Chimera 2D Battle Ponies!!!

Right now I'm supposed to be getting ready to rush out the door & leave but then I got these most awesome (what a hoot!) screen shots.  Battle Ponies from the 2D version of the game Chimera..  http://chimeragame.com/

It's really rather addicting & not so hard at first.  I'm not particularly good at these sorts of game mind ya.  ANYHOW, the $19.95 special version is TOTALLY worth it imo AND it's a cool fundraiser for the 3D game licensing costs... so you're doing a good thing by buying it... NEVERMIND that you get your money back & then some with the discount coupons and specials offered.  I like the term "retro style" for the 2D aspect but it really makes me giggle to see names of people and works that I know.

I'll leave it at that... I'm late! But woohoo for battle ponies! (they're at a high level it'll probably take me a month to figure out how to get there.. I'm still trying to figure out what it means to "use a horse" as a weapon anyhow.  Too funny! :D

And if anyone else is interested in helping Sherry raise funds for the most cool 3D version definitely contact her. She's very awesome to work with! :)
(later Thurs evening)
Just got home to more, VIDEO showing how it works...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08i_FY5IAYM&feature=youtu.be

Ok, now I still don't know how it works but for all those who play computer games I'm sure this must explain some... it's definitely more complicated than anything I would've thought (& especially more than I would have figured out) but it's SO FUNNY to me all the same!  I love Caroline & Sheri there in their studios..  too much fun! :)

Treasure hunt questions & answers up + thoughts & rambles..

Aside from releasing a new resin this weekend I also held a treasure hunt for my yahoogroup members! For ease of posterity I'm posting a link here to the rules & answers.

Congrats to the winner!! (1st place is getting a Little Man Mango resin!). The 2nd & 3rd place winners got medallions & discounts. The remaining 4 (there were 7 winners) got discount %s too.  Congrats to all really!  I can be so ambiguous I'm THRILLED people figured it out at all! :D

Happiest of all to me was that people figured it out a bit faster than the one over Thanksgiving weekend. That one took the first winner around 45minutes & the subsequent winners almost an hour. My goal was to have people really not wasting more than 15min searching around & the 1st place winner too around 10minutes & the remaining answers came in under half an hour so woot! I'm getting the hang of it I hope too!

I'm thinking Thanksgiving weekend is a good time again perhaps. We'll see. Now that we live away from where we grew up holiday weekends don't involve driving for hours around to see my family & his. Back in CT I also had my own boarding barn or a horse job where the work doesn't take holidays either. So holiday weekends were insanely busy typically. However... even if mine have really lightened up, other folks haven't I know SO.. we'll see.

Still.. I do kinda dig the idea of rewarding people who do NOT do the Black Friday madness. Haha!

Truly though input is always welcome, on the questions/instructions.. what have you. I use the yahoogroup for announcing the contest because I can't use the email sub service for contests like this (they really didn't want me to even try - in talking to tech support when I signed up for it). I'm on the fence about going with a forum for announcing/holding it. The problem there too, not everyone is registered as a user. So for now, yahoogroups seems to be the best bet for me. Other ideas welcome though! :) Email me at artbymorgen@yahoo.com; morgen@one-horse.net, I'm all ears! :D

Meanwhile, here are the results;
http://www.artbymorgen.com/april2012_hunt.htm
Here are the rules/questions;
http://www.artbymorgen.com/Hunt_guidelines.htm

Maxixe de Barrios - a bit about the breed & the name!

Hi sales information is online now here; http://www.artbymorgen.com/maxixe.htm

Max's gallery is here http://www.artbymorgen.com/galleries/maxixe/index.html.

& Now I'm excited to finally share more information about his inspirations and namesake!

First, the breed...
So some leads on learning more about the Criollo (aka Crioullo). As South America’s stock horse, these guys are of obvious Spanish decent.  http://www.justacriollo.com/pages_en/Criollocaracteristiques_en.htm   I was inspired to do this sculpture after coming across a good # at my first horse event here in North Carolina (here is a photo I shared earlier of one horse there https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEdYdrOXvSBE0lWwxPRo59txEoajYp4Rzi2vt3Nmc0C8ihdy3rMEWXe7ySrAEf_vVSNydfGklP5HXy8WaCVTJCv7UHX1e6RYw6RZXljJgd3tCRwdnIf0mHzkjIpS9DQpJ8ufnDEtvFvkw/s1600/criollo_bensonmuledays.jpg ) .  Where I was born/raised (CT) horses are predominately bay/brown & grey, appaloosa or pinto is a notable exception.  For instance I distinctly remember when I first saw a blue roan or a buckskin!   So of course I’m just charmed by what a wonderful variety of colors I stumbled into with these guys!  And for even more, please check out Martina  Vannelli’s flickr albums!!

That last cream (champagne?) fellow shows how they seem to like to leave ear hair there to protect from those flies even though many are quite meticulously groomed.

The build of these guys to me is this epitome of the notion of a “foot in every corner” stock horse look – crossed with the gorgeous Spanish body type (*check out this guy -> "Guapo" indeed eh! https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa/CrioulosABCCCVIII#5088448429188613538 )   There are many names for the breed in the various South American countries.  There are various ways they do the hair, more often now you’re seeing the completely roached forelocks too – but I opted for the more traditional look they often seem to be halter shown in; roached mane, hair at the wither & long forelock, banged tail.  I recently saw someone describe Andalusian’s as “hair growing machines” and these guys definitely have that going on for them as well!  Most I’ve found have exceptionally lush wavy tails.

This handsome Criollo shows that robust build and also, you can see they are very small! (Under 14.2hh very often I guess).  Used with permission of “LA PRESTANCIA - CABALLOS CRIOLLOS - TANDIL – ARGENTINA” (Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001062555671 )

Another album you REALLY might enjoy for both it’s historical value and all the variety of builds and colors these horses come in;
https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa
 

https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa/CrioulosABCCCVIII


https://picasaweb.google.com/tiagodpoa/CrioulosArgentinos


Next….the name...
My choice of this (crazy hard to pronounce!) :)  name is based on the so so typical Spanish breed movement.  I wanted an M name that related to the musical beat aspect of their gait.  They always seem to me as if they’re hearing their own internal rhythm!

Maxixe is a Brazilian tango – the name actually stems from the African influence which is why it’s a very unusual (hard to pronounce!) word.  Portuguese translators indicate it’s almost pronounced to rhyme with hasheesh.   However if you listen to the man at the beginning of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVY6ysbyWk  performance you’ll hear him say “maxixe” and it’s as if he puts an extra “sheesh” in there. ... as in "mah-she-sheesh"… SHEESH huh? Lol! Sorry to pick another tough name gang!

To harken back to the fashion in which most Spanish horses seem to be named I created a rather arbitrary sounding bloodline by the “de Barrios”.  In part because of all the little maxixe pieces I found on youtube they lacked the right tempo except for a few, I especially like this one as the bongo (bongos right??) really tap out that beat you tend to associate with hoof beats! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyLaASIjsU&feature=related    Some versions of Agustin Barrios Mangore’s maxixe are often played slower… but I give you these two to hear it as I do – with more staccato!

So there you have it!  Max represents a little folksy working & proudly parading stock horse from a country with rich traditions and beautiful and exceptionally athletic horses! (What a mouthful).

Today's Wild Hare... :)

I got a wild hare to put in some wilder hair! :D Just to the forelock. Just because I really should be doing anything but fiddling around over there (including taking the time to take the dogs to the park instead of a run around inside the garage - for both of our health). Ah well though, sometimes you just gotta take a few minutes to do something when the mood strikes ya! :)

Here I've only really added a tiny tad onto both sides of his forelock giving it taper & fringe. But I think it really helps from various angles a lot more. Especially to complete the "flare" feeling of his swishing tail - these are reminiscent to me of a flamenca dancer's dress motion... constantly whirling and so very full and heavy looking yet somehow light all the same!

Enough waxing philosophical... I have to hit the showers now. Got pretty grimy today (not doing this 20min add on)..

Btw, in case it's not really clear -> this is just the base & I'll be blending/grooving it one these tendrils firm up. Sunday! :D

What a different feel it has to me than this view I took yesterday..

Watching paint dry...

No no, not quite that bad. In fact it's probably for the best that I'm giving it days to dry here before putting in veins/details. Saturday I'll be at the races (vending in my tent again)... events where I tote everything out always seem to me like "oh I don't have much to do for that" .. and then I really do. I'm always packing my stuff at midnight or later the night before ANY kind of show. When will I learn??!

Sooooo seriously though, I'd LIKE to believe now that I'm all prepared here. That I've gotten my booth stuff ready to go & tomorrow will be a simple matter of packing my stuff into the vehicle for an early Saturday send off? That said, I doubt it. Tomorrow I'll be scrambling around with some big project I remembered.

Picture of my wares out at an Open House at Artist Gallery in downtown Southern Pines last week - so they're all ready to go already for this upcoming weekend for the Saturday races at the Carolina Horse Park in Raeford! :)

My fiance is really doing the major stuff - he is making mini jump standards for hanging those paintings on. Here they are at an open house in the "Artist Gallery" open house last week. It truly messes with me, this name... every year (except this year probably) in the summer I've participated in something called "Artist's Gallery" at the Holiday Inn (now Clarion) in Lexington - a ball room of artists hosted by Breyer during their Breyerfest event. This year I hope to be doing a booth around the arena... so those jump standards will be helpful then somehow too! :) (You know I just want them SO BADLY to play with the dogs with, right? I've wanted mini jump standards since I was like .. 5... I've even had real jump standards but I don't care -> the mini ones are the cutest thing since .... cute things.. I dunno! They ROCK!). :)

Go me with the artsy shot here... :-P I'm really just being silly but it was fun to try!

Pictures are so heavy so I'm hoping the mini jump standards can take it!

He's also slapped together some lovely pedestals for me and I was just out sanding & painting them. While doing so I realized/remembered that the pictures I've been taking here (for another purpose/submission actually), were done with the wrong camera settings for my set up. So DOH... & Thus, here's a slightly better lit photo of my dude that's not all grainy! :D

Max and pals have a play date

Someone asked me (in a nudge nudge sort of way!), if I’d posted any pictures from any other angles than that the left side.. doh! So here’s some other angles in size comparisons... (Max is still not ready for his glamor shot close ups)..

& I’ll be quick in my babbling because this is a visual anyhow. I’ve already promised to provide “real” measurements on Max (congrats to Heather for getting it again!) for those who make tiny tack… but I’m getting lots of questions on relative scale and I though it would be fun to show some group shots with some of my newest members. I also am (yes of course) doing a self-check on any possible more last minute revisions… you may or may not be able to tell I removed some hoof from the last time (daintier still yes! He’s got the machismo to carry it off imo!). ;)

Max is 1:9 scale – on the slightly small side. He’s 11 inches long, 7 inches high at the crest of his neck (probably would be 8 to eartips if he wasn’t looking down, getting all haughty!) ;) … true to form as a Criollo stallion they come in surprisingly small packages for all their “big” looking selves!


Max and Johann – Johann, 2010, is robust & hardy lil (small traditional) 1:9 scale / 8.5” tall all around riding and driving horse of early American design.

Again from a different angle – I think here you really can see that Max is a taller at the wither, despite his “height” measurement being smaller.


Kipling and Max – who spent a good deal of side-by-side time on their poles when being created. Kipling, 2011, is a 1:9 scale miniature horse/petting zoo pony who's super inquisitive nose is just a hair over 5 inches tall.




Max, Kipling and (hoohaa GIRLpower!) Hazel! Hazel is a 1:9 draft cross mare, standing 10 inches tall on her base & stretching out 14.5 inches long.

And just because it’s supremely entertaining to me (Max standing around regarding EVERYthing…)… here we have Max looking on while little 1:24 scale Flitwick leaps over his rock wall. Flitwick, 2006 stands a shade under 4 inches tall at the top of his tail.

And there you have it. I’m taking a break while his latest coat of primer dries & figured now would be a good time to address that before I go & mar the finish up. I’m thinking that next week I’ll hopefully be ready to go with him.