I’m Not a Great Sculptor

       I am not a great sculptor. I have not had a lot of practice at it and it doesn't call to me enough for me to put in the time to become a great sculptor. But the Breyerfest Best Customs contest is calling to me. I am not anywhere near good enough to enter one of the sections that is solely focused on the horse, but I am good at performance. My goal was to get a horse customized enough that I could make a performance entry. I thought about what would be interesting, actually came up with an idea (which will remain secret) and I picked out my victim horse. I needed a horse that was great for the particular performance scene I had in mind and I decided a calmly standing horse, without his head thrown up in the air, was a good choice. I started out with the Breyer Ideal American Quarter Horse and lowered his neck. Which is the point of the project where I almost quit. It didn't look good, it was sort of overly long and giraffe-like. But I figured I could fix it. So I cut the head totally off, shortened the neck and put the head back on. And all of a sudden it was a horse. With a weird and lumpy neck. 

       I worked on the weird and lumpy neck until I had something that wasn't full of rough edges sticking out and it was again, closer to a horse neck. After that it was time to put on the mane and forelock. And that was a process. The forelock got redone at least 4 times before I was OK to leave it on the horse. I still didn't love the mane, but I didn't hate it. I figured I could improve all of the mess with prepping. That is something I am good at. 

     These days a lot of horses require very little prepping. Sometimes a bath and a coat of primer is just about all they need to be ready for paint. This kind of prepping is easy and makes me lazy. It's quick, painless, and doesn't take a lot of skill. These are not the horses I learned to prep on. 

      I learned on the hardest of the hard. I learned to prep old Eberl horses that were more pinhole than horse. I learned to prep on things that needed serious restoration that the owner's were afraid would never be able to show again. I can prep anything. I have not pulled out all of my prepping tricks in years. 

        While I worked on customizing this horse I tried to keep the need for serious prep work to a minimum. I worked carefully while doing any sculpting to try to keep everything as smooth as I could. Resin is easy to prep. Plastic and epoxy are harder. I tried to keep the mane as smooth as I could. Inevitably I ended up with tiny chunks of epoxy that only showed up under gray primer and needed to be scraped off. 

      The neck needed a lot of sanding. It was not too bad, but it was a little lumpy. I didn't want old Breyer John Henry lumpy, so I sanded and sanded, got out the rotary tool to help me, sanded some more. I felt the neck (I do a lot of prepping by feel) to check for smoothness and reprimed a couple of times to check the progress. 

     It became clear that I needed something more drastic. Both for the neck, which had a couple of small low spots (it was somewhat lumpy) and the cheek which had a gouge in it from when I was cutting the neck. I pulled out the Liquitex Modeling paste and added some to both the neck and cheek, smoothed it as much as I dared and put him away to dry for a while. 

       I also added some really thinned out modeling paste to the mane. This would help to smooth out some tool marks from the carbide scraper and bring things together a bit more. It is still clear to anyone that looks at the horse for more than a second that the mane and tail are not sculpted in the same style. But I am making a performance horse, it will be OK. 

      After the modeling paste was dry I got back into the horse with the dremel and a lot of sandpaper. I was finally getting near the end of the process! Then this happened. The end of the can of primer spit a bunch of crap all over the horse's face and neck! This is the time that a lot of people are tempted to pick out all the junk, which turns into a huge mess. Just leave it. As much as it hurts, just leave it to dry. 

     Once everything was dry again I went back in and gently smooth out and removed all of the little cruddy bits that stupid can of primer put all over my horse. I was so careful about it I didn't need to reprime him and I went right into his base coat. 

       Well, this is what I am using as his basecoat. It is easier to pastel over lighter colors instead of the gray primer, so I made him unbleached titanium to speed up the base coat process. However in my rush to get past this step I forgot that Liquitex spray paint is a pain to use and I went a little too heavy. I should have barely covered him (not covered him...) and let that dry and done several coats. I should have, but I didn't. So now I have some paint drips to deal with. But I can fix it. Everything is fixable. 

      I am not a great sculptor but I managed to lower this horse's neck and add a mane and forelock. It was not the most masterful job ever but I was able to get through it and end up with a horse that I really like. I am not a great sculptor, but I am a really great prepper, and I knew this horse could be saved. The next step will be pasteling a horse larger than anything I have done before. I think I can do this.