Show Stoppers: Artist Resins

As I said in last month’s Show Stoppers post, I am mostly an Original Finish collector. Artist Resins (ARs) are the scarcest thing in my collection - I, the person who breaks Breakable Things just by looking at them, even have more Breakable Things than ARs. There are many AR sculpts out there that I love (cough cough VINCENZO cough cough), but I’ve talked about my hesitation to drop a comma on things, and good paint jobs on ARs typically involve commas. The naked resins themselves are also Not Cheap.

Thus it is that I find myself with a mere five ARs to my name. Only four of them will make today’s post - this is a post about show models and my Veronka, despite being purchased in 2022, is still naked. I’m having a problem deciding on her color because that sculpt literally looks good in everything.

(Who am I kidding. She’ll end up bay.)

 

Given how long I’ve lusted over Vincenzo, I never thought a Walter - well, a pair of Walters - would be the first ARs in my collection.

But then Sheryl Leisure had a table at the Artisan Gallery at BreyerFest 2015 and had a bunch of painted Walters there for the incredibly cheap price of $125 each. I stood there and debated between the dapple gray and the caramel dun for like twenty minutes. Then it went like this:
    Sheryl: “See something you like?”
    Me: “I’m trying to decide between these two.”
    Sheryl: “How about both for $200?”
    Me: “Sold.”

 

I've only shown them once; the caramel dun placed 5th and the gray placed 6th. I don't remember which name goes with which model, but one of them is called Impulse Buy and the other is Steal of a Deal.

They’re slightly tippy and Felice the Destructor absolutely would have done them in, so they stayed safely in their boxes until we moved into our current house and I had a room with a door that closed. I probably should have redone their glamour shots with the better camera on my newer phone instead of using these ones from 2015, but there have been some Incidents in the horse room lately and suffice it to say, I'm afraid to touch anything.

 

 

The next AR to join my collection was this delicious Cromwell, painted by the incomparable Myla Pearce. His show name is Pompous Pete, though I just call him Pete for short. Pete was originally purchased and commissioned by my friend Heather B.

 

[It seems I can't get through one of these posts without Heather showing up somewhere.]

Heather brought Pete to a bunch of shows in the early and mid-2010s. I drooled over him every time I saw him. I’m pretty sure I voted him as the Overall Overall one time when the show holders asked the showers to vote. There is such depth to his paint job and the only words I can think of to describe his whites are “soft” and “touchable.” I’m really a pinto person, and I’m definitely not a draft person, but Pete won me over the second I saw him.

Fast forward to early 2018, when Heather said to me, “Do you want Pete?” I wonder what my face looked like when she asked; I’m sure it was some interesting combination of shock, disbelief, and “Oh hell yeah!” Heather was intensely congaing Brishens at the time and didn’t have an original Brishen in her collection because most of them were decidedly greenish in tone, not the lovely liver color from the stock photo. Mine was less green than most, so Heather suggested a trade of her Pete for my Brishen plus a pitiful amount of cash. I still feel bad about how little it was; the blank Cromwell body probably cost her more than that. It was definitely a lopsided trade, but Pete going somewhere he’d be appreciated was more important to her than what she could get for him.

Have I mentioned she’s the best?

On January 8, 2018, we met up for the exchange, and Pete was mine.

I show the ever-loving hell out of him, despite the fact that (a) he’s a heavy wee thing and (b) he takes up a lot of room in the show tote and (c) I’m typically managing multiple OF divisions and/or judging something at the same time, so having to keep track of AR classes for one model is an extra level of challenge. He’s been on the table at 13 shows since I bought him and has only been entirely shut out of the ribbons once. With me, he’s earned 5 breed NAN cards, 5 workmanship NAN cards, a reserve section champ in workmanship, two section champs and two overall (entire division) champs in workmanship, and a Top 5 in Region 10 for workmanship. Myla did an incredible job on him and I am thankful every day that he graces my shelves.

 

 

This Denderah resin, sculpted by Karen Gerhardt, made his first appearance on my blog as one of my “Top 5 of 2025” models. I wanted to tell his full story then, but it’s show-related, so I saved it for here.

Quick recap - Denderah was a pandemic purchase in August 2020. He hung around naked until January 2025, when the perfect set of circumstances aligned to get him painted: I had finally landed on his color, Jennifer Danza had just opened commission slots, and my parents had gifted me some Christmas money, which I chose to put toward his paint job. (That last part will become important in a bit.) I sent him off to Jennifer with the instructions to make him a red bay shaded to hell and back, and he arrived to me in April, every bit as outstanding as I’d hoped he’d be.

In early June 2025, I took Denderah with me to a two-day show in Hammondsport, NY. We’ve got family up there on my mom’s side, so my mom came with me. Our cousin JoAnn graciously put us up at her house for the weekend, which was exactly a three-minute drive from the show hall, and she and my mom had a great time hanging out and catching up while I was at the shows.

They stopped by the hall on Saturday afternoon to see what the fuss was all about. JoAnn has always been intrigued by the hobby, and my mom said something like, “You talk about these shows all the time and I can never quite picture what you’re doing, so I want to see it for myself.”

Their timing could not have been better. Workmanship classes at these shows were split out from the breed classes, and the bay class was called shortly after they arrived, so my mom got to see me take Denderah up to the show table. A few minutes later, the judge finished up - and Denderah had a first place ribbon and a yellow NAN card in front of him. I’m pretty sure I squealed out loud and yelled “Mom!” across the show hall and held his winnings up for her to see.

As I said above, my parents have always been my biggest enablers and biggest champions when it comes to my collection. To have my mom help fund Denderah’s workmanship and be there to see him get his first NAN card for workmanship was the best moment of the whole weekend.

I’m pretty sure she would say that the best part for her was the huge ridiculous grin on my face when I brought him back to my table.

He went on to take earn a Top 5 rosette in workmanship that day, and then did the exact same thing on Sunday under a different judge. At a show in October, he took first in his class in both breed and workmanship, and also section reserved in both. His show career is just beginning and I can’t wait to see what else he does.

 

My next order of business with ARs is to get my Veronka painted.

 

Then maybe I'll finally get myself a Vincenzo. 

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth: 60s Bay Fighting Stallion

In addition to all my awesome model horse hobby friends who have gifted me things, I have also been gifted models from non-model-horse collectors.

I’ll have known my boyfriend, Chris, for 25 years this April. (God, we’re not that old, are we?) In high school, he was friends with a guy named Steve, who married a gal named Carrie. Steve and Carrie been together as long as Chris and I, if not longer. They're Jeep people, like Chris, and they also have a floofy black kitty whom they rescued as a feral kitten, which automatically makes them Really Cool People. We’re all friends on Facebook.

Carrie has been a long-time collector of Barbies, and she and Steve frequently go out treasure hunting to flea markets and estate/yard/rummage sales. In August 2015, Carrie sent me a message that she had acquired eight Breyers at a rummage sale and wanted help identifying and pricing them. They were a mix of 60s-70s vintage models and some newer, mid-2000s regular runs. I couldn’t tell from the photos if any of the vintage ones were chalky (they were all correct for the era) so we agreed to meet up at my house so I could look at them. Carrie and Steve also wanted to meet Felice, who was only three months old at that time and already a Facebook star in her own right.

As soon as Carrie freed this guy from his bubble wrap, I knew I had to have him.

 

 

This guy is one of the prettiest bay Fighting Stallions I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. #35 King, The Fighting Stallion had a long, long run in Breyer’s lineup, from 1961-1987. There are a zillion copies of him out there. This particular model is from the 60s - he doesn’t have the USA stamp, he’s got factory eyewhites, and he has remnants of the foot and tail pads that Breyer added to some models throughout the 60s to prevent them from scuffing furniture. The 60s models also tend to have the best shading, and this guy's shading is outstanding on both sides, so that also points him to this time frame.

He’s awesome.

The rest of the models in the lot were in great shape, except for a chipped ear on the bay Running Mare. I cleaned up a few stray marks on them, and then helped Steve and Carrie write up the descriptions for their eBay store and set Buy-It-Now prices. Once we arrived at a price on the Fighter, I asked them for their PayPal address so I could pay them.

Steve and Carrie looked at each other, came to an agreement without saying a word, and then Carrie said, “Consider it payment for helping us with the rest of them.”

I double and triple checked that they were okay with that - he was by far the most valuable of the lot and would have gotten them a great return on their initial investment - but they insisted that I keep him for free.

His show name is their last name, which I won’t share here in the interest of their privacy.

I also wanted to share these pictures - Felice absolutely hated when I was in the horse room without her, and would wail and shove her piggies under the door until I gave in and went out to pet her. I was in the horse room one day trying to get a quick photo of this guy when Felice decided she’d had enough, and these awesome photobombs occurred.

 

"MOM! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE, MOM!"

Full Spectrum: Even More Winter Blues

Ever see the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone? Remember when Madam Mim is having that epic tantrum at the end about hating sunshine, which devolves into her screeching the word “HATE” over and over again?

That’s how I feel about Valentine’s Day.

So today, we ain’t talking about pink models, red models, models with hearts on them, none of that. We’re continuing on with our Winter Blues series. Today is the Stablemates.

 

 

#701705 Stablemates Mini Fanfare was released through the JAH magazine in 2004. There were 1500 total sets made. Each set had the G1 Saddlebred in the four original decorator colors - Gold Charm, Florentine, Wedgewood, and Copenhagen, along with a G1 Draft in one of four colors (who I talked about in last month’s Collectibility Spotlight post). I’ve considered parting with the set in the past, but every time I pull these guys down to pack them up, I just can’t do it.

 

 

#711158 Dungaree was one of the four Single-Day Stablemates produced for BreyerFest 2013. I bought the full set that year, but he’s the only one of the four who is still here. I parted with my Chrome at BreyerWest 2018, and my Rivet and Indigo sadly yellowed while briefly stored between moves. I think they reacted with the bubble wrap.

 

 

I love this little mold. He has the goofiest face, especially when they paint eyewhites on him. This blue guy is #711282 Big Lex, one of the four Single-Day Stablemates made for BreyerFest 2018, Off to the Races. They’ve done a few representations of Big Lex over the years, but I like this little Stablemate the best. I’m sure the gloss has something to do with that.

I bought the full set of Stablemates that year as well, and none of them will ever leave me. My bestie and I have been in love with Silver Charm since his Triple Crown bid in 1998; Man O’ War is my favorite racehorse of all time; and Ruffian is on the G3 Standing Thoroughbred, whom I conga, and is also a Shiny Bay Thing.

I recently saw the set advertised for $550, which seemed like crazy town to me, but apparently that's what they're going for, because it sold.

 

 

This shrunken-down Albycorn (Alborozo unicorn - someone dubbed them that and man did it sure stick in my head) was the chase piece for the Horse Crazy Unicorn Surprise blind bag series, produced from 2018-2020. Even though he was the chase piece, and thus rarer than the others in the series, he wasn’t overly difficult to find, given how long the series was produced. I didn’t even have to go “feeling up the blind bags” to find mine - the seller from whom I bought Hakan in 2020 (featured earlier this month in my Do That Conga post) included the him as a free ride-along!

 

 

I’m not a huge unicorn person, but he’s blue, and he’s a G2 Warmblood, and I’ve congaed this mold since it was first released in 1998 and currently have 32 of them, so I had to have him. I bought him in April 2021 as a ride-along with my Stablemates Club release, Hendrik, so the latter would be double-boxed and less likely to get Seriously Mangled by the post office during shipping.

 

 

God, I hate this mold. (Again, picturing Madam Mim screaming, “Hate! Hate! Hate!”)

But of course they put blue on it, so I had to have it.

This is #712381 Dahlia, who was the gambler’s choice release for the Stablemates Club in 2021. I was in the club that year and received the glossy champagne with my own membership. It seems I completely fell off the map at the end of 2021 and didn’t write down where I got the blue one from (or anything else I bought in November and December that year), but I’m 99.99% sure Heather B was involved again, because I know I got this model at cost.

 

She's the only one of this bunch that I show. I had already named her glossy champagne sister Caledonia, so this blue gal became Caledonia Waterfalls.

 

 

This is #712413 Clydesdale Christmas, the annual holiday Stablemates blind bag release in 2021. Four colors were available, all glossed - blue, gold charm, silver, and red. Blue was obviously my first choice. I received both blue and gold charm; I sold the latter at BreyerFest 2024. Someday I’ll probably pick up a red one, since red is my favorite color.

I absolutely love that they shrunk down the Traditional-scale Clydesdale Stallion. He will someday be a large conga.

 

 

So this is a model I CM’d myself. When I write these posts, I always like to say when models joined my collection, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out when I’d done him. I’d have sworn to you that it was only two or three years ago, but his in-progress photos eluded me for quite awhile.

That’s because it has been a whopping SIX years since I did this guy, and I just didn’t go back far enough. He was a pandemic creation, borne of a Saturday in August 2020 when the only safe way to gather with people was outside. A few of my friends came over and we learned how to flock models on my back deck. I knew right away that I didn’t want something realistic, and my friend had brought a ton of colors with her, so I decided on a blue pinto. 

 

He has a bad hair day every day of his life, and his eyes are scary as hell and need redone, and I’m not sure I’d ever flock a model again by choice, but I’m overall pretty happy with the way he came out.

 

 

This guy arrived in late September 2025, quite a bit before I was expecting him. He’s part of the #B-CS-10464 set from the 2025 Deluxe Collector’s Club. One model in the set was a glossy bay appaloosa on the same mold, named Darius, while the other was one of the four original decorator colors. I’d have preferred the solid blue Wedgewood, but this Copenhagen was my second choice.

 

 

This is #B-CS-10353 Chickadee, the gambler’s choice from the 2025 Stablemates Club. This guy was my first choice of the four colors, even though I hate that pearly shit they put all over everything. The blue totally redeemed him in my eyes. My second choice would have been the glossy solid silver bay (shocking, I know).

He arrived in mid-October last year and was one bright spot amidst a whole bunch of awfulness between work and Felice.

Next month, I’ll finish up the Winter Blues series with the Breyer Traditionals.