Post by george on Feb 5, 2021 19:21:43 GMT
Yes, it's them! My very special order from last year arrived this week, portrait models of my two real ponies. After a little bit of hairdressing to make their manes behave the same way the real ones do, and waiting til I had a day off work, they've had their photoshoot and are ready to be introduced.
First up, Bonnie. A purebred papered shetland pony of true island stock, I've owned her eight years, and she's currently thirteen.
Bon is that rarest of things, the nice shetland, so the Julip pit pony's cheeky-but-sweet expression is perfect for her.
The real Bonnie's sooty palomino colour changes all the time, from pale golden cream in winter, through warm gingery tan in spring, to a surprising dark chocolatey colour in mid summer, then back again. I decided to order her Julip in the 'in between' colour, rather than either extreme of her darkest summer coat, or her pale winter fluff - that way, the model would be accurate twice every year, not once!
Laura was worried that she couldn't capture this ever-changing coat, but the mini Bonnie Bunny is a spot-on match for the colour I had in mind, and looks so much like the real thing!
Doesn't she look like such a Pit Pony here! When the older Shetland Pony mould was resurrected I remember having a couple of 'oh, you'll be having that for Bonnie then?' conversations at Julip shows, but I've always imagined her in the Pit Pony mould, and still think it's by far a better match for her.
Her mane always flops partly to the near side of her neck, so I copied the messy style with the help of a little bit of hair mousse (I bought a can specially for Julips!)
Here she is in her headcollar, a copy of her real one, apart from one thing - there's no way I could embroider her name into the tiny grosgrain ribbon, so it's missing the word BONNIE on each side!
After I'd already owned Bonnie for a couple of years, she gained a field companion, in the shape of a really, really annoying foal. We just called it 'the foal', and put up with it being there...but gradually I fell in love with this daft creature, and bought her for my own. She'll be turning nine this spring, but she's still called The Foal, because nothing else ever seemed to stick.
I used to think the CJP would be the best mould for her, but as she grew up and matured, her shape changed a great deal, and last year I finally decided that the Welsh Cob mould looked far more like the adult foal.
The day after I bought her :
How she looks now!
(this picture will be a surprise for all those of you who remember her as a gangly baby!)
This is definitely the right mould choice, just look at that quirky face! The Welsh Cob mould always looks like it's up to something it shouldn't be and just got caught, which is perfect for a horse who's devoted so much of her life to stealing my hats; picking up anything that can be picked up and running around with it; obsessing over buttons, velcro, and toggles on every item of human clothing she can get into her mouth; stalking wildlife; pestering trees; biting/licking/turning-upside-down/climbing-in or otherwise molesting wheel barrows... the list is endless!
You can see clearly here how she hasn't got fully black legs like most bays, but is actually the variation known as wild bay. Most of her mane is on the right side, apart from the little chunk which always flips over her neck to hang the other way.
In an amazing co-incidence, she ended up with one stray white strand of hair in her forelock, which only came to light when I gave her a parting to make sure we can see her little star. Real foal has one too, though this wasn't visible in any of the pictures I sent to Julip, and I didn't mention it!
I tried to find a sensible forward-facing headshot of the foal to show you, only most of her closeups look like this :
As with Bon, I made a copy of the foal's real headcollar, complete with fluffy noseband (it's actually her old one I stopped using cos the buckle rusted and got difficult, but the new one is an impossible multicoloured-green-checkerboard pattern I can't make in miniature!)
And here they are together - it's so, so nice to have Julips of my girls at long last, I'd always thought I would, but it's taken a very long time to get round to actually ordering them. They're definitely worth the wait!
There's more photos and more about the real ponies, on my blog post >here, I thought it better to deliver a condensed version rather than spam the forum with the whole long thing, that's what blogs are for!
First up, Bonnie. A purebred papered shetland pony of true island stock, I've owned her eight years, and she's currently thirteen.
Bon is that rarest of things, the nice shetland, so the Julip pit pony's cheeky-but-sweet expression is perfect for her.
The real Bonnie's sooty palomino colour changes all the time, from pale golden cream in winter, through warm gingery tan in spring, to a surprising dark chocolatey colour in mid summer, then back again. I decided to order her Julip in the 'in between' colour, rather than either extreme of her darkest summer coat, or her pale winter fluff - that way, the model would be accurate twice every year, not once!
Laura was worried that she couldn't capture this ever-changing coat, but the mini Bonnie Bunny is a spot-on match for the colour I had in mind, and looks so much like the real thing!
Doesn't she look like such a Pit Pony here! When the older Shetland Pony mould was resurrected I remember having a couple of 'oh, you'll be having that for Bonnie then?' conversations at Julip shows, but I've always imagined her in the Pit Pony mould, and still think it's by far a better match for her.
Her mane always flops partly to the near side of her neck, so I copied the messy style with the help of a little bit of hair mousse (I bought a can specially for Julips!)
Here she is in her headcollar, a copy of her real one, apart from one thing - there's no way I could embroider her name into the tiny grosgrain ribbon, so it's missing the word BONNIE on each side!
After I'd already owned Bonnie for a couple of years, she gained a field companion, in the shape of a really, really annoying foal. We just called it 'the foal', and put up with it being there...but gradually I fell in love with this daft creature, and bought her for my own. She'll be turning nine this spring, but she's still called The Foal, because nothing else ever seemed to stick.
I used to think the CJP would be the best mould for her, but as she grew up and matured, her shape changed a great deal, and last year I finally decided that the Welsh Cob mould looked far more like the adult foal.
The day after I bought her :
How she looks now!
(this picture will be a surprise for all those of you who remember her as a gangly baby!)
This is definitely the right mould choice, just look at that quirky face! The Welsh Cob mould always looks like it's up to something it shouldn't be and just got caught, which is perfect for a horse who's devoted so much of her life to stealing my hats; picking up anything that can be picked up and running around with it; obsessing over buttons, velcro, and toggles on every item of human clothing she can get into her mouth; stalking wildlife; pestering trees; biting/licking/turning-upside-down/climbing-in or otherwise molesting wheel barrows... the list is endless!
You can see clearly here how she hasn't got fully black legs like most bays, but is actually the variation known as wild bay. Most of her mane is on the right side, apart from the little chunk which always flips over her neck to hang the other way.
In an amazing co-incidence, she ended up with one stray white strand of hair in her forelock, which only came to light when I gave her a parting to make sure we can see her little star. Real foal has one too, though this wasn't visible in any of the pictures I sent to Julip, and I didn't mention it!
I tried to find a sensible forward-facing headshot of the foal to show you, only most of her closeups look like this :
As with Bon, I made a copy of the foal's real headcollar, complete with fluffy noseband (it's actually her old one I stopped using cos the buckle rusted and got difficult, but the new one is an impossible multicoloured-green-checkerboard pattern I can't make in miniature!)
And here they are together - it's so, so nice to have Julips of my girls at long last, I'd always thought I would, but it's taken a very long time to get round to actually ordering them. They're definitely worth the wait!
There's more photos and more about the real ponies, on my blog post >here, I thought it better to deliver a condensed version rather than spam the forum with the whole long thing, that's what blogs are for!