As a complete newbie to the idea of strains of Arabians, I've been doing some hasty research to get LRH Antar Al-Ahmar finished in time for my birthday. I needed to know what differentiates an Egyptian Arabian from other kinds, and wanted to find a good source of pictures of them to make sure my custom is on the right track. (It's a bit late to change anything major at this point, so I'm not sure why I even looked.) I came across this very useful blog, for the love of a horse, which is all about Arabians (and seems to have a focus on Egyptians). It's packed with history, pictures, stories, and even current sires, dams, foals, and champions. Very nifty, and very useful for me as an Arab newbie.
I'm getting close to crunch time with Antar at this point, since he's still not in primer, his head fell off (now partly fixed, I have to go back in with the bondo glazing putty again to fill in the cracks), and he insisted on a new tail and new boy parts. He didn't like his G3 Mustang tail (now lost! darn, I might need that for someone else!), he wanted a flippy tail, come hell or high water. This gave me a bit of a problem, since I've never sculpted tails before.
Fortunately, inspiration arrived in the form of Samantha Kroese's fantastic Friesian x Arab Legionario custom Ethereal Knight. Ethereal Knight has a string mane, tail and feathers, and is absolutely stunning. Well, honestly, my mind stopped somewhere between "oooh! pretty!" and "string". I'm thinking "string tail? I can do that, how hard can that be?"
I built Antar a tail with paperclip coated in superglue/baking soda resin, and got to work gluing on sections of tail. The problem is, I only have runny superglue, so it's a bit tricky affixing the pieces of tail without fixing myself to the model.
I did find a trick for wiping up any excess, however. I've been using a tiny piece of craft felt to wipe the wet superglue. That way, it soaks into the felt, rather than bonding to my fingers or taking too long to fully cure.
I've got half of Antar's tail done, and hopefully can get the rest done today. After that, I'll need to finish his boy parts, then get prepping like fury to meet my self-imposed deadline.
Of course, the deadline isn't just looming close because my model's taking a long time. I'm possibly one of the worst procrastinators in the history of procrastinators. I can always find a way to do something other than what needs to be done, and end up leaving things until the last minute. Fortunately, I'm lucky to thrive under that kind of pressure. My best work is always the stuff I bang out quickly and close to deadline, where I don't have time to edit/tweak a bajillion times and ruin all the good stuff. Here's hoping that works again this time.
No progress on the show halter though, I need paperclips, and I have none. Another thing to add to my list of things to do today.
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