How I made a custom model horse

I'm a horse lover. I always have been and always will be. I rode horses for over 10 years before I started college, one of the best outdoor activities one can do in my opinion. Any horse enthusiast out there will know of the Breyer company. They make realistic model horses that can be collected by the young and old alike. I myself have quite the model horse collection. 

One day I decided that I wanted to make my own. However, I did not want to sculpt my own horse. So I went online and ordered a DIY paint your own Breyer horse kit. The kit I ordered included a 6inch horse without a main or tail (it came with hair that you could glue on). The kit was about $15 at the time when I bought it. 

The following 3 pictures are the horse right out of the box.

After watching come Youtube videos, reading blogs, and researching what materials I could use I began my project.

I bought Apoxie Sculpt, a basic sculpting tool kit, and acrylics paints.

For those that do not know, Apoxie Sculpt is a molding compound that comes in two parts, Part A and Part B. One is the molding compund, and the other is the hardener. You have about a 2 hour time period to work with this material before it hardens.

The following 2 pictures show the apoxie sculpt I molded to resemble a horses mane. To smooth out the apoxie, I used water on my fingertips. I would let the apoxie harden a little at a time in between taking my tools to create a hairlike texture. Toothpicks are a great tool, by the way! I used a toothpick more than my clay tools haha.

I did the same thing with the tail. Because of the shape I wanted I had to use a wire base on the tail, so underneath all that apoxie is a wire. It takes about 12 hours for the apoxie to dry completely. Once it's dry, it feels like a hard plastic. I sanded down the rough parts and got ready to paint.

Here are the colors I chose to paint my custom horse, without a glaze.

And now with a glaze! I decided to change the color of the hooves right before I painted on a glaze. The glaze I used was a Sculpy glossy glaze. You can find this glaze at any Michaels or AC More.

Now I have a custom Breyer horse model to go along with my collection!!