My reentry in the hobby has corresponded with the decline of my parents, work/studies/home transitions, and lack of a good place to set up for painting previously and now, mid-reno stretching from before the pandemic. So, I have been largely prepping, with a piece in an early paint layer and a few in gesso — I have quite a stash to work on. I do my own CM/finish work on plastic and AR and will show halter only; my model work is for myself/gifting/donating until downsizing. Besides the art/research rabbit holes, what I love about the hobby is how it lets you explore many more horse breeds/cultures/disciplines than real life would allow, and nowadays, the hobby boasts more new product than anyone could amass.

My showing goals are largely social, with the benefits of: a) seeing prominent work/collections in person, and b) seeing what I think of my work’s plusses and minuses in the show ring. I’ve visited shows, judged a bit, and shown some vintage work over the past 20 years; I’m lucky to be in a highly competitive region with more shows geographically accessible than average in a smaller area — it also generally aligns with my taste in models grounded in realism. I haven’t had enclosed shelves/display set up, so shows are always a day to spend with my horses. I volunteered at a regional NAN, and the introduction of NAN buy-ins (one can’t assume cards in RX) make a Breyerfest week of showing (NAN, Resin Renaissance, and the Stone show) a notion, maybe for 2028. My travel budget focused more on seeing real horses 2010-2017, that roving convention has moved online since 2020.

On questions 8/9, I believe we leave a lot of potential growth and participation out in the aether by not offering a third silo for artisan classes, an Entrant Work/DIY slate of classes in addition to those for Open Breed and Open Workmanship, with participants in Entrant Work eligible to enter all three silos if desired/qualified per venue structure. My full pitch for this details a limited-materials-list CM (hand-painted acrylics as a common entry medium) for different costs/sizes of plastic models that scaffolds scale/budget levels without defining people/skills (see below). Open classes stand as their own thing, as collection showing has long been inclusively codified in the hobby, drives many art businesses, and many artists prize having national and international competition on the table with them. As the only format available, showing your own work in a piece-only class (vs. diorama/performance) against collected work is unusual in art hobbies and competitive exhibition. We’d likely have more participants at all levels if we had artisan classes dedicated to showing your own handiwork against same in addition to the open classes, which may or may not have a similar playing field depending on show attendance/class participation by established studios — the question is who did the finishwork, entrant or other. The intention is to include a broader range of entry points for model horse artists in a format that makes sense to other art hobbyists.

I’ll be holding debut CM/AR schooling shows (10 participants show and judge others’ pieces) with this sample format (two days Breed/Workmanship), and could recycle the classes into a one-day show with two or more judges. It can be pushed and pulled into various shapes tailored to needs, for example, breed group breakouts for the youth/intermediate-friendly Limited Materials categories. The main twist for this simpler debut format is a total split between Entrant and Collection pieces, and groupings of classes up four at a time for table circulation and theme. A long form of possible classes Breed/Type sorted by degrees of work performed on CM/AR pieces in various scales would be for a much larger and granular venue like NAN.

BREED: LIGHT (one section for sample): • CM finish by Entrant, LIGHT Breeds/Types; • CM from Collection, LIGHT Breeds/Types; • AR finish by Entrant, LIGHT Breeds/Types; • AR from Collection, LIGHT Breeds/Types.

WORKMANSHIP: DECORATIVE FINISH, MODEL EQUINE/EQUID/FANTASY (NAMHSA) (1:12 scale and larger): • CM finish by Entrant; • CM from Collection; • AR finish by Entrant; • AR from Collection.

WORKMANSHIP: FANTASY FINISH, NAMHSA-RULES FANTASY MODEL EQUINE/EQUID (1:12 scale and larger): • CM finish by Entrant; • CM from Collection; • AR finish by Entrant; • AR from Collection.

WORKMANSHIP: AR MICRO-MINI SCALES CHALLENGE (ENTER UP TO 3 PER CLASS) • AR finish by Entrant, MICRO-MINI Model Equine/Equid, ALL REALISTIC COLORS; • AR from Collection, MICRO-MINI Model Equine/Equid, ALL REALISTIC COLORS; • AR finish by Entrant, MICRO-MINI Model Equine/Equid/Fantasy (NAMHSA rules), FANTASY/DECORATIVE; • AR from Collection, MICRO-MINI Model Equine/Equid/Fantasy (NAMHSA rules), FANTASY/DECORATIVE.

WORKMANSHIP: MINI-SCALES MODEL EQUINE/EQUID (all typical scales up to 1:12 scale, adults to ~4" at ears ); ALL MEDALLIONS, BUSTS, BAS RELIEFS (EQUINE/EQUID, all partial forms, realistic except fantasy/deco classes) • Black/Bay/Brown (one section for sample color group): • CM/AR finish by Entrant, ALL MINI-SCALES Model Equine/Equid, BLACK/BAY/BROWN; • CM/AR from Collection, ALL MINI-SCALES Model Equine/Equid, BLACK/BAY/BROWN; • AR finish by Entrant, MEDALLIONS ETC. Equine/Equid, BLACK/BAY/BROWN; • AR from Collection, MEDALLIONS ETC. Equine/Equid, BLACK/BAY/BROWN.

CM LIMITED MATERIALS AWE (All Work Entrant, on rigid or flexible plastic retail 3D horse ~1:32 to ~1:6 scale): • CM Limited Materials, Realistic, All Work Entrant, playset plastic (Schleich, CollectA, etc.) scales below 1:12; • CM Limited Materials, Realistic, AWE Venti Painted-Details Challenge, WIA/CollectA (~1:20); • CM Limited Materials, Realistic, All Work Entrant, rigid plastic (Breyer, Stone, etc.) scales below 1:12; • CM Limited Materials, Realistic, All Work Entrant, rigid plastic (Breyer, Stone, etc.) 1:12 scale and larger.

As a longtime Fjordhest fan, I’m fine with the Norwegian terms, though the use of words that mean “grey” (not greying) and look like English “black” (“blakk” used for dun, “svart” translating for black) are confusing at first. What makes the Fjords trickier is that the grablakk/black dun/grulla has warmer and cooler shades and almost universally does not have a mealy muzzle, while the other more common colors (bay and chestnut dun) are usually mealy. Re OF Breyers, the Fjord offerings on the Astrid mold have been grablakk (premier) and brunblakk (portrait RR), for the Eberl SM, the 2025 set of Stablemates in realistic colors is grablakk.

Using the Region X tag system, I believe you end up with breed and gender on the tag, with any explanation of color on documentation. It’s the unusual colors and partbreds that usually require documentation. My vintage CM Fjord by Julie Froelich is in umber and cream tones, so liver chestnut shade mealy dun, rodblakk. Cherrie Nolden in 2018 cited Cream, Agouti, and Red/Black (Extension) at work in various color inheritance outcomes.

The NFHR (CO, USA) confuses matters by leaving the out the word “dun” with gray in its list of colors on its website: “One of their unique characteristics is that approximately 90% of all Fjord Horses are brown dun in color. The other 10% are either red dun, gray, white or “uls” dun, or yellow dun. The Fjord Horse retains the “wild” dun color of the original horse as well as the primitive markings which include zebra stripes on the legs and a dorsal stripe that runs from the forelock down the neck and back and into the tail. Dark stripes may also be seen over the withers. Red duns have reddish-brown stripes and body markings. Gray duns have black or very dark gray stripes and markings. The white or “uls” dun is a very light body color with black or gray stripe and markings. The yellow dun have a darker yellow stripe and markings, they may have a completely white forelock, mane and tail. The yellow dun is a very rare color in the breed.”

List of colors from Norsk Fjordhest Senter with their translations: brunblakk (brown dun), ulsblakk (uls dun), rødblakk (red dun), gulblakk (yellow dun) og (and) gråblakk (grey dun) — Norsk Fjordhest Senter website (Norsk and their Eng. translation)

Both the US registry and the Norwegian organization omit kvit (double-dilute cream, with the dun factors, white coat with pink skin), which is considered undesirable and may have limitations on registry depending on current rules. This is different from “white” or “uls” dun, which is very pale with mininimized expression of black markings.

A good overview: https://ddungard.com/color-genetics-in-fjords

I am also very thankful for the lovely bounty in all scales and budgets we have now! I buy resins very occasionally at present (a venti scale Lady Anne (Kelly Sealy) was my planned exception to my break), in venti/SM or medallions instead of the larger scales, but buy the same sculptors in plastic to CM. It has long been true that there is too much released in various methods and variations to achieve a sampling of everything admired or loved. Agree with your comments on MIB that we are very fortunate to have Breyer embracing and drawing from the hobby and its talent with the company’s many tiers and branches of product and promotions.

The remnants of my carpet herd date from the early 1970s, finding the organized hobby locally during college in the early 1980s when I started customizing for myself, showing from the mid 1980s into the early 1990s, attending a couple of early Breyerfests, and reconnected in the early 2000s. I have a small collection of OF and vintage CM, but my purchasing focused on resin blanks, which have been sold down to a prioritized point of saner headcount and to raise funds — I’ll see how much I get through in the next ten+ years and reevaluate. There are so many nice things available in all scales/budgets now. My focus is doing my own CMing and I trend towards realism, so the new Breyer and eventual available Stone molds by resin artists fill the bill as prices on resins increased beyond what my rationalizations and situation could bear. Any resin purchases now are occasional venti/SM or medallions, but I also have plenty to work on in-house. I have also sought out Maureen Love Breyers for the workbox, and sampled CollectA and similar lines for plums. I’m caught in perpetual new show string building as life got interesting, making a career shift with a new course of study/degree and living in a stalled renovation. I hand-paint in all acrylics, which lends itself to granular detail like greys, roans, and Lp complex. The breeds I’m most focused on are foundational Arabians and more baroque-type Lipizzaners (first saw Lashinsky’s US troupe in the early 1970s), other Spanish breeds, but the collection includes a sampling of many things, including more draft horses than I consciously intended to amass. I’m in a city cluster in the Northeast megalopolis, so my horse involvement is volunteering with a real-horse organization, traveling to see horses, and the art and research nurtured by that and the hobby. A portion of my model stash was acquired as “souvenirs” of horses seen, and my most recent cats were named after historic Arabians.