Full Spectrum: Spectrum

Okay, the double Spectrum in the title kinda made me twitch, but there's really no help for it.

 

#1834, Spectrum, was a Flagship store special run in 2020, again limited to 3500 pieces. I got her from Kraynaks, too, but in a more roundabout way. 

 

We missed our annual family Kraynaks trip that year due to the pandemic, which was super depressing. We’d gone to see the Christmas tree display at Kraynaks every year without fail since 1983, when I was four years old. Even if we had to move it to a different day because one or another family member was working or Mother Nature threw a temper tantrum and sent a blizzard, we always found a way to make it. It's one of the longest-standing family traditions we have, and it's one of the days I look forward to the most all year. 2020 was hard in a lot of ways, but not being able to go to Kraynaks with my family was one of the hardest things.

 

In early 2021, after we'd been vaccinated, a few friends and I went up to Kraynaks for a hobby shopping day. It was incredibly weird to be there without the throngs of people - even though it's fairly close by, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been there outside of the holiday season, and I'd still have fingers left - and the shelves were scarily empty. I feared Kraynaks was going to be another casualty of the pandemic, but my friends (who go there much more often than I do) said that's normal for them after the holidays. (They were right, of course. Kraynaks is still there and doing just fine.)

 

I wasn't with my family, and it was a strange time to be there, but it was still really nice to be with my friends having a hobby day and doing something normal after a year where nothing was normal.

 

Spectrum was one of the models I brought home that day.

Full Spectrum: Prism #1

Yikes, Monday totally snuck up on me! It was an uncharacteristically busy weekend, especially Sunday. I typically avoid scheduling anything (even errands) on Sundays - a longstanding habit from high school and grad school where Sunday was my solitary day off every week - but I was out of the house for a good bit yesterday. I'll blame that for missing today's scheduled post by a few hours.

 

I've got a four-day weekend coming up for my birthday, so hopefully I can play catch-up on the blog during that time and get a bunch of posts scheduled.

 

Today's Full Spectrum post was always going to be short, and I suppose that's for the best, given the lateness of the hour as I'm hammering this out!

 

 

This is #1801, Prism, a limited edition of 3500 pieces in 2018. Kraynaks still had some left during our annual Black Friday trip in 2019, so I picked one out for my parents to give me as a Christmas gift that year.

 

I have a second Prism in my collection and his story is much longer (and involves a non-hobbyist!); you'll see him later this month. 

Full Spectrum: Customs Part 1

Five of my thirteen rainbow models are customs. Sheer happenstance has them nicely grouped into two distinct sets, so I'll talk about the first group today.

 

 

These two customs were painted by my friend Heather Jackson-Lain of Soul Pony Studios. 

 

Before BreyerFest 2019, she posted a CHIN sales preview on her studio page on Facebook, and the pastel rainbow G5 Chrome immediately caught my eye. I wasn't sure if I'd get to her room in time to buy him, but happily, I did!

  
The Sherman Morgan Mini Whinnie was also obtained from Heather in an unofficial trade a couple months later. I had sent her some blank medallions that I was never going to get around to painting, without expecting anything in return; I just wanted someone to get some enjoyment out of them, and who better to send them to than a hobby artist who was up-and-coming at the time? But Heather had paid attention a few days prior when I’d gushed on her studio page about some rainbow Sherman Morgan Mini Whinnies she’d already painted, and sent me one as a surprise thank you for the medallions. He likes to hang out between his larger deco buddies Crescent City and Carpe Diem on the shelf.