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 not 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.
