Cerridwen Still Making Progress

The last few days I have just about finished blocking in a cutting down Cerridwen's muscles.  I am dying to start adding details of course but I'm not there yet.  Still some tweaking but I am so happy with her so far.

I also wanted to give everyone a good idea of what size she is.  As you know from the original photos, she fits her little Breyer girl perfectly.  I was trying to think of the best horse I had around that nearly everyone has seen in person.  So I grabbed this Matriarch.  I place her next to Cerridwen so you can see she's a great sized riding pony, just over 13hh if she were in the real world.  Here is one of those comparison pics...

This photo doesn't show the length comparison well since I took it at a slight angle.  If you match up Matriarch's rear to Cerridwen's, the front of Cerridwen's chest comes to the back of Matriarch's shoulder (or behind her front leg).

Here's one a little more level...

And some more of Cerridwen...

So still a ways to go but this is a big difference in just a couple days.  She will have some wire poking out since the armature was really too big for her.  I cut out as much as I could but I think I'll just sand down the little pieces rather than dig into her again.

And btw, I got your emails about her mane.  So far we're close on the choices still with the short pulled mane is in the lead.  Now I do plan on doing an official poll just before Christmas.  No matter how she ends up, I'll still make 10 totally customized artist choice pieces to sell. 

I had a couple people ask about prices.  It's not set in stone yet but I plan on have her priced at $165.00 US ppd for the pre-orders and $195.00 ppd US for her regular one.  She will be a one mold run.

As for now I'll be finishing up painted pieces this week.  My daughter's bought me a plan ticket so I can visit them in Florida for Christmas.  I'll be working this week but somewhat unavailable from this coming Saturday the 12th till the 20th.  I hope my roommate can handle all the pets, lol!

Till next time...

More Updates on Cerridwen!

Since I wanted to take you through all the crazy stages of sculpting, I did some more update or progress photos (I should call it slow progress, lol) on Cerridwen.  She's the riding pony I am working on.  She is still very RAW to say the least.  I changed a few things from my original idea.  I probably will continue to tweek her till I get what I want.

I really want her to surpass Sundance in detail and feel.  I have over 40 photos of similar Welsh ponies, mainly older mares.  I was surprised to find how many of these photos were taken where people are holding a treat for the pony to stretch out and get.  The halter photos are the same.  Stretch out the neck pose.  So my concept was assisted by tons of references.  Yeah!

Most of her is still roughly blocked in.  I wait until I have all measurements correct before I start adding any detail.  Until I get it I won't start adding the find muscles or really working on the head.  Now that Levi is back I will be able to take her to the barn and use on of his boarder's ponies to get the 3-D details I need.  That's how I did the final cutting and blocking of Sundance.  There is nothing like a real horse as a model.

Here's the story behind Cerridwen.  She's actually going to be a bronze.  The little girl Breyer you saw standing in front of her will be the idea behind the bronze.  The pony will have a bridle on with a blue ribbon.  One version will be English and one Western.  So the child will have her show duds on (yes I am sculpting the girl from scratch of course) and giving her champion pony a kiss on the nose.  She will have to lean forward to do this.  The Western girl will have her hat on her back with a string around her neck holding it as she leans forward (the hat was in the way).  She will be holding a big carrot behind her back with both hands.  The English child will have a braided mane and tail pony with her English duds on, including the helmet.  She also will have her hands behind her back with a carrot.

That hind toe will be totally pointed.  I can't do that right now since the leg gets squished when I push down on the clay.

The bronze pieces will be displayed for sale in Victor Issa's studio in Estes Park and my web site.  My idol of all living sculptors has given me a kick in the bootie to do this and called me on my excuses.  So the honor is huge thus the creation of this piece.

Since I like how she was going, I decided to do a resin for the hobby as well.  It will just be the pony of course by herself.  I have been going back and forth on the mane.  Jennifer Buxton says a braided mane but I have a lot of Western people that want a pulled mane saying they can get away with both English and Western events without having to customize the horse.  Most of these horses in Europe are shown with a long full mane.  So I'll be doing a poll on my Yahoo Group.

Haven't finished blocking in this side yet.  Yes Jen the stifle will be behind the other, lol!

Feel free to throw in suggestions.  You won't offend me.  She's really rough at this point and I know what I need to work on but opinions always matter!  I measured her neck head and body a million times.  They are correct.  Most these ponies have long necks and the pose she's in accentuates it.  If it still doesn't translate well to the model (we hobby people have grown accustomed to short necks and backs) I'll shorten her neck.

So that's it for now.  Good thing is she is very much a traditional riding pony made to fit the Breyer doll perfectly.  Great size!  I'll post some more photos of her next to some well known models so you can see her scale even better.  I was careful with this since Sundance ended up being a large traditional.

Puppies

I am so excited.  Dakota had her puppies.  Now she's Levi's dog.  He's a trainer at the barn I keep Sundance and Chevy at.  She had the babies over Thanksgiving and of course the day he was leaving for Ohio.  So I got to mom and baby sit.  Here are a few photos of the little rascals...

Here they are at 2 days old

Here they are at one week...

Dakota had 7 but a really hard birth early into it from what I was told.  Once the stuck puppy came out it was stillborn then he lost the other 3 more born right after within a couple hours.  I think they came too fast and she needed help.  Nobody was at the ranch at that time.  The next morning two more died so she ended up with 2.  I got them the next day.  The little black one wasn't doing too great either.  So I went in every 1/2 hour and rubbed her (both are girls).  The stimulation helped a lot. 

Mom was also having a lot of trouble and I wanted to take her to the vet.  But I couldn't get hold of the owner since he was traveling from Colorado to Ohio.  I gave her a lot of supportive care, good food, a pro biotic and assisted her the first two days around the clock.  So mom and the two remaining girls thrived.  She's a ranch dog and they don't get much pampering. 

This is her second litter.  3/4 heeler and 1/4 Australian Shephard.  Last litter the alpha female at the ranch didn't approve of a lower ranking female breeding with her male so she killed 4 of her 6 puppies.  There were only two suvivors from the last litter, also and both females.  So being worried this time around (and winter to boot) I offered to at least watch them while he was gone.  He assured me they would be inside now and he would make sure the other dog couldn't get these.

The look on her face is priceless!