Genetic Defects and Model Horses: Part One

Today, I went browsing for examples of stud ads, because I want to put together some stud ads for my plastic horses. Since one of the horses I want to make a stud ad for is a quarter horse, I started off by searching for those in a Google image search.

Well, if you know real quarter horses, you know where this is going, don't you?

I found a horse whose portrait looked stunning. He's got a lovely head, and he looks big and studdy. His full body shot wouldn't disappoint... but, I saw something worrying about the pictures. He's big, with a wide chest and haunches, and short legs. He looks like a body-builder. If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought he was a stunning example of a quarter horse. Then I saw the line "this is [horse] in pasture condition", and alarm bells really rang. I suspected that what I saw was a result of a genetic defect called HYPP. Off I went to All Breed Pedigree to confirm my suspicions.

The pedigree is even scarier than I expected. My heart sank. The top side of the pedigree is packed full of Impressive.

Impressive

Why is Impressive a problem? Impressive is the originator of the condition HYPP.

Why should HYPP worry a real horse owner? HYPP is a genetic disorder that has serious health consequences for the horse. His muscles are constantly more contracted rather than relaxed, and when he has an HYPP episode, he can suffer paralysis in his muscles. It doesn't take a genius to know that the heart is a muscle, and that there are muscles responsible for breathing, and in holding the throat open so the horse can breathe. There are muscles involved in digestion too. A horse having an episode can collapse as his legs fail him, or can suffer heart failure, or can suffocate to death, or suffer a deadly colic and this can happen any time his sodium levels creep too high.

You remember how I mentioned that HYPP horses have muscles that are constantly more contracted? This gives them the appearance of being big, beefy bodybuilder looking horses. They look like the horse version of Mr Universe.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

HYPP, despite its problems, continues to be somewhat sought after in the halter world. An HYPP positive horse has big, dramatic muscling, and tends to be evenly muscled front and back. He looks impressive. That's desirable in the halter show ring, so breeders have continued to breed for HYPP, despite the health risks that go with it.

Impressive himself wasn't too drastic, which is what you'd expect in a horse that only has one HYPP mutation. That's normally written HYPP N/H.

The horse I was looking at was HYPP N/H, and was bred from two HYPP N/H horses. Scary.

When you breed two HYPP N/H horses together, 50% of the time, you will get an HYPP N/H horse. 25% of the time you will get an N/N. The other 25%, you get an H/H.



HYPP H/H horses have rarely won anything in the halter show ring. They tend to be very drastically muscled, and in my opinion, they tend to look a bit grotesque. They're also much more prone to HYPP attacks.


There's a question as to whether it's ethical to continue placing HYPP positive horses in real shows. By placing them, the AQHA is basically giving tacit approval to breed horses that are dangerous, not only to the horse, but to their handlers as well. A horse suffering and HYPP attack can kill or seriously injure anyone or anything around it, as well as itself.


How should a model horse judge look at sculptures of HYPP positive horses? Looking at the rules the AQHA has set would seem a natural place to start.

HYPP N/H is not prohibited in Quarter Horse registration. It's allowable. It's not even heavily discouraged by the breed assocation.

HYPP H/H cannot be registered with the AQHA. Period.

A judge, and a model horse shower, need to know what they're looking at. If the horse looks HYPP H/H, that horse shouldn't place in a model horse show. It's not registrable. If you are going to place it, it had better place only in color classes, or in Mixed Stock Breed/Grade/Mixed Horse classes, because that's all it can be.

What about HYPP N/H? That's legal. Well, this comes down to judge's decision, ultimately. Personally, I won't place an HYPP N/H looking horse over an HYPP N/N horse, pure and simple. If it's not ethical in the real world, it's not ethical in plastic pony land either.

I'd have included pictures of HYPP H/H horses to give you an example of what they look like, but I really don't have the energy to argue with a real horse owner about the intricacies of the laws about libelous writing.

Come back Wednesday for more on Genetic Defects and Model Horses.

Workbench Update

On New Year's Eve, Antar Al-Ahmar was finally in his first coat of primer, but before he'd even dried, I noticed some problems, so as soon as he was dry, out came the Bondo Glazing Putty (I am not paid by, nor affiliated with Bondo, I just really like their products!).

So, here's some progress pictures to show off what I have so far. This again, is part of trying to break my problem with posting work in progress pictures, so you've actually got two WIPs here, the horse, and the diorama I photographed him on.

The red spots are Bondo, the white spots are sanded high points. I'm still not done with the Bondo, I want to smooth his tail so it matches his mane a bit better, but this is how he looks at the moment. I think he's looking pretty spiffy.

And just to get me even further over the hump as far as posting progress pictures goes, here's another item on my workbench:

This is the G2 Prancing Morgan body with the G2 Appaloosa tail, a G3 Mustang head, and G2 Thoroughbred ears. I think he looks kind of Andalusian-ish. This guy still needs a ton of work, including taking a Dremel to his neck/chest, and filling in a big hole in his neck. He actually doesn't stand on his own, he's leaning against the jump behind him, so I'm going to have to figure out a base for him as well.

Projects on my Work Bench

I don't like to post WIPs for anything I do. I like my work to look kind of magical, like it just somehow, amazingly, comes out of nowhere all finished and pretty, and hopefully amazing.

However, since I want to do a roaning and a dappling tutorial, I'm having to rethink that a little, so, to get myself used to sharing WIPs in their ugly phases, here's the projects I have immediately to hand on my workbench at a little after 5 in the morning:

LRH Wasabi Sensation

I'm still pastelling Wasabi Sensation's base coat before I can start on his roaning. I've adjusted the color a little to represent his real color a little better, but I think using the vivid/technicolor setting on my camera might have been the wrong choice for this stage of painting. Right now he is more vivid orange than I intend him to be. The next couple of layers are going to tone it down a bit and start darkening his head and legs. Right now, he's hanging out by my computer ready for the next step of pastel dust.

The wire is what I used to hold him for sealing, and to hang him by when he's drying. It's just some twisted wire around his neck, leaving a long enough tail for me to hold him and not spray myself. The wire's super thin, so I can still work around it as I pastel. When I'm done painting, I'll just have untwist it from around his neck. It's kind of creepy hanging a horse by the neck with a wire garrote though.

Antar Al-Ahmar

This is the CM that's been giving me so much hassle. Every time I think I'm done, there's something else that needs to be done. This was meant to be a simple head swap, neck move, and now it's a lot more than that. At this rate, I'll have resculpted everything by the time I'm done.

Pride of Nayef

Pride of Nayef is my new All Breeds Racing Board horse for next year. He's a TB stallion. He's going to be a greying out bay with a chaser clip. The red 'stuff' is Bondo Glazing Putty, and it's what I use instead of Apoxie Sculpt and modeling paste. This guy still has a lot of work to go. I've got both front legs almost done, but as you can probably tell, the upper long hair isn't fully edged yet. I still need to do his back legs, and the entirety of his other side. I want to rework his head a little too.

I think I'll be using Pride of Nayef as a quickie tutorial for a dark grey bay and how to paint a clipped horse, since he's handy.

I actually have two more CMs handy to photograph, but I really can't be bothered, because I literally woke up less than half an hour ago, and haven't had coffee yet.

Blogging without coffee first probably wasn't the best idea, but I just wanted to get this done.

Thinking About The Art of Horses

I've been hit with ideas as soon as I settled down for my "morning" coffee and catch up with what happened on the web while I slept.

I clicked through a few links, and found myself at Phaze Studios again. As often happens when I read someone else's blog, I stumbled across another gem: What do I want to do? In it, Liesl discusses some different approaches to art, and it's well worth reading for a quick grounding in different art styles.

While I was reading it, I started thinking about my artistic taste. My preference has always been toward the impressionistic end of the 'accuracy of depiction' scale.

That accuracy of depiction scale goes something like this:

Impressionism doesn't seek to accurately capture a form, rather to capture a feeling, often a feeling of movement as well as emotion. A child's drawing of a horse will often be clearly identifiable as a horse, but to an adult's eyes it might look coarse and lacking in definition.

Realism seeks to capture a subject as it is, with no bells or whistles. To me, this style often looks dull and lifeless. The energy is gone, and a sculpture looks like what it is: a lifeless accurate representation of a form. When I look at realism, I can't connect to the subject at all. In striving to capture the reality, an artist often loses that je ne sais quois found in other models. It looks like a real flesh and blood subject, one you could walk up to in real life and recognize immediately, but the artist has often sacrificed spirit and personality to depict something realistically.

Hyper-realism is itself somewhat impressionistic, but in the opposite direction: it shows details that might not be visible on the real thing. On a model horse, you might see hints of underlying skeletal structure, or veins that in reality are not nearly so close to the surface. These models tend to look very dry. It works well for half-starved Akhal-Tekes and skinny two-year old racing TBs, but it looks dreadful on a draft horse or a fat little British native pony.

My personal taste is somewhere in the mid point between impressionism and realism. I want to capture the spirit and feel that's in an impressionistic form, but to pay some mind to the realism of the subject. I want my work to look like it could be an individual you could really walk up to and meet, and one that you can guess how he'd behave as you approached.

I think that's why Antar has been working me so hard. I started off with a vague idea: I want an Arabian in the hard stand, but not perfectly so. I want him to have personality: I want him proud, but alert, strong, but gentle.

So, I altered the pose to turn his head, and he has an ear twitched back on the same side his head is turned to. He's in that moment just before we completely lose the hard stand and he cranes his neck to look behind him at the horse causing a ruckus somewhere behind him; the moment where he needs a tug on his lead to get his attention again.

This is actually something I have no reference pictures for: this pose worked solely from the picture I have in my head, and a little knowledge about biomechanics in movement and sensing.

When I was an Army Cadet, I was given a piece of advice on standing to attention and at ease: don't follow movement with your eyes. You might not notice it, but you will move your head and body to follow the movement. If you stare blankly ahead, and tune everything out, you'll stay mostly still, except for the slow weaving that comes with reacting to balance yourself as your chest moves while you're breathing and subtly shifts your center of balance.

When you hear an unexpected sound, if you're like me, you'll feel your ears twitch, and then you'll turn in the most biomechanically efficient method to look where the sound came from. This is an instinctual thing, and actually takes a lot of training and familiarity with a sound to not do. What you'll do naturally, is you'll turn the ear nearest to where the sound came from toward the source of the sound.

I watched a few documentaries about ergonomics and biomechanics during my GNVQ Engineering courses, which showed that if you ask someone to touch an object behind them without turning around, they'll naturally do it in the most efficient and fluid motion they can. As an example, let's imagine the target you want them to touch is at waist height, about two and a half feet behind their center line. They'll bend their dominant arm at the elbow and swivel the shoulder and wrist, in the same motion twisting their head, neck and torso to afford them a peripheral view of the target. They'll bend at the waist, dropping their dominant shoulder toward the target, and they'll slowly extend their dominant arm toward the target. Their fingers will make contact with the target with the palm up, and the wrist twisted toward the target, with the high point being the outside of their wrist.

So what does this mean for Antar?

Antar detects a sound behind him, and one ear immediately flicks toward it. The other twitches back out of its high forward pricked position, but returns forward when he starts turning his head in the direction of the sound. His ear will stay lined up with the source of the sound as his head comes around. The sound source comes into his peripheral vision first as his blindspot at the back of his head moves right over his haunches and shoulders. As he turns his head, he'll also twist it down, because it's the smoothest and most efficient motion. If he's unimpeded, he'll probably step his back right leg forward and right out of his hard stand to begin a pivot around his shoulders to put his left side to the source of the sound, and bring the thing causing the noise into the clearest part of his vision. The interesting thing is that as he steps around, he'll likely drop his tail a bit, both to free himself to move more easily, and as a reaction to mild fear or apprehension. The high position his tail is in during the hard stand is one of a proud, fearless horse, as it doesn't cover some of his most vulnerable areas. As a prey animal, he'll feel more apprehensive following a sudden noise, and will likely lower his tail a little to protect those delicate areas around his rear.

In my sculpt, Antar hasn't yet started stepping around, and hasn't lowered his tail yet. His legs should be tensing ready to begin moving. (Uh-oh, a new thing to work on! Oh dear!)

If Antar weren't a fearless bay Arabian and had heard something that truly scared the bejeezus out of him, he wouldn't do any of that, he'd spring forward, flattening his poor handler and bolt for safety. As it is, he's a bay horse, and as the Arab proverb says:

“If someone tells you that a horse leapt to the bottom of an abyss without injuring himself, ask what color he was, and if you are told bay, then believe it. The bay says to an argument, ‘Come no closer!’”

Arabians are also quite well known for being a breed that tends to spook in place, so Antar's mostly standing his ground, he just wants to know if maybe that's not such a good idea, so he wants to take a look behind him.

Now it's time for me to get back to work. I love this horse, but boy is he making me work hard to finish him before December's finished!

More of Antar's Aggravating Antics!

Later today, I'm finally going to go get the camera I wanted for my birthday. Sadly, Antar is still having a lot of customizing done. Every time I think I'm done, something else starts bothering me. At this rate he's going to be so different from the original that I'd probably be able to show him off and no-one would know which models he started as.

Yesterday/last night/this morning (all the same day for me, because I'm a Martian who lives on Mars time), I was working on his boy parts some more. I'm glad to say that's nearly done. Curse Antar's insistence on better boy parts, because that's what started this mess!

I also worked on his right eye a little today. He now has a brow ridge and eyeball that look like the one I've already finished on his left side. I still need to do the lower eyelid on the right. I worked on his right cheekbone a bit too, since it didn't match his left. His face is looking really nice and even (but not too even). He's not absolutely symmetrical, but it's close enough to look like a real living horse.

I set him down for a bit, and started browsing the web. It's when I'm taking a break that I start noticing problems with my artwork, no matter what kind. While I was staring at Antar, he said "mom, why don't I have chestnuts?" Well, he does now.

And then he said "I look like a fuzzy British native pony with this excessive hair on my tail, do something about it mom!" That was a quick problem to fix, I just peeled off some of the hair closer to his dock. It's looking a lot better now.

And back to browsing I went. I got to these wonderful blog posts by Phaze Studios: Horse Feet: Part 1 and Horse Feet: Part 2: Structure. Well, as you've probably guessed, that made me take a look at Antar's hooves.

Well, the model I started from has atrocious hooves, so now I need to figure out what I have to do to make them look better. I'm not too worried about all four feet being very different from each other, it makes him look more like a real horse anyway, but I can't stand that his hooves aren't quite correct. For starters, he needs his heel bulbs at the very least, as well as one of his front hooves rounded a bit more. I'm wondering how I'd go about carving his feet, since I did already carve his ears, but I don't have a clue how I'd do it at Stablemate scale with the tools I have. I think I need to work on his coronet bands too, they look puffy and unhealthy to me.


I think he needs some work on his knees and hocks, but I'm really not sure what I'm doing with them yet, I need to track down a few more references.

I think Antar won't be the first model I'll be taking pictures of with my new camera after all. He's not ready for his close up! He still needs his makeup and wardrobe. He told me today he wants a sidesaddle and racing saddle. I drew up a quick pattern for the side saddle while I waited for glazing putty to dry, and yes, I will share that when I finish making the saddle. I'll share the racing saddle pattern too.

LRH Antar Al-Ahmar Delayed

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.

All Breeds Racing Board Annual Starters Auction

The All Breeds Racing Board Starters Auction just ended. I bid on a few horses, but some of the bidding was crazy competitive, and I didn't have as many points to bid as some of the older members. I bowed out of bidding on two of the horses I was interested in, and put in bids on two more horses toward the end. I lost one, but kept the other, and I'm very happy I picked up at least one of the lots I bid on.

Here's the details for the horse I won in the auction:
2008 Arabian colt or filly by Before The Storm (Silver Prince X Layla) out of Johar (Dahess X Truely A Dream). Consigned by Emory Oak Stables.

I got to choose some of the details, like color and gender, and I've chosen to make a one of a kind custom.

Here's what I've decided on:

She's going to be named Aasifa Bint Johar.

She's going to be made from a Classic Andalusian Stallion, with a lot of customizing to turn her into a mare breaking from the start line. Here's a basic idea of what I want to do for the pose. I'll be replacing the neck, mane and tail with original sculpts, and the head's going to get a lot of detailing, and I suspect I'll be doing a lot of remaking around the flanks. This might just be one of the most drastic models I'll do.

Color wise, I want dapples like this, but with a chestnut base:

Aasifa is my next project for myself after I finish Antar, and get a few sales pieces done. I'm going to get bits and pieces of her done whenever the mood strikes and I've got some time to spare to get on with it.

Who knows, perhaps one day, an Antar Al-Ahmar X Aasifa Bint Johar foal might show up in the Starters Auction? ;)

Custom in progress: LRH Antar Al-Ahmar

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.