Wistful Dreams Studio

Cinderella came to me from my good friend Laura Hamn. She asked me if I could redo the hooves and muzzle on this beautiful Wixom she had just purchased; I said no problem, so she shipped the mare out to me. The mare must have already had some stress to the ear, because when she arrived on my doorstep - in a pristine box, wrapped and mummified to the hilt - her ear had been broken clean off and was still wrapped in the toilet paper. So, my repaint job had just become a repair job. The photos you are about to view will cover, step-by-step, what I fixed on this lovely mare. You will see the before and after of each step EXCEPT her muzzle; I forgot to take a photo of the really bright pink it was before I fixed it. Don't get me wrong - this mare was amazing even before I was asked to work on her - and she had apparently been worked on by several artists, as she had two different signatures on her belly! In any case, I got to work first on the ear as I figured if the ear, after being repaired, could hold up to the handling while the hooves and muzzle were being painted then she would ship just fine when finished. I started by sanding gently around the broken area of the ear to level out the paint, which you can see in this photo is pretty thick. I then dremeled out a hollow in her ear on the head, and did the same for the broken piece, so I could glue in a nail and then fill in around the nail with Apoxie so the whole thing would join and harden really nicely. After the ear was reattached, I did some more sanding where the Apoxie had squeezed out around the crack, and cleaned her off with a damp cloth. Then I started painting to-match. I actually ended up painting BOTH ears as the left ear appeared really yellowish to me. I used both acrylics and pastels to get the paint to match. You cannot tell the ear was ever broken and it held up to my stress test of pressing on the tip in all directions!