Today's horse was once a complete mystery. I've had it since I was a child, but didn't recall how I acquired it, and for a while, I couldn't seem to find any information on it at all. I had no idea who made it or when. I seemed to have vague memories of other horses in a set with this one, and it had a rider at some point that I pried off (see the peg on the back of the neck). Other than that? Nothing.

Then one day I was browsing ebay for Ertl horses, and I spied a familiar looking horse in a lot. It wasn't this one, but it had the same style. Following a trail of breadcrumbs and a lot of unlabeled horse figures, I finally found my little guy here.

He is a Britains Ltd. Deetail horse and rider figure (minus rider, of course), and he used to look something like this:

(Image from ebay)

He would've had a rubber band for reins, and a metal stand. I didn't even remember that he had a stand at all until I saw this photo, and then it all came back to me. I have no idea still how I got a figure from England from the 1970s, but I frequented garage sales and such as a kid, so who knows. Who knows what happened to the other horses in the set, either.

Not the best light but, I saw you had two posts about the halflinger mare and now I really want to talk about mine! I found the bay overo at some random yard sale roughly a few years ago for like, 7 dollars! She is such a nice find and in surprisingly good condition! Not perfect but overall good! The grey mare is from the newer family mustang set from like 2025 or early 2024. I forgot lol. Been trying to find other affordable and close variants of them but not a lot of luck so far!

!!! I love this mold! I only have the two myself, but despite having said I didn't want to do congas before, I'd consider it for this one.

Today's horse (unicorn) is a special one: an art doll made by Mariia Iakovenko, also known as red_riverroad (Red River Road) on instagram. After searching their posts, I found this exact one in a post from May 13th, 2021, so that's about when she was made.

This doll has a plush body with sculpted, articulated plastic (resin?) feet and plastic head/horn. The limbs, neck, and tail are all poseable, as is the body to some extent. The legs and head have been beautifully hand-painted, and the mane and tail hair are made of what I believe is Tibetan sheep's wool.

I acquired this art doll in an odd place: a meetup for a completely different, entirely un-horse-related hobby. It was partially a sales/swap meet, and this girl was on offer from one of the other hobbyists. After about five seconds of careful consideration, I decided to bring her home with me. She was very popular for the rest of the meetup.

As my pictures aren't the greatest here, allow me to borrow one from the artist's instagram (link here).