Progress Report 7: Tissarn's

 

Tissarn's Mechanical Hackamore had its text and photos finished as far back as June 20th.  This was the 15th and last chapter for my next book, except for the Coda of the Snow Shoes which was already done.  All the time since then has gone into editing and rewriting, re-doing Plate letters and photo numbers (half the book was belatedly re-arranged), and digitizing and cleaning up scans.  That last step took several weeks.  You have no idea how dirty my scanner is -- a terrible problem -- made worse by its own uncleanability (is this a word?  I can't take the glass out and it has mold spots on the inside!).  Merging and sectioning (dividing into uploadable parts) as well as cover art is happening as I draw near the finish line.  But for this post, I want to try and talk about Tissarn's beautiful hack.  With the exception of the front and back covers and the Tissarn drawing components, every photo here is in her chapter.

For most of the book's creation, Tiss was intended to be second to last.  Last was Rinker's.  This is reflected in the arrangement of the back cover.  We last saw it here:  Back Cover progress.  Here's the relevant pic:

The 8 pieces were laid out clockwise, starting with Ricky's in the upper left.  The decision to lump the 3 Bosal hackamores together changed the internal order, as did the decision to put Duke's (the Adios), the oldest (and simplest) first.   So the back cover is a relict, but a lovely one, a poster of my past ideas, kept for artistic reasons.

Here's a couple Tissarn paragraphs from my cutting room floor:

"Tissarn’s Mechanical Hackamore, Chapter 15, is placed last even though a mech hack would seem easier than a bosal. Tissarn’s reins have multiple colored interweaves and Fan buttons, members of the Gaucho family of knots. These buttons are quite different from the more familiar, and common, Casa or Herringbone family.

"Chapter 15 includes a glimpse of how I evolved my making of mechanical hackamores. Thus, even in the last chapter, very early pieces are covered. These examples try to help allay frustration at achieving the higher levels of detail."

I have no idea why they're different font sizes! 

The clear difficulty and elaborate evolution of this piece, from the artist's most productive years, made it clear she must come last.  Tiss's hackamore is far down the road of individual skill development and is a gold standard for me.  To this day hers has remained my favorite piece of headgear.  In terms of sheer usability and playworthiness, it places even over the more famous & dramatic Fancy's hackamore, though of course I love them both.  Tissarn's is like the book's recital piece.

Tiss's hackamore was created in January of 2008 and took me about 18 hours.  The name comes from Richard Adams' novel Shardik.  The piece is a marker from a time now gone, back when I was free to travel and free to enjoy all that involved, from eating out to flying to other countries, to staying up all night!  to having a 47-year-old body and not a 65-year-old one.  

Firsts for this piece included the fabulous nosepiece, a braided leather button on a rawhide core, and the charming thread-triangle decorations of the shanks.  Of course those holes are there to lighten the weight, provide ventilation and save material.  I've never seen anybody decorate their mech hack shanks like this (above).  Nonetheless, I stand by the idea, delighted beyond defiance.

This hack has led a merry life.  It has travelled to all sorts of places.  It is in Braymere's blog:  Show and Tell.  Its chapter begins with a review of older, more primitive mechanical hax.  I admit the evolution of this piece was surprisingly fast, given what had gone before,... faster than most of my other model tack techniques.  "Fast"  =  abrupt, large steps with nothing between earlier, less developed stages (what's a nice word for primitive?) and a highly sophisticated, polished skill.  The mechanical hackamore form went on to express itself in two more TSII pieces in 2018.  One of which, King's Herd's Hackamore 2,  King's Herd's Hackamore is still with us, and makes a cameo appearance in the book.  

There's a coda to the book, the Snow Shoes.  And here's a coda to this post:  The process of making Tiss's portrait drawing for the back cover.  Probably should be its own post!!  but here goes:

Trace the shape of the allotted space, then enlarge it by eye (that was challenging!) and cut it out.  Lay out the actual hackamore in that space's shape, held down with Scotch tape, and photo it.  

 Once in the computer, try it out in B & W.  

At this point change one's mind about B & W!! and go for color.  I was strongly inspired by Sarah Minkiewicz's Dancing Horses series (which I've studied very deeply lately), but afraid of the time crunch.  This is a true rabbit hole.  Whole careers have gone into the skill of digital coloring.  I decided to allow myself 1 day.

Half the day was taken up by drawing and inking.  Not made any easier by the pen refusing at first!!!  after 47 Plates, it does THIS ????   But endless tapping and fussing brought it back,... enough for this.  I'm seriously proud of this drawing!!

Success.  Bourne up by the incredible high of creation ("Is there anything you can't do?!?"  "Make coffee")* I swing into digital coloring, fortified by 25+ years of PhotoShopping TSII website and blog pictures.  :)  At the end of the day it all looked like this:

 

 This was Way too much fun, the kind of day that overuses your arm muscles but is spent in bliss.

*Rabbit hole.  The confession about coffee should tell you I am not into stimulating beverages of any sort.  I could just as well have said alcohol.  It's a family story that my Dad taught me to drive and I passed every test except the one about alcohol, since neither of us dealt with it at all.

We still have to put together the back cover, a truly great challenge for me.  The front cover is also still not done, even though it looks good here, because the horse ("Corsair") is too fuzzy and pixellated, having been copied too many times.   

There's still work to be done on subjects like webpage, pdf-ing, final editing, rewriting the Prelude (Preface) again and setting up an orders spreadsheet.

But the bit is in my teeth and we're galloping down the homestretch. 

 

BreyerFest Tales, Part II

 

My story of this White Running Mare is not controversial, yet it might be a confession:  It's a How I did this.  Every year there is at least one horse who rises into prominence during the week of BreyerFest, through some combination of desire and/or work (are these that different?!).  This time it was her, by virtue of work done.  I returned a beat-up old model to a cleaner, less-damaged state;  and then sold her at a small profit.  The profit was definitely not the point:  I can't over-emphasize how wonderful it was to succeed in the clean-up effort, and then to have her go to an equally wonderful new young tackmaker.  O. A., this one's yours.

My very first night at BreyerFest, Monday the 8th, I picked up a $5 carcass from a body box in the 100s (it was Karen Dietrich's).

There was a matching foal in similar shape, but, alas, "it got away."   I've always loved this model;  my own White Running Mare at home, Conquista, has a long and glorious history dating back to 1973.  She is a spiritual replacement for my dimly-remembered first one, which was named Misty.  (My early horse names were clearly book-influenced, although the name Misty also belonged to my sister's pony, my family's actual first horse.)  In her honor, I mentally tagged this body with that name.  I find I need reference 'handles' for models I work with.  (I also sometimes do this with models I'm judging.)

Note the black marks all over the body

I was impressed with how good a shape she was in, despite the black marks.  I felt sure I could clean her up, and soon.  As it turned out I was right.  Misty became my project of the week.  The black marks disappeared within an hour -- it is wonderful what Q-tips and rubbing alcohol can do!  But the red paint on the neck was a defining challenge.  Because I happen to be fond of the actor Eddie Redmane, I couldn't resist naming this horse Misty Redmane, although (here's a confession) this name appeared considerably after the fact.

 Here you can see the start of my attempts to de-paint her.  The stuff responded very little to rubbing alcohol.  It was hard, stiff and thick, probably an enamel.  The mark looked to me like an accident:  either a paintbrush fell on this horse or this horse fell on something newly painted.  My friend Heather opined it might be nail polish. (!)

Slowly, gradually, over the course of 2 days, I worked on her.  It is always a great pleasure to be doing something with your hands during this most wondrous week.  My secret weapon was my Needle Chisel, which of course was part of the mobile tack shop I always bring with me to BreyerFest.  This one is my "medium" size and happens to be the oldest and the first one I made.

 When alcohol failed, I turned to physical scratching with the X-Acto.  When that proved too damaging, I picked up the Needle Chisel; and here I met with success.  Although it's hard to believe, what worked was the combination of a very very light touch and a tool so sharp and yet so light that it flaked off the paint bit by tiny bit.  "One pixel at a time," was my irrelevant thought.  The blade really was too light to scratch the horse if it merely touched her.

It was in the middle of those 2 days that I picked up my camera and tried to capture the full moon outside my window.  No one's going to believe it, but the famous "ghost horse" photo was a complete accident.

 I swear I had no idea the reflections were going to do what they did!  I snapped the shutter twice, finally capturing the moon.

 Here are the elements of what was being reflected.  You can just make out the shape of the lamp, above and to the right of the horse in the parking lot.

 Later on, when the mare was finished, I took her back down to Karen's to show her what had become of the body-box case;  and I showed her the extraordinary photo.  She was pleased!

Incredibly, the flaking proceeded without damaging the underlying gray too badly.  I thought it was a miracle.  It took forever.  The weight of the Needle Chisel itself was mostly enough to do the work;  all I had to do was manipulate, and keep at it.  I kept washing the site with rubbing alcohol, which would soften and clean things up a bit, but is dangerous because when used to excess it dissolves the Breyer paint.  On the second or third day (I honestly lost count), she was done.  What I hadn't counted on was that the red was so intense it would stain the plastic underneath.  

 So if you look closely enough, you can still see the mark.  In addition, the gray was lightly scored and scratched.  But, overall, I was well pleased with this little foray.  The age of the mare was great, and her condition was not perfect:  she was able to forgive this level of injury.  The Black Art of O. F. Enhancement I was practicing was just that:  Enhancement.  I had returned her to a younger, cleaner condition, and removed a nasty accident.  Would that we all could do this in areas other than models,...

 I put a sales sticker on her and added her to the room line-up.

To support a young tackmaker on top of finding a good home for her was one of the nicest things that happened to me this BreyerFest!

 

 

 

 

BreyerFest Tales, Part I

 

 My original title was BF 'Secrets,' but this seemed too dramatic.  'Confessions' wasn't right either, as these were actually small personal triumphs.  'Tales' wins, not only for the mild pun ('tails') but because some of these stories dance on the border of the controversial.  What other title indicates both interesting and instructive?!  I just remembered the definition of Folklore from my college days:  Knowledge passed on in non-traditional ways.  Oh yeah that's it --!!

There's two tales here:  How I avoided long lines, and how I obtained my Long-mane Future-is-Bright horse.  A third story, the Alabaster Running Mare, split itself off to become Part II.   At bottom, of course, is a news paragraph.

My family has a history of evading standing in long lines.  (It's almost funny what lengths my husband will go to to avoid a traffic jam.)  Here's BreyerFest in 2018, a year that saw extraordinary lines.

This year, 2025, when I arrived in the large parking lot Friday morning (after having been directed to park over at the AllTech Arena and fortuitously catching a bus), I saw a line that extended so far even I could hardly believe it.  Me, a veteran of 30 BreyerFests!  It went all the way past the Saddlebred Museum, almost to the Hanoverian Society headquarters.  I instantly decided there was no way I was standing in that line.  I collared 3 friends and took them around the detour I've used for the past decade or so.  As usual, the gate guard barely noticed us. These next 3 pix are from a 2022 blog post, People & Places, showing views along that detour.

Near the Hanoverian Society building, north side of KHP main parking lot

Hanoverian Society door

Rolex Arena pond dam road, aka Rolex Lane (viewed from the north)

 Here's the controversy:  Walking in by Rolex Lane, while perfectly legal, does require you to ignore the large Do Not Enter signs.  Remember those are for cars, not people!  Taking this way also, in a larger sense, evades Breyer being able to count you as entering at the traditional main gate.  I acquit myself here by buying my ticket the same as everyone else, and by presenting my ticket to get my Special Run models.  Of course the distance is longer, much longer:  See the rightmost light blue path below.  My optional detour is not for those who are mobility-impaired.  But one of my friends exclaimed she'd never been in that area before!  I replied, "The food's here and so are the bathrooms!"

 I've done this for years, and what guards there were have never done anything worse than wave and grin.

The second story is also sparked by something I really resist doing, and that is buying a horse sight unseen.  As earlier mentioned, Breyer's habit of throwing in variations has caused me no few white hairs.  I am willing to stand in line for Special Runs.  But the accepted wisdom is that if you don't mind waiting a day, you can get your SRs on Saturday or Sunday and deal with a much shorter line.  This has always worked for me.  But this year it worked in a rather spectacular fashion.

Good Times Roll roached/braided variation, Nina Bonnie 'Outdoor Stock Market'

To begin with, there's usually some kind of a line all Saturday morning at the Special Run tent.  But this year, at about 10:30, there wasn't any line.  Surprise.  Another advantage of waiting til Saturday is you know the variations!  My 2 choices this year were for Good Times Great Friends, which fortunately had no variations!  and for Future is Bright.  I had wanted the long mane version of this little palomino stallion, and I resented the possiblity of having to settle for a roach mane.  My answer to this unfortunate dilemma was to go where I had not gone before, and do what so many others have done with the blind bags:  I indulged in a lot of feeling up.

By luck I drew a very kind clerk, who knew what I was up to.  Moreover, she encouraged me!  I stood there unhurriedly and tried everything I could think of, including extrasensory perception and mystical psyching-out!  After handling about 6 or 7 bags, I began to conclude they were all loaded with the tail first, meaning the head was at the folded end of the outer bag.  That oriented me.  I could feel the lumps of the head and tail wrappings, and the lesser bumps of hooves and rump.  What I could detect more and more clearly was the presence or absence of a great lump about a third down on the right side of the bag.

I had two bags with lumps there and the rest without.  I settled on the first one I'd found.  The clerk actually asked me to come back after opening, when I knew, and tell her.  I am pleased to report I did just that!  I had won -- my guess was correct.  "I got the one I wanted."

Tangent to the subject of sight-unseen horses, I know I promised more posts on Sassy, my palomino Stone Half-Arab mare.  Alas, she'll have to wait; too much else is going on!  A summation of her case might be this sentence:  I found out how long I can bear to wait for a modern factory custom -- and it wasn't long enough.  

On the subject of promised posts, the TSII #12 one is also going to have to wait.  Far more interesting, indeed compelling, things are going on--!!  We're in the homestretch of my next book!!  I know I promised "August."  Well, it will be a miracle all over again if we can make it by the end of this month, though I want to say it's looking good.  A new wrinkle is in the making:  my family trip to Tucson during the month of October.  From the 1st of that month to the 23rd, any orders placed will have to be allowed extra time to fulfill.  They depend on hotel wi-fi quality (variable!) and on our own strength and organization (equally variable!).  So unless I can get this monster 3+-year project wound up reasonably close to the end of August -- September be saved for selling -- publication may have to wait until November.

November 6 is the birthday of its elder sibling, my book Guide to Making Model Horse Tack.  Born in 1998, it will be 27.

I don't know where the time goes;  but a LOT of tack got made in those years,....  and I can't wait to make more!