Funrise series 1 part 3

 

1st of all: I aten't dead. It's just that time has lost all meaning and I haven't felt like doing this for a bit, so this post has sat in my drafts folder for like 3/4 of a year. 

Anyhonk, on to the bays!

The DANISH WARMBLOOD

Trot trot trotting along with a cheerful yet professional smile on his face, this guy is the epitome of warmbloodness. 

Trotting models are hard to do well without sacrificing stability or animation, but somehow this one manages it - don't ask me how! Sure, his legs are a tad noodly and much of the muscling is fictional, but it's still a good trot with real movement to it. 

Mane and forelock are swept over to the right, something the paintjob completely obscures, and for some reason his ears are painted black. I'd blame the painter having an off day, but looking at others it appears to be a general thing. The body colour is unpainted reddish brown plastic with barely visible black points to the legs and white socks that accentuate his movement nicely, and a white stripe.

 

Overall, I really like this horse. The alert, head up pose makes me think of warmbloods being trotted up in hand, either at a show or being inspected before a competition. Shame about that bowed tendon, though... 

The THOROUGHBRED

Ahh, the Racehorse with a capital R. In model form usually depicted either standing majestically, as if in the winner's circle, or galloping its heart out. The Funrise sculpting/design team, knowing their limits, decided that a running pose would be both unstable and difficult to sculpt, so they decided to have him walk instead. 

I'm not sure this was their best idea.

The Funrise thoroughbred has a short neck with a hogged mane and a small head with flared nostrils and a determined look. He's lanky and leggy and seems to be moving out at a brisk walk - but those dragging toes just ruin the pose. I understand why they did it - when you want a model not to tip over, the more feet on the ground the better - but if they had just extended that front leg instead of having him look like he's about to stumble... 

I could be wrong, though. Tastes differ. And Schleich, at any rate, seems to like the pose so much they copied it for their current Thoroughbred mare. 

The LIPIZZANER

Show me a horse mad kid who didn't dream of riding a Lipizzaner and I'll show you a liar.

For a while I was thoroughly convinced that every grey warmblood at the riding school was one, at least if they did dressage. 

Surprisingly, this baroque breed is hardly ever seen in modern competitive dressage, but it excels in the more classical style as well as in harness. They're a relatively rare breed (11 800 registered horses per 2020) with a closed studbook run on the old lines, and is generally, well, a breed steeped in tradition.

One of these traditions is the naming of stallions. Or rather, the fact that stallions don't really get a name of their own. Instead they get a "family name" - the sire line (Maestoso, Siglavy, Favory, Pluto, Conversano or Neapolitano) - followed by the dam's name, so that a stallion whose parents are called Favory Europa and America would end up being called Favory America. 

In other words, my childhood decision to name mine Lipstick would probably get us thrown out of the spanish riding school 

Lipstick the Lippi is really quite a decent representation of the breed. Sculptural oddities aside, the general shape of him is perfectly cromulent. Short and compact, with an uphill build and well developed muscles, he looks like he's perfectly able to do most haute ecole movements - he just chooses not to. 

Ignore the lighting - this horse is white, white, white. Made from snow white plastic with no attempt at shading beyond the standard dark grey nostrils and hooves, he's a minimalist masterpiece!

Playmobil : a well rounded collection

Being European and from the 80s, I feel like Playmobil has always just... been the background noise. The sort of toy you always glimpse in passing but never stop at. But guys, these are so much more than Legos without the building aspect! 

Browsing through the current catalogue, what really jumps out at me is the animals. ALL the animals. At present they have a farm series, a zoo series, a pet series, and TWO SEPARATE HORSE SERIES because they have the Spirit riding free licence. And... look, just have a browse through Animobil and see for yourselves! 

But the horses. When I was young, the Playmo horse - the only Playmo horse, was this. 

Very clean, minimalist, rocking horse-esque. 

A perfect mount for your knight or cowboy, but not really an individual.

Around 2000, playmobil brought out a more realistic horse, and then, in 2011, the company made their first foray into actual model horses. 5 different molds were produced: a cantering Arabian, a sporthorse (two different versions, one with loose mane and one plaited), a trotting Haflinger (though it's more of a generic anybreed), a Shire, and a pony. 

And... well, look at this! We've come a long way from the 80s gingerbread horse!

The proportions and silhouette are spot on and the face sculpt is certainly better than on many models twice his size.

Playmobil does have a few stylistic quirks, and one of them is never glossing eyes. 

"Y'know the thing about a shark pony, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites ya."

But I mean. Their human figures are somewhere between emojis and funko pops, facewise, so really the horses got off easy.

However.

Another thing you should know about Playmo humans: They are not well articulated. 

Scroll up and look at Mr White Cowboy up there. 

Look at his legs. 

Notice how they're one solid unit, so each leg can't move individually. 

So when someone shaped like that wants to ride a horse, that horse has to be....

... 2D.

FEED ME!

Yup, they're really really really really really really narrow. 

But you can't tell, can you? 

Go back to the side view and look how natural they've made it look! 

If you absolutely cannot live with the narrowness, just slap some apoxie on and sand some detail into the inner legs and boom, you have a proper model horse who probably won't disgrace you in the show ring.

Current/recent horses

Older/more basic horse, not part of the equestrian line

The ponies!

For more detail, including dates and numbers, go to the Toy Animal Wiki:

https://toyanimal.info/wiki/Playmobil_Horses

Say it right, dammit!

Funrise series 1 part 2

 

THE APPALOOSA

may not be famous for its tallness, but the Funrise company seems to think so - this is one of the tallest models in the first series. This gal has legs for days! 

As a kid I always thought of this model as a mare, and blobby bits notwithstanding, I still do. It's just something about her expression... 

Conformationwise, this is an interesting model and a good example of the care that went into making each horse unique. Despite the lumpy, flawed anatomy, this model has some surprising details like defined intercostal muscles just behind the shoulder and even facial veins! Although the silhouette of the neck is cresty, the mane (thick and hangs down on both sides, I'm struggling not to call it a bowlcut) and the convex underneck makes me read this horse as ewe necked. Come to think of it, a thick, full mane and tail isn't a historically typical appy trait... 

The colour is a dark maned chestnut - mane and tail are actually brown, not black, as are the spots - with a white blanket with polkadot spots. 

Another colour related oddity: these models are all (except the white ones) made from coloured plastic, which you'd think meant that they didn't need to be painted. 

You thought wrong. 

The appy's markings are obviously painted, but here's the thing: her body is as well. Looking at the belly you can see the base plastic colour, a more reddish brown, while the upper and legs are more of an umber shade. The difference is subtle enough that it took me a couple years to notice, and I would've taken it for different colours in the plastic itself if not for a few places where the topcoat had rubbed away.  

And now, the KARABAIR.

(no, this breed isn't half Smurf. Ah, winter light...)

Finally a horse from Uzbekistan!

The rest of S1 is exclusively European or (north) American, so something from Asia is a fun change of pace. 

Full disclosure, I know very little about this breed beyond that it was a staple of 80s horse books. No, really, it was. They all had that one chapter which jammed together all the Soviet breeds, and the Karabair was always in there. 

My modern breed encyclopedia (Rousseau and Le Bris, 2014) informs me that this is a lean and athletic horse, used both for sport and for milk, and that it is an ancient breed descended from both desert and steppe horses. 

The Funrise Karabair is... well, perhaps "lean and athletic" isn't the word I would use, with a ribcage wider than it is tall. 

Well sprung ribs aside, it's interesting to compare him with the palomino. These two are very similarly posed, and it would be so easy to just slap a new coat of paint on an existing body - but nope! Even if you removed their mane and tail and primered them both grey, you can easily tell them apart. The Karabair's neck is a little more turned, his right legs are more parallel, his chest is narrower, muzzle narrower, head shorter and more convex. Not Roman nosed, more of a... sheeplike profile. He is also seriously cute. 

I like black horses, and especially ones that have a little extra something. Like a star, or painted hooves when you could just have left them black. 

Or like a surprise belt of sunfaded red around the middle. It looks a bit odd, sure, but A+ for effort!

Funrise, continued: series 1, part 1

The first series was made in 1988 and features 12 horses of (mostly) well known breeds. They're all males - indeed all the models Funrise ever made appear to be - and all adults.

THE PALOMINO

is of course not a breed, though that hasn't stopped a thousand horse books treating it as such. 

Throughout the 20th century breeders searched for the perfect "true-breeding palomino", to no avail - because that simply isn't how color genetics work. A palomino is the result of one cream gene acting on a red base, but because cream can double up, a palomino-to-palomino cross may result in a single dilute (palomino), double dilute (cremello, blue eyed cream), or just a regular old chestnut. 

However, colour genetics is a relatively new field, and the various palomino registries were set up long before the fact. 

Cream can be found in breeds from all over the world, from Fjords to  north African Barbs, so it may be easier to mention breeds that don't carry it - the Arabian comes to mind - but it is most popular in stock horses, gaited breeds and ponies. The sporthorse world has been rather conservative as far as colour is concerned, but there are cream warmbloods! 

The Funrise palomino is a warm yellow colour, ranging from bright banana to a more orangey gold. He has white socks but black hooves and no muzzle shading but black dotted nostrils, an odd feature most of the S1s share.  

THE ARABIAN

I mean, we all know this one. Oldest recognized pure breed, etc etc.

Despite the arabian's ancient origins, in Europe it was rarely used for anything but "improving" other breeds - as an outcross to add refinement, speed, or endurance - because pure Arabians were considered too small, slight, or unsuited to the climate or terrain. 

The modern extreme/exotic show Arabian is a distinct type and really not a typical example of the breed, and I'm pleased to say that Funrise has chosen to go in a different direction altogether.

I've seen some model horses over the years, but this guy stands alone. I mean, the extended trot! Of all the gaits and all the poses a horse could do, this is one I have never seen another Arabian model perform. Not that it's rare, you just never see it pictured outside of more typical dressage breeds! 

Of course it is possible that the sculptor originally meant this to be another breed - these aren't exactly rife with uniquely distnctive traits - but I like to think they made a conscious decision to showcase the sturdier, less flashy sport type Arabian. 

THE PINTO

Yum, oreos. 

Another NotABreed, and one surrounded by even more misunderstandings and misinformation than even the palomino. 

If you have most of your colour info from general interest horse books you may have come across things like "overo is white markings on a dark background, tobiano is dark markings on a white background", and if so I recommend you trot on over to the Equine Tapestry for some updated info. 

Terms like piebald and skewbald aren't technically wrong, they just don't mean anything. All they say is that a horse is some kind of white pattern (of which there is currently around thirty to choose from) and that the base colour is either black or... not black. 

Because there are so many white patterns around, obviously the Pinto isn't a breed. Unlike the Paint, which is a horse of QH or Thoroughbred breeding carrying one or more of these white patterns - all Paints are pinto, but not all pintos are Paints. 

Only a very few breeds have no white patterns at all - off the top of my head I can only think of Exmoors, Fjords, and Friesians - and new mutations are found all the time.  

The Funrise pinto is clearly meant to be a tobiano, although his hind legs should have some white. Dark-legged tobianos do happen though, mostly in Shetlands and minis. Still, this clearly isn't one of those. Nor is he a particularly western-y looking horse. He has a deep chest and high withers, and blobiness aside I think he looks athletic with his hogged mane and alert pose. An eventer perhaps? 

Hindlegs aside, the pattern is based on one particular horse who was featured (by way of several memetic mutations) in every single 1980s horse book.  

Funrise part II : the fun also rises

 To set the scene:

It is 1989, or possibly 1990. Young Me has come to town with my parents and - happy happy joy joy - not only do we go to the library, but to the bookstore as well. And that's not all, this bookstore has an upstairs toy department*! 

My allowance is practically burning a hole in my pocket as I climb the stairs, 

and there 

in front of me 

is 

the beautiful golden palomino stallion of my wildest dreams:

okay, so I may have hyped that up juuust a tad. But hey, I was 8 (or 9), horse crazy, and living in a non-Breyer country. 

And this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, let alone been able to buy for myself, because these ticked every box on my personal list of what makes a toy awesome:

1) Horse. Well I mean obviously. But a toy brand that was all horses, and realisticish ones at that?
2) Collectibility (the entire series was pictured on the back of the packaging, so you could plan which to get next)
3) Learning! I was, and still am, the sort of person who hoards information. Those breed info cards... dammit, I still want them.
4) Price! One model cost just about exactly one week's allowance for a not particularly rich kid

After the Palomino came the Pinto, then the Lipizzan (who I named Lipstick. The good folks at Piber would not approve.), the Appaloosa, and the rest. 

not my original herd, but I think these were my first six.

                   

 As an adult collector it can be hard to say what made these so beloved. They certainly aren't masterpieces, artistically or conformationally, and it is very obvious that the sculptor (whoever they were) was working from 2D pictures without having much knowledge of equine anatomy. 

Still, there's an endearing sincerity to these models. Just the fact that they aren't your typical "Basic Horse Shape #1" painted different colours - something even bigger brands have gotten away with - but all individual sculpts, even the ones in identical poses. And they all have little flourishes - a wisp of mane, a turn of the head, a tail that isn't just a hanging sausage shape textured with parallel lines - which add personality and suggest that whoever made these actually cared about making the model and went beyond the bare minimum. 

A quick rundown of the first series' identifying features:

* - that bookstore is now a cafe, which is nice, but the toy department is now occupied by a shop that sells ugly posh clothes. boo.

Funrise : an overview of sorts

First, the what.

Next post will have the why, how, who, etc, but for now we have the bare bones of the Funrise line of model horses. 

These models, the International Show Horse Collection, were sold in 4 series of 12 models, beginning in 1988 and concluding in 1994. 

The company may have made other horses - while searching for Funrise on ebay I keep coming across other, bigger horses - but I don't know anything about these. 

The collection very much lives up to its name, featuring most of the breeds you see in your standard 80s horse encyclopedia - most of them of European/American origin, but a few token "exotics" like the Brumby, Barb, and a smattering of Asian and ex-Soviet breeds. 

The models were sold in blisterpacks singly or doubly, and the singles all included a "cut 'n' keep" collectors' card with information about the breed, as well as pictures of all the models in the current series. 

The thing about the packaging is... I haven't actually got any, not yet. As such, I don't feel comfortable sharing other people's photos before getting permission. So homemade lineart is what you're getting, at least until my ebay stuff gets here!

Series 1 (1988)

Series 2 (1988)

Series 3 (1991?)

Series 4, incomplete (1994)

A BLOG? what is this, 2010?

 I know, I know, but if we were going to respect common chronology we wouldn't be here now would we.

Most model horse collectors follow a predictable route: first the cheapo toys, then Breyers, Stones, then on to resins, and for the ultimate x-th level black belts: custom glazed chinas. 

I am not most model horse collectors. 

From collecting Breyers and Stones and, yes, even resins, I've returned to my childhood favourites, the unloved and forgotten cheapies, partly because they're cute and partly because there's very little information about them to be found and what little there is is hopelessly scattered, and I enjoy doing research. 

Plus, y'know, it's 2020. Why deny yourself something fun just because you're supposed to have outgrown it?