Swordwhale Walking: illustration, webcomic, stories, photojourneys, videos
  • launch here
  • art & stories
    • black horses
    • Sea Ponies of Chincoteague
    • Just Animals
    • playing with water
    • Tradigital illustration
    • environmental education >
      • Christmas Magic Mural 2020
      • animal alphabet and counting murals
      • Assateague ponies
      • the salamander room
      • more touch room ocean
      • more: touch room forest
      • wetland
      • wetland art
      • greenleaf
      • reptile week murals: Nixon Park
    • just animals: photography
    • Tales of the E.L.F. >
      • That Darn Elf, a musing or two
      • cast and crew
      • I dreamed of black horses
      • fanfiction: If Wishes Were Elves...
      • Skyfire
      • Leyover and Bardic Circle
      • Following Raven
      • The Merrow's Cap >
        • Merrows Cap credits
      • Manannan's Horses
      • Fins
      • fandom >
        • Radagast's Rabbit Ride
        • the Lone Ranger >
          • LOLs and Trolls
          • but wait, there's Moore, and Silverheels
          • Hi Yo Silver
        • black panthers and night furies
        • tales of Middle Earth >
          • Mirthwood
          • Loth-LOL-ien >
            • Im-LOL-dris
            • Smirkwood
            • well, that coulda' been worse
        • Sherlocked
        • catz and doges on fandom
        • Faithful Sidekicks
    • murals
    • scribblings
    • coloring pages
  • mermaid tales
    • Gramma Swordwhale's Mermaid Blog >
      • how to mermaid
      • merfolk on the Chesapeake
      • my life as a mermaid
    • privateers and pumpkins and ponies oh my!
    • stupid gravity (the adventures of a mermaid on Eastern Neck Is.) >
      • stupid gravity credits
    • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass >
      • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass: credits
    • Stupid Gravity: Misty Cloudy Windy Stormy Augh! >
      • Misty Stormy credits
    • Stupid Gravity: the search for mermaids
    • mermaids, Moana and Maui, beached on Christmas Eve
    • horseshoe crabs forever
    • stupid gravity: hot hot hot >
      • hot hot hot credits
  • Chincoteague
    • back to the islands 2021 >
      • Ponies 2021
    • identify that pony
    • chincoteague pony art
    • Fall Roundup Oct 2019
    • Chincoteague 2019
    • pookas pumpkins and swamp ponies
    • Chincoteague Carousel
    • Chincoteague November 2018
    • the 3rd Sea Voyage of Makenuk's Fin
    • wild horses and kayaks 2017
    • wild ponies in camp
    • North Beach
    • on island time
    • saltwater cowboys
    • Chincoteague
    • Christmas by the Sea
    • island ponies
    • Ace and Unci revolt
    • beached
    • running water in between
    • Assateague Light
    • the Haunted Lagoon
  • crafty stuff
    • photo your toys >
      • how to photograph Breyers in the wild
      • Lokigator and Throg's Epic Adventure
      • Sam and Bucky's Excellent Adventure
      • Mando and Grogu
      • paint and wet snow pants
      • Legolas and Hwin, snow
      • derps (or how not to photograph Breyers and others)
      • Wonder Horse repaint
      • wild Breyers >
        • printable prints and downloads
        • water horses
        • beach Breyers
        • Lotus Legolas and Arod
        • teeny tiny Breyers
        • backyard Breyers and Schleichs
        • vintage breyers
        • Hartland Horses
        • Black Horses
      • educational display
      • Schleich and Safari Faeries
      • North beached
      • more model horses
      • beach party
      • advenatureData
      • Finding Hank
      • Otterlock and Hedgejawn >
        • Hounded in Baskerville
      • how to photograph your dragon
    • Rich Toy hobby horse rehab
    • ModPodge rules
    • paint pours
    • flour salt clay
    • chalk paint
    • rock it: paint rocks and use or lose them
    • faerie gardens >
      • more faerie gardens
      • faerie festival at Spoutwood Farm
    • sea this tutu (and make)
    • I found Dory
    • knit me a mermaid, or chicken, or Hei Hei
    • sea treasures
    • sea glass
    • sea horses
    • rehabbing horse epic fail >
      • do you wanna build a snow pony?
      • do you wanna build a sand pony?
      • Barbie horse gets a makeover
    • mermaid saddles
    • Yule Laugh, Yule Cry... >
      • a Brandywine Christmas
    • Uncle Bob's Toys >
      • Uncle Bob's Toys 2016
      • more: Uncle Bob's Crafts
      • the Adventures of Mortimer
  • adventures
    • Go Play Outside
    • Nature Deficit Disorder
    • I heart Nature
    • autumn light
    • cats
    • mushing 101 >
      • dogs on wheels >
        • Autumn Run on Wheels
      • dogsled
      • dogsledding: running on snow! >
        • Groundhog Day
      • kids and dawgs: first sled run
      • Klondike Derby
      • Sled Dogs and Pirate Ships
      • Christmas Day Run: Rail Trail
      • Horses and Huskies: when predator and prey share the trail
      • Schipperke doo dah >
        • Runnin' with the Big Dogs
        • Hobbit Husky
      • women who run with the wolves
      • Play Time
      • wubba wubba
      • New Year's Dog Day
      • Team Swordwhale
    • trains, sleddogs, and horses oh my!
    • butterscotch and sprinkles
    • horses >
      • horse reference for art
      • ponies small but mighty
      • First Horse: Saraf
      • the Wild Black Mare
      • between thunder and lightning
      • Goliath, Nevada Mustang
      • Yataalii
    • Planet Water >
      • Planet fish tank
      • planet toadpool
      • Planet Pond
      • Planet Stream
      • Planet River
      • Planet Marsh
      • Planet Ocean
      • Planet Water Bird >
        • Planet Water Bird: gulls
      • Planet turtle
      • Planet water snake
      • planet amphibian
    • kayak! >
      • blue boat home
      • kayaking 101
      • kayaking Assateague and Chincoteague
      • how to train your dragonfly
      • Chasing Raven
      • the Susquehanna River >
        • the Rock Garden >
          • return to the Rock Garden
        • Conewago Dreamin'
        • the Conejehola Flats
        • Thunderbird Island (petroglyphs on the Susquehanna)
        • to the White Lady and Beyond
      • Calvert Cliffs fossils
      • Sassafras River Lotus Paddle >
        • Return to the Sassafras
        • sassafras river 2015
        • sassafras paddle 20160814
        • Sassafras River 2017
        • Sassafras river 2018
      • Eastern Neck Island >
        • winter marsh, winter beach
        • Eastern Neck Island: under the supermoon
        • more Eastern Neck Island
      • Pinchot Park
      • Lake Marburg >
        • where are the manatees?
        • ...and the dolphins???
        • macros and SAVs
        • Lake Marburg 2018
        • how to be a kayaking Gramma
    • beached
    • dive in! (SCUBA) >
      • Gourd of the Rings
    • mid Atlantic seashells
    • longship company >
      • December sail
      • Sae Hrafn at Oakley
    • pirates and privateers >
      • Sailing 101
      • Schooner Sultana 1768
      • Capt John Smith Shallop
      • Pride of Baltimore II
      • Kalmar Nyckel
      • downrigging 2010 >
        • Chestertown autumn
        • Downrigging Weekend 2014
        • Downrigging 2015
        • Downrigging 2016
        • Downrigging 2017
        • downrigging 2018: pink tardis
        • Downrigging 2019
      • privateer weekend
    • horseshoe crabs and red knots >
      • horseshoe crab spawn 2021
      • slaughter beach
      • horseshoe crabs and semipalmated sandpipers 2019
    • surfboards and watchtowers: Cape Henlopen >
      • beached
      • Watching Whales >
        • Watching Whales...again
    • Seadogs: Newfoundland water trials
    • wind hounds
    • wild things! >
      • baltimore aquarium
      • there's a hummer in the garage...ceiling ...
      • critter cam
      • sky walking
      • leaf-fall
    • The Adventures of the Good Ship Fearaf
    • the incredibly dead blog page
  • art class
    • framing 101
    • watercolor: how to
    • sip n paints
    • acrylic painting 101
    • wildlife art class
    • Santa, You're Doomed
    • (drawing) horses 101 >
      • horse color 101
      • gaits
      • ponies in motion
      • tack
      • Draw: a horse
    • dogs and wolves
    • go ahead, draw a pirate ship
    • anthropomorphism (cartoon animals and stuff)
    • the Little Kids Page of Big Ideas
    • mural: how to >
      • Gabriel's Whale
      • stuff you need
      • drawing (mural)
      • drawing mural 2
      • painting
      • mural jungle
      • mural bat cave
      • mural cats
      • mural ocean
      • mural arctic
      • mural leaf smacking
      • watershed mural
    • crayons and colored pencils
    • palettes
  • wait wait! let me get the camera!
  • who perpetrated all this???
    • swordbroad

more model horses:
​Breyer, Gabriel, Johnny West, Schleich, Safari, Hartland and more

Go outside and play with your toys. There's a collection of collectors who do some awesome photography using Breyer and other equine models. Photographing model horses in a landscape makes you look at a familiar place in a new way, interact with a new place in a unique way, and celebrate the artistry of the sculpture that is the model. Also, if you don't have a real horse, this is the next best thing.

Flame, a Johnny West horse (1965-1975ish)

Flame is from my childhood, and is actually one of my favorites. Nice action pose, and fairly accurate anatomy. He came with tack, but I made a lot of my own. The open mouth accommodated a bit, original or homemade. Here I set him up in a snowfall with a doll I found in a thrift shop. She was wearing random clothes and her hair was a mess (so, short bob for you girl!). It took awhile but I finally realized it's Anna from Frozen. She's wonderfully articulated, the exact sort of doll I wished I had as a kid!

Flame sat on shelves for years, and light exposure darkened some areas of his plastic on the left side. You can see the shadows (lighter) of the tack I had on him all that time. It may be time to repaint him.

Dallas, a Barbie horse from the early 80s

This pony was also found in a thrift shop. It took some googling but I finally nailed him down as a Barbie horse from the early 80s. Nicely articulated and in good shape, he's not even faded, nor has the plastic changed color from light exposure.

Silver (Gabriel Toys)

Found in a thrift shop badly faded and yellowed without his tack. I repainted him to the actual white horse the Lone Ranger's Silver is supposed to be (the toy was originally designed as a light grey). He's fairly posable and fun to photograph.

Johnny West's "Buckskin"

Another nice "Barbie scale" horse, somewhat poseable. He's actually a palomino (light mane and tail not dark like a buckskin). This is his original paint job. The Johnny West horses were designed by artists who actually knew what horses look like. They echo the type of western horse drawn by Charles Russell and Frederick Remington.

Johnny West's Thunderbolt

A really nice overall model with a terrible original paint job. I'll admit to liking chestnut ("red" genetically, aka sorrel) the least... and black the most of horse colors. The Johnny West chestnuts were flat (shiny helps this color a lot as does variation in color as on a real horse), and the random weird pale spot on the chest was just... random. Perhaps they were trying to evoke the pale undersides/chest/lower legs of "pangare" (think the kind of countershading seen on deer and antelope). Fail! The "blazes" were flaxen, and while a red pinto pony in my pasture has that "donkey nose" mealy muzzle (typical of flaxen and other colors) it shades into the red rather than the hard line here. And blazes are white never flaxen. The stockings have a hard edge, like proper stockings, but are the wrong color: flaxen, not white. Breyer and Hartland had a habit of airbrushing white markings so the edges were blurry. On real horses, white marking edges are sharp. Flaxen chestnuts often have lighter lower legs, a sort of "flaxen stocking" but it shades softly into the darker red farther up. Over all, this was a terrible paint job that I hated. So they became black.

Hartland

Hartland made some nice (if simpler than Breyers) models back in the 60s. This is the Arabian stallion in what they called "alabaster" (near-white grey with a grey mane and tail). The action figure is Legolas from the LOTR collection by Toybiz.

Classic Breyers

Picture
In answer to this really gawdawful Pinterest brainfart.... 








I bring you the Originals...

Picture
Arabian foal, Arabian Stallion (rare woodgrain), Misty of Chincoteague (bought at her gift shop by her stable three months before she died and repainted the correct color pattern), Arabian mare. 

Misty of Chincoteague on Chincoteague

I got Misty in 1972, the last year the real Misty was alive. She lived at the Pony Farm on Chincoteague and we visited her there. The gift shop had a Breyer model, painted (oddly for Breyer) completely wrong. Well, at least her head. What Breyer had done was copy the excellent cover art by Wesley Dennis (an awesome artist who knows horses and other animals and has done many many Marguerite Henry books). What they didn't know, was he'd painted the cover as Misty in her foal coat, a misty white with her adult palomino color showing around her eyes. To the non-horseman, it looked like a pinto with a white head and a patch around the eye. her real color was palomino pinto, a solid (as in most tobiano patterns) head with a blaze. I repainted her from photos and Wesley Dennis's paintings of her as an adult. I aquired Stormy a few years later on another trip to Chincoteague. Here they return to their home island.
Below: a collection of Safari models runs along Assateague beach. The lead horse was repainted slightly to look like Surfer Dude, a famous Chincoteague stallion. Spot the mistake? no footprints...
Picture

Go ahead, paint it blue

Save your home decor accent-color brainfarts for cheesy Chinese plastic, recycled things found in thrift shops, yard sales and the trash. The larger ones are actually Wonder Horses without their bouncy frames. Their original paint job was awful, their anatomy is great. The mermaid horses are Our Generation: I simply repainted the beat up black one, flat black (with shiny eyes). The battered white one became a blue sea horse (add a ModPodge top layer embedded with glitter for a seawater look). Colors are: Rustoleum 2X Lagoon, Seaside, Oasis and Apple Barrel Craft Paint Turquoise.

Mermaids and Seahorses

Two Our Generation horses (scaled to the American Girl dolls, and much nicer than the AG horses) make a splash...

The whole story here: http://www.swordwhale.com/stupid-gravity-the-adventures-of-a-mermaid-on-eastern-neck-is.html
And here: http://www.swordwhale.com/stupid-gravity-the-search-for-sea-glass.html


The low waves of this Chesapeake Bay beach are in better scale to the horse than an ocean beach.

Blue Box Toys

Not as detailed as Breyers, these still have a fairly nice shape and reasonably accurate anatomy. Especially nice when repainted, even in basic black. Nice as chalkboard horses, or as resculpt or repaint projects.



Some tips: 
  • get on your model's eye level for most shots, or on the eye level of the rider. 
  • try other eye levels: high, low. Set your camera on a beanbag to keep it steady.
  • it is sometimes hard to get the whole thing in focus: small models are sharp and backgrounds are fuzzy, or backgrounds are sharp and the model is out of focus. Put the camera on a tripod and take a shot focused on the background, and one focused on the model.
  • try throwing in some flying dirt, snow, ice or water
  • try throwing stones... really... toss a rock or pebble to make the water splash or snow fly or dirt spatter (try not to knock over your valuable collectibles)
  • use sport continuous mode or other mode that takes lots of pics fast, you can do screencaps from a short video clip but the quality isn't as good (smaller file size)
  • beware, water has scale (which is how we know that famous photo of the Loch Ness Monster is fake: the lake ripples point out that the model is about three feet tall). Gloppy water that looks like Jello and great big drops of water will show your model to be four inches tall. Play with spray bottles, foamy surf, or other ways to make the water look in scale. Use bigger models and keep the little ones in still water or keep the water in the background.
  • keep the ground under the horse's feet in scale: use finer sand/gravel/tanbark, cut that grass, shoot your horse among tiny flowers.
  • look for interesting landscapes, your model will make you see them in a new way
  • tell a story, have two or more models interact, throw in some effects (flying dirt) to sell the action
  • be careful what props you use (tack, dolls, etc) a bad prop will make your horse look fake
  • if you are using action figures or articulated dolls, use clothing to hide the joints or Photoshop them out later. Makes it look more real.
  • lighting lighting lighting; try different times of day, be careful that you haven't overexposed in sun or underexposed in shade
  • where is your sun? your shadow?
  • try sunset or sunrise or campfire silhouettes
  • on snow or sand make sure you haven't underexposed the horse (do various exposures or use snow/beach mode)
  • don't leave your own footprints in that snow or sand!
  • try setting the horse in different poses, even a Breyer that isn't articulated can be tilted or leaned, a rearing horse can be set level, your camera angle can change 
  • normal sized things far away look in scale to your model: if your camera is close to the model, a barn in the far background will look like your horse could go into it
  • make a set: a classic bit of film FX is to make a model, (like a building) and shoot it up close while normal sized things are far away (including people walking in the background). Your horse can be set on a piece of board covered with fake ground or grass, a fence to the horse's scale, and normal landscapes and buildings can be in the background and look great.
  • don't forget to add your horse's footprints!
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.