I don't paint much....

But I felt inspired today and painted my little Pepys resin whilst watching the Badminton Horse Trials. I haven't painted anything for about 6 or 7 years, and even then only have about 5 models to my name. I think I was attracted to this resin because he is small and textured, which i think makes it easier to paint! I even attempted some patches of roaning and a blue eye. His feathers are also a bit grubby from playing around with his pals all day.

I think I'll try showing him as a Gypsy Cob foal, any ideas for a name?

Another March Bridle

Seems that March was a bit of a bridle month! I made a simple snaffle bridle for a friend Caroline Jones in exchange for some of her old tack making supplies. This one features raised nose and brow bands but no stud-hooks. Once in a while when I make a bridle without the hooks I realise just how quickly I can make them!

The bridle is modelled by new fairly new unpainted Jasmine resin who has recently had some 'surgery' to correct her wonky legs. Luckily the surgery was non-invasive and just involved a long hot bath!

Out of interest Caroline writes her own blog about pedigree assignment called Pedigree Chum! It's something I would love to do but seems an daunting task given the size of my collection and my ever decreasing spare time.

Dressage Bridle

I made this for a great customer Marty in the UK, who wanted an upper level dressage bridle to fit his Peter Stone Warmblood. I don't actually have one of these models so I was happy to find out that Salinero's head is pretty similar. This bridle had my usual top end features, including a crank style noseband, stud-hook fastenings onto the bit and leather laced reins. It seems that not many tack-makers use leather to lace reins and I often wonder why. I tried using thread once upon a time and got really frustrated with it. Now I cut some very fine strands (about 0.5mm) of very thin lace, at the same time as I cut the main pieces for the bridle. I save the super-thin areas of my hides for this purpose, so I don't have to do any additional skiving to get the leather thin enough. Then along the reins I cut a short (about 1mm) slot every 5mm. Next i use my fine needle-nosed tweezers to thread the lace through the slots, taking care not to twist the leather lacing. I usually use about 3 x 10cm strands to lace one rein, or thereabouts. Each end of the strand is tucked and glued onder the previous 'turn'.