The summer flew by yet again with me not updating my blog since June...yikes!

Lots of stuff has been going on. Firstly I have been having issues with my back since the end of May. Apparently time and gravity take their toll on us all eventually, but at 43 it wasn't something that I was thinking would happen to me. So, much of my summer involved going back and forth to Durango for various doctor's appointments and physical therapy. We also had company for most of the summer, and have been doing a major home remodel. During all this we managed to squeeze in two pack trips up the Pine River.

Fortunately I can still ride, and can work without too much pain. I've been cleaning up the reiner castings and am terribly slow, and probably way too particular, but I know what I am sending out is a top notch product. I normally don't do the clean up work, but am doing it so that Todd can have the time needed to complete our remodel before winter sets in.








Sommer Prosser was here for three weeks house sitting just a few miles away, and I was able to recruit her to help clean castings, too. Since she is from Phoenix I wanted to show her what life is like up here in the mountains and got her out on a few rides. Here she is on Indy in an area called Cave Basin, about 12,000 in elevation:




We are hoping to have the remodel mostly done in early October so we can go on our fall riding trip to southeastern Utah. Anyone who lives in snow country knows the need to extend one's Indian Summer for as long as possible to give you the fortitude to make it through the upcoming months of snow and cold. I am going to be diligently cleaning reiner castings until then, with my little room being the only place I can be and not get in the way of the remodeling project.

And what about the remodeling project? The master bedroom has been retextured, painted, wood floor installed and now the main part of the house is getting the same treatment. Except it's a lot bigger than our bedroom, and involves a semi-demo of the behemoth fireplace into something a little less huge and monolithic. We've lived here for 9 years and it is finally time to take it on! Yay!

Colorized reiner

After some time spent working through a basic Photoshop book I tried my hand at colorizing a photo of an unpainted reiner resin. I thought I would have time to paint one in reality, but simply ran out of time as I've been busy with cleaning up castings to ship, my garden, and my back going wonky on me. With doctors orders to take it easy I thought learning some Photoshop skills would be fun and come in handy.








Hopefully my skills will improve with more practice, I think it would be fun to do up a bunch of pics in all sorts of horse colors :) Fun!

Reiner progress

Every time I get to the final steps in getting a sculpture ready for production, I am amazed at how much work there is left to do. I guess it's like giving birth, my brain makes me forget the final tedious steps in order that I may feel motivated to bring more sculptures to completion in the future. After the clay is finished, it feels, well, like I'm done :) Far from it, though. A mold needs to be made from which only one resin casting will be poured. That casting undergoes more sculptural work and detailing, including the time consuming veining process:






This stage can last 2-3 weeks! The casting must be sanded smooth, and any final details or changes must be added before the production mold process can begin. The first step to the production mold process it to protect the master casting with plastic wrap:




Then the casting is covered with a layer of clay that has been rolled out to an even thickness. Once that is complete the seam for the plastic mold shell is added, and it's ready to have the mold shells made:




Once the mold shells are made, the whole thing is opened up, the clay removed, everything reassembled, and the silicone is mixed and poured into the cavity between the resin master casting and the plastic shell. Here is what that looks like when one side of the shell has been removed:




At this point I take the silicone with the master casting encased inside it and carefully cut it out with a scalpel. This is very tedious and usually take the better part of a day to do. For each new production mold, the master casting is set back up with the mold shells and more silicone is poured in. It's very time consuming, but this is how small editions of detailed castings are made :)

Reining horse coming soon

It seems like the economy is picking up a little for everyone, so I've decided to put out a new Traditional scale horse. This will be my first Traditional horse since 2008! He's a cantering reining horse that is tack and performance friendly, and is packed with quarter horse character. He is leaning into his turn so he has a base. Price and sales methods are not yet decided, please join the Rose Studios News announcement list for info as it becomes available.




Part of the hold up on getting the reining horse's release sorted out is the huge amount of Working Girl orders we received at the close of her edition. We got over 200 new orders! Whew! Casting all those little girls will keep Todd busy for several months, and I am not sure how that will effect the release date of the reiner just yet.

On the real horse front, spring has 'semi' sprung here in Southwestern Colorado. Sunday we went down to New Mexico to ride and got sunburned, today at home it's been blowing snow all day. Hopefully the snow and wind will come to an end soon so that we can make our annual spring trip to Utah to ride and go antler collecting (a holdover from my taxidermy days).

Here's a super short video of another new hobby, sand sliding:

Working Girl edition ends soon!

Hard to believe it's already been almost a year since Working Girl was released! Time sure flies. The last day to place an order for this power packed bit of SM scale stockhorse goodness is March 24th. Check out her page for more info and more pics.

Painted at last :)

After 4 days of painstaking painting I have completed the first Carousel Horse. I had forgotten how time consuming all those little details are :) He was FUN to paint, though, and a nice break from the hyper-realistic world of model horses. Sales information will be made available to members of the Rose Studios Announcement list on Monday the 28th.

Lots of you are asking what size he is. Here is a comparison to Rasam, my classic scale Arabian. Rasam's scale was based on the Breyer classic scaled horses, so you can see the carousel horse is a touch smaller:



Also just added to the blog is a poll asking for your vote on what you'd like to see me sculpt next. Please take a moment and help me decide what you all want to see coming from Rose Studios next.

Carousel horse in resin

I have a few castings of the carousel horse in resin! Yay! We are still working on some molding issues with him, due to the complexity of casting him with his base attached. He should be available for sale very soon, hopefully sometime this week. This guy is not meant to be a model horse, in fact I sculpted him before I rediscovered the hobby in the late 90's. He isn't as anatomically detailed as my models are, and his proportions might be a tad off, but I didn't want to re-sculpt him and possibly lose the feel of the sculpture that I had originally intended. His ornamentations are very detailed, with veining in the feathers of his wings, tassels on his bracelets, and fleur-de-lises on his saddle blanket and browband. He is going to be a blast to paint!







Speaking of painting, I have a Jezebel that is almost completed. She was done in oils, I just need to find the time to finish her up. I really like they way she turned out, and am quite pleased with the dappling I did, the most extensive dappling I've tackled in oils.





Winter arrived in a big way recently, with 2 feet in the first storm and another 8-10 inches yesterday. Todd has been dividing his attention between casting and shipping resins to snow removal and wood chopping. Poor guy! Winter is a lot of work here, but we love it.