Breyerfest Live

     Thursday was the unofficial first day of Breyerfest. Part of Breyerfest live was held that day, as well as some of the workshops. I had never been to Breyerfest Live previous to agreeing to judge at the show this year. It was similar to other live shows, and very different. 

     I am used to judging where there are 2-3 really great entries and you have to really work to place the top of the class. At BFL, there were usually 4-5 really outstanding entries, which made judging much more challenging. 

     I was trying to stick to my timeframes, and also do a thorough job of judging, which made taking photos tricky for a while. I did grab a few pics because I really loved what I was seeing. 

    This little dog is adorable. It reminds me of my dog-friend, Jester. 

     I don't often love riderless entries, they don't look as complete as an entry with a rider, but there were several extremely well done riderless entries. And as I tell people all the time, a well done riderless entry is likely to do better than an entry with a sloppy doll. At least when I am judging. 

     I love when a shower manages to get a prop to stay in place like this and it makes the scene super realistic, but I know is very hard to accomplish. 

     This entry amused me because the mule was sculpted by Laura Skillern and I made the doll. Both of us were also judging at Breyerfest Live. 

     Cool props like this, before the horse and doll are added, amuse me. 

     There were some outstanding showers at Breyerfest live, and many of them were also incredibly consistent. I definitely enjoyed judging at this show, even though it was extremely tough at times. 

 

Breyer Spotting at the Dollhouse Museum

      As a bonus for today, here are a group of photos of customized Breyer horses. Enjoy!

 

The Great American Dollhouse Museum

     I love miniatures. More specifically, I love really nice, well made miniatures. I like miniatures that look just like the real thing they are representing, only smaller. Well done miniatures are amazing!

     Travis and I went to The Great American Dollhouse Museum in Danville, KY. The museum has hundreds (probably hundreds) of miniature displays. 

      They are all like little windows into pieces of a tiny world. In the case of some of the displays (like in the first photo of this post) they really were tiny windows where you could look in and view the tiny scenes. 

     I have always loves dollhouses, especially really well done dollhouses, but I have struggled with dolls. I know, that sounds odd for a dollmaker to say. But especially in dollhouse scale, dolls can potentially ruin a really realistic scene. 

      This particular parlor is very unlikely to ever have a doll realistic enough to not ruin it. But this is just the type of dollhouse I love the most. 

     As a dollmaker, my goal has always been to make dolls look less like dolls. It's not an easy task. If I ever had the space for a nice dollhouse (the nice ones are SO expensive!) I very likely wouldn't put dolls in it. It is so hard, especially in 1:12 scale to have a realistic doll that isn't just a full on sculpture. Sculpted clothes are not actually realistic most of the time. 

     I really enjoyed looking into all of the miniature shops, and then the challenge of trying to get photos of exactly what I was seeing. Catching the angles in the same way was nearly impossible .

     And then, if you have a realistic doll, it kind of feels like spying on these tiny people. 

      This beautiful shop is somewhat ruined by the dolls. The 2 child dolls in the front are not sitting well and they look very fake. 

      I enjoyed the scenes where there weren't dolls. Some of the displays were hyper realistic in their detail. Having made a lot of miniatures in my life, I know how hard it is to keep tiny things perfectly in scale. 

     Sometimes, even if the dolls weren't the most realistic, they still added to the scene instead of taking away from it. I think this is usually our aim, or should be, in model horse showing. Our dolls are still dolls, are unlikely to ever be mistaken for real people, but if we have them positioned properly, they definitely add to our scenes. Even though they are still dolls. 

     This lady's clothing is still slightly bulky, but she is very nicely done. I think the fact that we can't see her face also adds to the realism of the scene.

     This scene was all full of trolls, but still quite realistic. Having just been to multiple caves the two days before going to the dollhouse museum, it was fun to imagine where that ladder went. 

     Maybe the ladder went to the witches. Who knows. 

       I hope you enjoyed looking at these miniature scenes as much as I did. I took many more photos of the dollhouse museum, but there were too many photos to fit in one post.