November is almost upon us and that means the wonderful timesink of NaNoWriMo is just around the corner!

But more Writing tends to mean less Art, so I’m trying hard this year to find a happier balance than I have in the past. I am having a lot of fun creating custom orders for folks (and finishing up old projects) and I’d like to keep the momentum going.

On that note, here’s what I’ve been up to since the last time the workbench rolled by! 🙂

Model Horses

The two thoroughbred custom orders have had their base colors approved so now it’s on to the details! Alongside these guys are a Peruvian Paso in dark bay and a Standardbred in bay going grey. The Paso is also on the details stage, but the pacer is lagging a bit behind.

I pulled two more of the small fantasy works-in-progress out of the old body box, so I’m hoping to have these finished up this weekend along with the detailing crew. With luck I’ll have final approval photos out by Sunday and the three newbies up in the Etsy store! 🙂

Not sure who is next on the workbench, I’ve got a few folks who were interested to see if I could pull off various color combinations and two possible custom orders in the wings. If nothing else, I’m going to make sure to keep pulling bodies from the old piles and finishing them off. *uber determined pose*

Magnets

Oh good gravy, but it’s been a banner span for these guys! Since last update I’ve finished off the octopus, the turquoise draft horse head, the sand and surf dolphin, a green sabino draft horse head, a wooden horse and heart, a turquoise-water style dolphin, another leaping horse, and started on the background of another.

I’m actually ready to grab another pile from the in-progress shelf, but I want to focus on getting the model horses done first.

On a semi-related side note, I used one of the kittenloafs as fodder to figure out if they can be converted to hanging ornaments, right now it looks like that answer might be yes! 🙂

I also picked up this nifty new magnetic whiteboard from Walmart to help keep my eyes on the prize (aka make sure I don’t lose the magnets in the shuffle of things.)

Random Projects

The ‘paint all the caps’ project is coming along nicely. I’ve managed to get all of the colors that were on the workbench done and I’m painting the others as I pull them out to use. I also came up with a way to cross-braces the shelving I’m using to make it sturdier and less prone to collapse if I take out the wrong paints.

I’ve been playing around with making mini books and am having a blast! They certainly aren’t going to win any awards, but I’m going to finish them up as Saturday Story Prompt books and put them up in the store for fun.

I’ve been working on finishing up a lot of the old bases so I can list them in the store as well. It’s proving harder to work out how to package them and what the actual costs are than I had hoped. (Darnit!) But on a good note, I’ve just about got the costs worked out for the model horse poles and cavaletti so those will be up in the store this weekend.

I also picked up a set of Toob Ocean critters because I had an urgent need to own a Space Whale. Don’t judge.

And that’s all for now… back to work! 😀