Some more of Kestrel’s amazing work: I finished off some tack for someone and got some pics with a new set-up for the background. I’ve set the doll up so he looks like he’s looking for lost cattle here. Will send a couple more of this set, of romal reins, braided headstall, pencil bosal (“bosalito”) with mecate and hanger and spade bit. I’m only showing the bosalito and mecate with hanger, here. The saddle is totally wrong but it’s the only one finished at present.
I think the background works amazingly well, and serves to highlight such beautiful work. Click for full size!
You can see the hand made sterling silver buckle pretty good in this pic. Also you can see the tassel (the vaqueros call it “la mota”).
aaaand here you can see all the gear that a vaquero or buckaroo would use. First the young horse is taught to respond to the bosal, then gradually taught to carry the spade bit, while the rider uses first the mecate reins and then gradually starts using the romal reins.
All images © Kestrel, all rights reserved.
For me the great pleasure of imagination-play is wondering about the experiences of the little people that (clearly) exist in the imagination-world. This horse seems content and thoughtful (i.e.: it’s planning to spook) and the cowboy has the lead rope looped so it won’t take his hand off when the spook happens. He knows this horse; it’s a game they play. He’s pretending to look at the distant mountains, just like the horse is pretending. This has happened before; every time he gets the horse all cleaned up for a show, it ends with everyone spooking and sometimes there is dust and blood and thornbushes, if the horse can find a thornbush to spook through.
…
Uh, I got carried away there.
Beautiful work, Kestrel!
Hee. Oh, you always put all the evil on the poor horses.
What amazing detailed work!
kestrel
This is amazing work!! The little buckle! The leatherwork! And the background is the perfect backdrop. I am impressed!
Wow. Similar to Giliell’s sentiment, the detail is amazing.
Beautifull, simply stunning. What is the horse made of and how? Leatherwork is leather, metal is metal, hair is (probably) hair and cloth is cloth. But I do not believe that the horse is horse. If I were to make a gues, I would guess the color has been airbrushed but beyond that I do not know.
Charly
It’S just a guess, but I think it may be a plastic toy
I think these horses are resin, from molds made from a hand sculpt. Yep, like Breyer’s.
Yep, looks a lot like the German Schleich horses, only somewhat bigger.
Thank you! I sure appreciate your kind comments. I do put everything I have into making my work as realistic as possible so I appreciate it when someone notices!
Both models used here are what’s called an “artist resin”. An artist does a sculpture of a horse, and then has it cast in resin. In the case of that first horse, she’s solid cast with metal reinforced legs, so very heavy and not at all like what you would see in a store. In fact you would have to be careful not to drop her… she’s that heavy. The other one is hollow cast with metal reinforced legs. Most of the time the artist will only do so many casts… so it might be a limited run of 100, or sometimes even less, just depends. These both happen to have been sculpted by Carol Williams, and she is doing an open edition on both these -- the first one is called “Matriarch” and the second one is called “Victrix”. On to the paint: the bare artist resin, cast in white resin, is then sent to an artist who paints it. That first horse, the buckskin, was painted by a lady named Liesl Dalpe, and she does NOT use an airbrush, that is all painted by brush. If you could see her up close, you would even be able to see dapples had been individually painted on one by one, pretty amazing. The second horse, the Victrix, was painted by a lady named D’Arry Jone Frank, and I am not sure… she *may* use an airbrush for at least part of her process. I don’t know her as well. But most of those details were painted by brush.
And yes, I have seen little scenes set up where things are not going at all well, the horse is spooking, or has just crashed straight through the jump and the rider is falling off as the EMT on the sidelines is rushing in with a first aid kit etc. It’s part of the fun of the hobby, using your imagination, thinking, what is this horse thinking? :-) Part of the appeal… you can make anything happen, and no one really gets hurt… :-)
kestrel
Wow, that’s amazing, so the horses are a piece of art in and on themselves!
@Giliell, yes… they are actually quite valuable, some of them even selling for more than $2,000 US. Some artists are in quite high demand because they are so good, and then, some sculptors are in really high demand also for the same reason. There is actually a very famous sculptor who lives in Germany named Brigitte Eberl. Breyer has hired her to do some sculptures for them from time to time, but she of course does her own, and when she releases a new one (there are usually 50 in her limited editions) they usually sell out in a matter of days. She is an amazing artist and can really capture the horse. I once saw her here in the US! I was close enough to see her well but not speak to her. She was already dealing with a huge crowd of fans.