Performance Extravaganza Live Show 2012 - part 2 OF

Here's the OF division from PEL this year. Pics after the cut!

Performance Extravaganza Live Show 2012 - part 1 - CM/AR

The second PEL show was on yesterday. Technically I co-hosted it with Lisa Winkworth, but she was awesome and did all the work, so she gets full credit for a brilliant show.

Unfortunately, interest was low; aside from Lisa and myself, only four others turned up. Still, the competition was fierce! The show was divided into two divisions: CM/AR and OF, both with the same class list (roughly 18 classes each). We had a late start, with judging by Karen Grigson of Bluebird Studio fame beginning at 10.30am.

Lots of pics after the cut!

Doorstop

(Before you ask: yes, I really am that mean to my models. I have one named Fluffy; what did you expect?)

Lionswood Benjamin, stable name Doorstop, started out as a Christmas gift from my BFF Stacey. He's a classic-size BHR Drafter resin. There was a reason for his bargain basement price of $25 US - he was unpainted, but had been poorly prepped. After his purchase from MHSP, we sent him straight to the magical Gina Hyatt of Dog Hair Studio, who worked hard to remove his previous layer of primer, and restored the body to his smooth and detailed glory.

She then passed him onto Karen Zorn. After some discussion I decided I wanted a Suffolk Punch, so sent her lots of reference pics and asked her to sculpt some mane bobbles, and braid his tail. She did just that, giving him gorgeous maroon and dark green ribbons, and changing the mould's swishy tail to one with some serious braided detail. Just check out that butt!

He arrived to me this past Tuesday, just a few days before a live show - the last one in my state of Victoria for a long time. Desperate to make sure he got out and shown before DUN (Australian version of NAN), I worked super hard to make him a stallion surcingle and bridle in time.
 

Did you know there is very little documentation online for showing Suffolk Punches? With little choice but to copy from photos and wing it, I scoured Flickr, tried to spot what was the most common, and copied that. The tack, as it tends to do, fought me the entire way. I redid both the surcingle and bridle twice before I was happy with them (read: I had no time to do them again).

His doll is a custom Heidi Ott doll by the talented Joan Yount in the US, and she arrived just a day after Doorstop - talk about cutting it fine! She's dressed in the British style of light-coloured pants, and a 'tweed' jacket (Joan couldn't get tweed in scale, so we went for solid green). She doesn't have a name yet, but I think it will need to be something British.

I packed them up and carted them off to Performance Extravaganza Live Show this past Sunday, which is an all-performance live show, split by finish. He surprised me by winning his Other Performance class with his led entry (and hand-written explanation card!), and then going on to win Supreme Champion CM/AR, against some seriously tough competition. I've been going to live shows for over five years, and he was my first Supreme Champion - I was so ecstatic I very nearly cried!

He wasn't in any danger of going anywhere before, but his win has cemented his place on my shelf!

(I do plan on redoing his surcingle again. The leather I used is crap and coated, meaning any areas glued on the top tend to peel off, taking the coating with it (you can see it near the girth billets). I touched up the bare spots with Tandy Java dye for the show, but I think it will let me down if I were to use it at DUN. So, expect to see a set like this on here in the near future!)

Here comes the pre-show panic...

I'm sick at the moment (again) so while I would much rather be working on a bridle for once of Karen's ponies, I'm instead doing myt entry form for PEL, which is next Sunday. This show is all performance, split by finish (CM/AR and OF). There's no scene class, either.

Why yes, I am mad. I'm not showing my run list because our judge, Karen Grigson (yes, the Karen who CMed the ponies) will; be the judge, and I don't want her to know exactly what I'm bringing.

Hope you will have had your Weet-Bix next Sunday, Karen!

Tacky tack

While brtowsing online today, looking for inspiration for a project, I stumbled across something that made my heart skip a beat.

Anyone who knows me relatively well knows I'm obsessed with stars, so this little beauty went right into my reference file!

It's got hair-on cowhide inside the stars (blegh), but can you imagine it with metallic silver inside? And that tooling! I need a barrel racer mare, stat!

They also had a heart-style version too.


ONE DAY, I will find someone to make this star set, and a matching saddle, for me!

I kept looking through their store, and then found this monstrosity, which inspired the title of today's post:

It's metallic (coated leather, I suppose) with conchos and studs.


I mean, I'm sure someone out there will love it, but it ain't me!