Third Annual Holiday Halter sale!

Yep, I have been bugging you all with my holiday sale three years running, whew! *giggles*

Actually I am very proud to have quite a few new pieces to offer this year, and a few more on the way if I can get my errand running out of the way this week and get to my desk! The 5 pictured here are all available as of the time I am writing this, except for the copper/gold one, I have someone interested in it. (but wanted to share the picture anyway! ;0) ) I can be reached via email at mrsmelissage "at" msn "dot" com if anyone is interested in one of the pieces! (all priced at 35.00 except for the mini halter, which is 25.00)

Thanks for reading, I'm off to go take care of more pre holiday crazyness!

The last piece of the puzzle...

It's finished! I just about killed my neck with this one, but it was so worth it, it turned out exactly like I was hoping, and a pretty good representation of the original 'real horse' set as well!

I am now free and clear to do sales pieces, and a few pieces for Las Vegas Live, which will be here before I know it, time has flown!

Coming soon will be 4 holiday halters and a few of the royal show halters as feature in some posts below...and maybe a few wire/cable style halters as well, I haven't decided just yet. I am also planning on a Hunter green EDH costume as well as my first hand embroidered native set, so things will still be busy, just no one waiting on me, which will be very freeing.

Well, enjoy the pictures, I'm outta here for 10 days starting tomorrow, so I won't be able to post any for a while! Have a great Thanksgiving week everyone! :0)

The inspiration piece...

Busy Busy Busy!

This has been a great week of tying up loose ends, and boy did I have a LOT of ends to tie! I won't bore you (if there is a *you* that is, lol) with a bunch of text, here are some pictures!

OK, so I lied, here's a bit of text...The halter is the prize for a drawing I did on Halloween, the Pony is still a WIP, but he is coming along nicely, I have a poll going on to pick his color, he looks to be going towards Golden Palomino...

The Necklace is...wouldn't YOU like to know...;0)

I have one more item I'm working on here tonight, that should be wrapped up by tomorrow, I'll post it here when it's finished... Ok, back to work!

(click the pictures for gigantic sized pictures!)

Having a little fun!

So after a year's worth of working on these two items as I could (between moving, surgery, yard building, kid surgeries and daily 'Mom' stuff...not to mention a whole lot of other 'little' items!) I'm finally finally done! Woo! So with that under my belt, I trekked out into our semi frozen backyard to the dirt pile left from the pond excavation to take some fun pictures of the two sets I will be sending out this week. I've also included a picture of a Royal Show halter I created as part of a package that includes the costume on the left below...it turned out well I think.

I have noticed a certain pattern in my work, and maybe other artists/tack makers can relate. In the beginning, I was slow, things took forever it seems, but as I got better, I got fast, really fast, and now, that I find my attention for detail increasing in large leaps, I am back to slow again, does that make sense? Things that would take me three days take me a month, things that used to take a month take much much longer. I suppose it's just a natural progression, putting more and more detail into each piece and being ever more picky about what you send out into the world, it sure does impact the quality as well as the quantity, which isn't all bad, just kinda confusing. :0)

Well, back to the grindstone...there shall be more to come this week if it kills me!

Ta da!!!

Just a few quick pictures of Oberon all wrapped up, then I must go to bed (2:34 eek!) He won second place in an "other draft" class at a show in Boise ID on the 18th, I'm pretty proud of him!

I have so many more things wrapping up this week too, it's going to be crazy, but I'm working towards everything that is not for myself, or a sales piece in the works, to be out of here by Thursday the 20th! Wish me luck...:o)

Oh, and for fun I've included a pic of the Mindy I have been working on for my own collection, she turned out just how I had hoped!

Flow

There are times when 'it' just comes to you, for whatever reason, things just become more effortless, lately that has not been the case for me at all, until this week. I am seeing things differently for the first time in a long while, having lots of great nights of great progress, and that makes me feel so much better. My laundry pile has suffered due to this great burst of creative energy, but my commission pile is getting smaller and smaller! I'll put up a few pics of the most recent completions and good old WIP's, a few of which should be finished by next week, what a relief!

I think I know what I'm doing...:0)

At least it is starting to feel that way around here, lol. This little guy has been the single most difficult thing I have done in regards to finishwork, but will be one of the more rewarding tasks I have completed...when he's completed that is.

I received Mr. Oberon in the mail from England in December of last year (my that's embarrassing!) and he immediately began giving me troubles.

He had a few layers of primer and previous color on him, and needed a few tweaks before I could be satisfied enough to put my finishwork on him (mostly because I'd be horrified to have a customer find something I missed while prepping, eek!), but nothing too major. So he received a Power dissolver bath and a new prep and prime, and was ready for action...or so I thought. We received word that we would be moving, so I needed to pack up my models to get the house ready for sale, so mister Obie in his fresh new primer coat was placed away in a tote to be brought to the new house, where he would begin coming to life finally in May!

I began his coloring in a way I thought would give me good tone and balance, by pastelling a base coat, as I was aiming for a roany look at first...but he had different ideas for sure! I'm going to let the pictures do the rest of the talking (it's past 1am again...tee hee..) but I think it's a neat transformation to see the various stages he's gone through to get where I'm fairly happy with how he looks! He's still far from finished, but has come a really long way so far, finished pictures should be up within the week! Stay tuned!

(top is first pic, they get more recent as you scroll down!)

Why pictures are wonderful

I was so excited to have the seat on the blue Egyptian Dancing horse costume put together, I neglected to look at the size of the seat, so it's been changed, thank goodness for pictures! The pics also revealed that I knocked a stud or two off somehow... :0)

Off for more fun...

More fun stuff this week...

I must be on some kind of major roll this week, I have three more bodies prepped and ready to paint, along with some solid progress on an EDH costume I've had going for forever and a day!

The Egytian Dancing Horse costume is one of those things that once you sit down and get cracking on it, it can go fast! It's just wanting to sit and stare at 1.5 mm dots all day that gets me most of the time, they make my head hurt!

The bodies are for a SM painting contest I hope I will have time to get at least one of them done for, they include an OM SM Arabian stallion, an OM SM ASB made into a stallion, and an OM SM TB mare with new mane and tail and reworked ears and eyes. I'll post pics of them soon, for now I'll leave you with a pic of the EDH in progress! Off to bed! (so early for me!)

Progress, sweet progress...

Wheeee! Just finished a new piece last night- an AA Arabian Knight in Dapple Bay, and am getting closer on the other one, (that is trying to break me, but it won't work!) a leopard appy Oberon, both pieces are trade paintjobs in exchange for other minis! Once they are done, I will be once again painting for my own collection, which consist of a lot of nekkid bodies right now! It will also free me up to work on the final 4 commission tack pieces I have taken, which will be wonderful to have all done! (2 EDH costumes, a halter and a halter collar set!)

Finally finshed a few things...

Yay me! My favorite line from my daughter's favorite Disney Channel show (moms of 7-13 year olds should know the name of it! ) applies this week because I finally finished some work!

The move, and subsequent unpacking, followed by sick animals, surgery, and the total construction of a new backyard/pond/patio etc. (which is still not done, but it is getting closer...) stole a lot of my thunder for model related activities, and I am happy to say, I am back in the swing of things!

I managed to get a model painted up from my 'Paint a Mini, for a Mini' promotion, and the next two should be ready pretty soon! I'll have pics of them when they are done, for sure. I also completed a halter and Collar set that is part one of a commission, with the other set coming along well too!

I'll leave you with a few pics of the pieces, as it is 1:44am, ( me and my crazy hours) and I need to go to bed, tomorrow is going to be a looong day.

Cheers!

Melissa

(Oh, and the pics are clickable, the pics are huge, but clickable nonetheless! )

So we begin...

I'm writing this at an insane time of night, which tends to be pretty well the norm for me actually, but enough of that...

I started the blog to give an inside view as to what goes on in my day to day, and to have another way of keeping in touch with my clients. I hope I will provide something worthwhile to read from time to time, as well as some fun pictures of works in progress as well!

Thanks for stopping by!