Truthfully, what it comes down to is that I've been getting gradually sicker this past week. It started off with fatigue and a mild upset stomach, then right on Thanksgiving, I found out that me and turkey aren't agreeing with each other right now. I can keep sweet potatoes and green beans down, but everything else is iffy at best, and makes me feel dizzy, and gives me a headache similar to a mild migraine. Why I had to get sick in the lead up to Thanksgiving and my birthday, I don't know... Needless to say, it's tricky working on a model horse when you're feeling nauseous, so I've been making very slow progress over the last week.
Due to some unexpected bills, my birthday present's going to be a bit late too, I have to wait for the next paycheck before I can go get my camera. Even if I wasn't sick and had finished him, Antar was destined to be a late foal. And that's fine by me. If he needs more time, he needs more time, but I really really want to have him done before the end of December, because I really want to help someone else achieve their breeding goal for the year.
This past day, I've been continuing to finish the final touches on what sculpting needs to be done. I was watching Gone With the Wind yesterday, and during the jumping scenes with Rhett and Bonnie, I noticed Antar's face still needed a lot of work. As is typical of Stablemates, he had almost no real detail to his face, it was just a horse-head shaped blob, really. So I got started working on restoring missing details, because I want this model to compete in head study as well as halter classes. He's an Egyptian Arabian, and the classic head contest is where the inspiration for photo show head study classes came from, so I thought it a must to have something presentable in a head study class. Right after Gone With the Wind finished, in went my DVD of Black Beauty to watch while I worked, because it'd be a convenient quick reference to glance at when I got stuck. By the end of Black Beauty, I still had some work to do, so in went The 13th Warrior, where I could watch Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan (Eben) and his "dog" to get more details.
As of 17:05 on the 26th of November, Antar's head is looking a billion percent better than it was. He now has his jibbah, and a nice muzzle, and a much more chiseled cheekbone and brow, but I still need to resculpt his right eyeball and lower eyelid. My boy is starting to look really nice and chiseled now, and I'm really proud of my progress, even if I am behind schedule.
Still on my to-do list is finishing his stallion parts, which are being stubborn, and a touch more work on his neck and throat to blend the work I've done on his head with the style on the rest of his body. I'm hoping to have him in his first coat of primer by the 28th.
Today's movie to work by: The Neverending Story. The scene with Artax makes me cry every time, but then, so does most of Black Beauty. Perhaps after The Neverending Story, I'll put in The Horse Whisperer. At about that point, I'll only have The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King left in my list of movies with lots of horses, but I think I want to leave a whole day for working to the whole trilogy.
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