New Unicorn Pins

 

Returning to blogging after a hiatus of sorts, some subjects are easy for me to slip back into.  All along I've been collecting enamel pins.  Yesterday I created a new display board and today arranged its pins, after logging the new Cave Pony Unicorns into my spreadsheet (so I could tell them apart).  Clearly I am a big fan of Mink Studios.

Let's start at the beginning.  Here are my new boards.  Sayonara JoAnn Fabs:  I bought black flannel and black velvet, as much as I thought I could ever use (the flannel) and as much as I could afford (the velvet).  My boards are hastily wrought, using cardboard and staples (tips folded over by hand with pliers), but they do the job.  Next to them are my most recent new pins.

A trio of winged Cave Pony Quaggas, which I'm calling FlutterQuaggas, holds a position of honor.  Although Sarah has not used this term in her newsletters, I cannot think it is wrong, especially when you consider her other FlutterPonies.  I'm particularly proud of the fact that I got all three permutations of her Quagga form.  The bottomost one is a Christmas release and actually the first FlutterQuagga;  note his neck wreath.

Speaking of Cave Pony series, the Zebras have been taking off.  Since I already had the earliest Zebra (upper leftt) I only needed the next two, and fortunately they were released as a pair.  The center one is Zebra 3 "Plains" and the lowermost is Zebra 4 "Grevy's."  I'm sorry to say I'm not sure who Zebra 2 is.  I'm also very sorry that the Neon Green Zebra wasn't fully photographed;  I dashed these shots off in a tearing hurry.

[Editor's note from the future:  Zebra 2 is the uppermost shown below;  Zebra 1 is Zigby.]

The Cave Pony Unicorns are aptly named.  My original intention, to collect every unicorn pin Mink would ever release, was severely tested when she started putting horns on things like batwinged dragon-ponies.  (Not to mention the Unilumes, or the 3D metal ones, or the -- !)  I had long resisted the Cave Pony series because, compared to the Imperial Unicorns and Dancing Horses, they were so obese.  These are cartoons!!  not real horses.  However, their cuteness factor found ways around my resistances, as my 4 earlier Cave Pony pins reveal (seen above, first pic).  I did, indeed, "cave."

 The interesting thing here is that what you see (above) is the 2nd and 3rd of the first group of three Cave Pony Unicorns, and the 1st of the second group.  Sarah has promised 9 Cave Pony Unicorns, in batches of three.   I carefully chose which two I absolutely had to have of the first group, back in August of '24;  I must have been short on funds.   When the second group of three debuted, in February of this year (2025), I plumped more easily.  So that's how I came to have 5.

Do I automatically collect all of a series?  "God no!"  But what if I should change my mind later -- ??  Do you know, I went back and tried to buy the missing Cave Pony Unicorn just now!  The odds were low -- they really were offered in August, 8 months ago-- but I succeeded!!  Here is my (her) newsletter file picture of it:

What was I thinking?  you might well ask.

That does seem to be the question.  When my collection is sporting Batwinged Cave Ponies, where before it only went for Imperial and Jewelled Unicorns, it is a good question.

"Glitter" is part of the answer.  I am susceptible to glitter.  Sparkle candy-apple-flake will always move me. 

I could not decide amongst these three, so I got them all.  Please excuse the shading on the shoulder of the purple-winged.  It is reflection off the gloss.

Shooting this last, amazing creature, I got a vibe from no less than Disney's Fantasia.  I guess there is a soft spot for cartoon horses in me after all.

Thank you for sharing your incredible talents, Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig.

 

Back Cover Progress

 

No, my next book is not done yet.  Yes, this is a progress report, but only about the covers.  No, the above picture is not on the cover, but yes, it'll be in the book:  I'm thinking it will be the title page.  I've been so busy I can't list all that has been accomplished in the past 3 weeks;  but one -- just one! -- glorious goal was finally finishing Fancy's chapter.  Only two more to go...

When we last saw the back cover, it was in November of 2023, more than a year ago.  It looked like this:

In December of last year (2024), deep in the night of the 27th, I drew this in my Notebook:

It doesn't look all that great, but believe me, I'd been turning over this arrangement in my head almost from the beginning.  Only with the completion of April's -- here represented by the Indian Pony on lower right -- did I feel the time had come to try depicting it.  The figures are arranged clockwise according to their placement in the book:  Ricky's the easiest in the upper left, then Duke's the next easiest to his immediate right, then Malaguena's laid out, and so on.

The back cover had to be perfect.  You know how heavy that sort of punishing weight lies on any creative endeavour.  It dang near kills them.  Only the slow accumulation of all 8 pieces' chapters would give me the material for the back.  But it was happening.  After Malaguena's, the Peach;  after the Peach Rose, April's.  After April's, Fancy's.  Through very little fault of its own, Fancy's would take a staggering eleven months, from May 2024 to now.  Most chapters took far less;  indeed, the Peach Rose had taken only two.  But all that time has not been wasted.

In a hotel room in Florida in January this year, around the 10th, I drew up what you see here.  Oh it still needs work:  The Snowshoes balloon is in the wrong place, I'm not happy with Fancy's or April's positions, everything's unfinished.  But oh, what a huge leap it was!  I wrote along with it, and below is the transcription.

"2412.27   For months, years, I've shuffled that thing around in my head.  Tonight, without benefit of PhotoShop ---on a hotel desk in Florida --- using drafting paper & pencil & eraser, I worked it out.  There were some intermediate stages.  There is still MUCH to be done.  But the 'design sheet' stage is now accomplished.   

Oh Oh OH!!  The power & the glory!!  The sheer lovely excitement of creativity.  There's nothing like it.  And this is all my own.  This is what I was born to do.  This is what my whole career has been leading up to.  I'm amazed at the many sneak peeks, leaks, outright giveways I've published over the past 2  1/2 years.  (2 yrs 7 mos)   Anybody w/ an evil copying bent could've pinched the Peach Rose by now.  It's in the blog and so is Ricky's.  But blogs get short shrift.  Or else my target audience is not geared to reading them.   After all I am not geared to reading my books online.  It's all I can do to use the Kindle,...

...I don't care.  Here, tonight, by drawing and tracing & transforming, by plain raw pencil & paper, patience & erasure I have done what so desperately needed doing.  The back cover is advertisement, index, promise & ornament all in one.  Instant judgement attends it.  I see it in paper, glossy of course.  The power of it.  No one will be able to resist this book... "

 

The goal is two in black-and-white (Ricky's and April's), and two as drawings of just the tack (Malaguena's and Tissarn's).  The rest, four pieces - Duke's, the Peach Rose, Fancy's and Rinker's - will be full color photographs, so like the old Guide.  Above is the intended photo for Ricky's.  I think my drawing exaggerrated the forelock!

Here's another sneak peek:  Peach Rose, the rightmost upper middle.  It's going to take some fiddling to fit her in that narrow space, maybe even unto a re-shoot.

And finally, (drum roll...!) a REAL sneak peek:  the current state of the Front Cover!!  Of course it is not finished.  My dream vision was the horse passing through the bosal, emerging on the left, hidden behind on the right.  He will not have grass blades on his hooves and his tail-tip will be covered by the border.  But this is basically what the Front Cover will look like.  Except, ahah, for the white background.  Remember the Guide cover, with its colored-pencil rainbow shadings all around, fading to white in the center?.... yeah, like that,...

This was my vision, seen in a dream all those years ago, even to the specific model horse.  (So it can't be older than year 2010, hah!) [editors note: previously said 2000, this was wrong.]  Heaven knows it's been long enough.  The tiny dates at the bottom of this cover refer to when I first drew this cover, and then to the refinements.  I actually cut out the central figure the old-fashioned way, knife and scissors.  His photo was taken in Sheyenne National Grassland, ND, in 2023.

So, what's next, and when can we expect publication?  The short snappy mean answer is "taxes,"  but then, "Cover work, Rinker's, Tissarn's.... and maybe sometime around BreyerFest, or soon thereafter."   You shall hear about it here, on FB and at BFest, for starters.

For the longest time I thought Rinker's would be the last in the book.  His hackamore is the most stunning and it has many new elements; the bosal uses a 3B, not a 4B like the other two, and his mecate could be a separate chapter all its own.  The back cover reflects this.  But now that I'm here, I believe Rinker's and Tissarn's to be equal in their complexity.  I'm thinking Rinker's needs to be next (7th of the 8) simply because his is a bosal hackamore and we've just done 2.  Why not put them all together, a trio, same as I did for the harnesses in the Guide...?  Each one is an elaboration on the previous, more and more detail, harder and harder to build.  Tissarn's isn't a bosal hack but a Mechanical; and hers has knots the other 7 pieces never even dreamed of.  She will get more formulae than all the rest.  It is hers, and not Rinker's, that is the hardest.  This will not shift my layout of the back cover, but accurately reflect the many changes the book has undergone.

Changes,...  certain insecure figures (unsatisfied, shall we say unsatisfy-able), have greatly distracted and worried my muse;  that has not changed.  Yet I refuse to give up hope.  This dream of mine has been underway for almost 3 years.  I am starting to curse it and that's a sure sign we are nearing the birth.  I am getting ready to be seriously wanting to do something else.  Hang in there:  we're down to months not years.

And thank you for your patience.