"Wanna make it a large?"

For a long, long time I swore that I would never work larger than Stablemate scale, despite the occasional request for Pebbles or Little Bit tack. Well, I'm still holding my ground (at least for now) on Pebbles and Little Bit scale stuff, but I'm branching up a little bit.

Stablemates have been trending larger and larger (even in plastic), but 'curio' scale models are becoming more and more popular. Mini Hazel falls in this size in between Stablemates and Pebbles/Little Bits, as does Sarah Rose's new mini Khemosabi. I honestly didn't realize how much larger Mini Hazel was when I bought her; I assumed it was something like WeeJay. Once I got her, the challenge was on.

So here's my first western saddle for a curio scaled model. I sculpted a tree from scratch for this girl and will probably do a few more commissions or sales pieces with hand sculpted trees before I'm ready to cast, but cast I will.