Got to be birds flying higher

x-posted to vintageads

Grand Champions were a line of toy horses which sadly rode off into the sunset many years ago! They were produced from about 1988 to 2008.

The horses were about the same size as a Breyer Traditional size horse. They were definitely more on the "toy" side of things, but they were so wonderful in their toyness. They had rooted manes and tails for you to brush and braid and loads of accessories. Unlike many toy horses, the Grand Champions and their accessories were on the realistic side of things as opposed to being pink, so they were for any horse-loving kid! Amongst model horse collectors, these horses are still loved by their fans :-)

Watch on YouTube

I have been prepping for another craft show and it involved a lot of mundane stuff - labelling cards, packaging cards, sealing card envelopes, etc etc. One can only watch so much of The Vampire Diaries and 80s cartoons on Netflix before you just want something different and I was so intrigued to see Spirit Riding Free pop up. If you haven't watched it, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a 2002 feature length animated movie starring Matt Damon as Spirit. I think it's one of the few movies to feature horses...there might be an animated Black Beauty somewhere, but if there is, I haven't watched it. There is very little connection to the movie other than it is set in the West, has a horse named Spirit and...yeah, that's about it. The reaction to the series has been quite passionate - my favourite was a FB comment that went something like "Young girls shouldn't fantasize about riding stallions" to folks posting long YT rants. It would be nice if they did make a sequel to Spirit, but I'm not sure how it could be done since movie Spirit's story is more or less complete.

I whipped through all six available episodes. My first instinct was that the animation looked really bad and cheap, but Aunt Cora won me over with her line "Why is everybody hugging? I haven't finished yelling yet!" in the first few minutes. The series starts out with Fortuna - Lucky to her friends and family - returning to the town where her father and mother met. Lucky's mother died somehow and the only clue we get is that she was a circus performer or trick rider. Eventually the animation grew on me because there were moments where it came across as beautiful. I think the lighting might be inconsistent.

Lucky soon makes friends with Pru and Abigail as she learns to ride a horse and adapt her city ways to country life. Although the stories aren't too in-depth, they are adventure packed and isn't just for girls. I laughed a lot, especially episode 6 where the girls plan a surprise party for Pru and it all goes sideways. I think it's exciting that there's a diverse cast too! Abigail is my favourite character because she's so sweet and innocent and tries to be a peacekeeper, but she's no doormat either. I'm looking forward to more of this series and maybe will pick up a toy or two.

I volunteered for a month in a MLP fan calendar being organized in the MLP Arena. It's available for $5 physical or as a PDF (not sure if the price is the same...rosierjay is organizing it). I just had to have October because it's my birth month, but I figured I also had to do a Halloween theme. Here Blossom, Twinkles the Cat and Brandy the Dog head on to a party at the Show Stable. Blossom is wearing the Best in the West pony wear package :-) 8.5x11" and made out of layers of paper, marker and PanPastel. I am always a little embarrassed by fan art, but hey...it was SUPER FUN to make :-)



MLP Fan Calendar - October 2016 by calzephyr on DeviantArt

Originally posted by purpleponyart at Draft Horse Team, Heritage Park

I dialled things back a bit :-D

Finished just in the nick of time! I really missed doing a Christmas horse, and I'm just so pleased with how it turned out. Happy holidays peeps!

Christmas Horse 2013, a photo by Calzephyr on Flickr.

Livejournal recently had a Writer's Block question about things people collect...well, as you might have seen from my YouTube videos, I collect model horses. Many people think at first that model horses are like model cars, and while some people do enjoy repositioning, rehairing and repainting models, most of mine are straight out of the box!

In fact, I just unboxed this beautiful silver fella, Esprit, Breyer's 2010 World Equestrian Games model. I only get a couple of new models every year nowadays - with over 300 Breyer and Peter Stone horses, so space is a bit of a premium!

One of the many facets of showing model horses is photo showing. This is where you take pictures of your horse, find a show to enter (either online or snail mail) and wait for the results. They are fun to enter and I used to be really into it! I had a really poor camera though - an Olympus Mini. Now I have a great camera and no enthusiasm for photoshowing. Go figure!

I love Esprit so much that I just had to take some pictures and this one was my favourite.

I just have to repost this after spotting it on sighthoundlady's LJ. It reminded me of one of my recent conference sessions with a great speaker who said "If you don't ask, you don't get!" and repeated it in a Suze Orman kind of way. She was all about using business language to build your career (ie, "get in the deal stream"). She said there were quite a few times where she was prepared to pay people more, but they didn't ask for more.

I have to point out, as a brunette, pay extra attention to the kids. Oh, and they have other commercials with great acting too...the kid with the truck is extra priceless!

I finally got around to watching a movie that I won at a model horse show last year - "The Princess Stallion". It's quite an unremarkable movie, but decent family fare for children that love horses. It's about a California teenager who, after her mother dies, goes to live with her father in Scotland. She discovers a stallion (with stallion bits too - I'm a stickler for accuracy ;-)) who loosely corresponds to an old legend about a "Princess Stallion" who waits for a princess every morning. I'll definitely be passing it on to another model horse show to be further enjoyed. The most interesting part for me is that the father, played by David Robb, is a mainstay in British television and voices Sirius Black in the Harry Potter video games.