Collaboration - Circa 2011

Thanksgiving time always puts me in such a thankful mood toward my friends and family, and my hobby life just cannot escape it. 

It's no secret that Grace Ledoux and I are very close, both in and out of the hobby. Knowing someone that well can lead to some very great things, namely "body drawer perks."

We both used to be dead set on becoming huge hobby name customizers, which meant practicing, which meant lots and lots of useless, mangled stablemate bodies we no longer wanted. Whenever we would visit (and still today), it's like a huge swap meet of "oh yeah sure just take that" "nah he's too melted I don't want it" "are you sure you can even use that??" 

This was exactly how Ellie was born.

(At the time she didn't have ears yet)

She was a project I had started months ago and promptly given up on - She was supposed to be a mini version of the Jasmine Resin, which we'd decided was the best most versatile gift to the performance world ever. 

Grace saw her and knew she had to get done, and since I was maxed out on my "bring em back from the dead" customizing capabilities, she took over. 

The **plumbing epoxy mess slowly and surely got ears, a tail, hit the sandpaper, and became a mule. 

After a coat of paint Ellie was truly Ellie! 

Finally she could give us (Grace really, as I hadn't started making tack) a do it all performance horse equine.  

She was outfitted with some of Stage Left Studio's earliest and often forgotten tack

and hit the ring! I have no recollection of which or how many shows she attended, but I like to think she put a few good ones under her belt. 

Please be gentle on her. We were both so blissfully unaware of anatomy back then.

She was and actually still is considered our little baby, whom we love despite some obvious confirmation flaws. Maybe it's because she's almost a little 1:32 scale symbol for our continued work and friendship together. Or maybe that's thanksgiving talking. Either way, I appreciate you, Miss Grace, and here's to many more collabs in our future!

**horrifically, when we first started customizing we knew we needed epoxy, but were not fans of shipping, so we marched on down to the hardware store together and each got ourselves a nice package of plumbers epoxy. Yes. The green tube with white in the middle that cracked and never quite blended right and was supposed to be used on toilets. Simpler days 

Yes. We literally made horses out of this.