 Hey everybody, it's DJB and I was just like uploading my year in review for 2022 and I thought it would be really interesting to go back and watch my like previous year in review recaps. I find it really interesting how far my progress has come. I technically started DJB Studios in 2017. I started the year in review in 2019. I think that's when I got really serious into it so I actually haven't been running this business all that long. It's really only three years of intense selling and I'm already like going full time so that's kind of nuts. I'm going to watch them. I'm going to comment on them as I watch them. So this is the DJB Studios Briar Horse Customs a year in review 2019. Let's check it out. I put some good effort into that making that pretty sweet. These customs feel like I've done them forever ago and I mean it was three years ago. Some of these admittedly were me just like attempting colors for the first time so like this chestnut guy. He was like one of the first tests I did with a metallic color base coat and that was really interesting for me and I was getting the like hang of doing some highlighting on the face and whatnot so that was also really interesting. This was my first grulla that I painted and my first time using Vallejo. So like this was like these are a lot of firsts. This guy I feel like he did really well at the time but looking at him now I don't love the white markings I did but he was a good piece and the mold is really fun. This horse isn't doing it for me. I feel like the color is all wrong and the markings are kind of sloppy and she's just not quite there. This was one of my favorite customs. I named her Katie and she's a cranky chestnut mare and I feel like the sculpt just was like really fun to do. She hung out with me for a while before I finally got the gumption to sell her. This guy was pretty well executed. This was my first time trying the Micron airbrush. He's okay. He's just okay and there is a lot of overspray happening in that eye oh no. I find that my macro camera really emphasizes the flaws of things so it's like you're really close to the horse and you can see all of the overspray which is really intense. This is soul food. She was a custom that I regret actually selling. I loved the way she turned out. I feel like there's not enough black and white pinto customs in the world and I love the way her tail looked. I love the way her markings turned out even though they're kind of chaotic and not really true to life but her face it was one of the very first blue eyes I did with like pinking in the face and everything that just turned out so cool. I just love her face. I can't get over her face. It's a little blown out here. My editing software likes to do that but looking at this now I can do a lot better of this but that eye I just I've never been able to create an eye like that again. I just loved her expression. This made me cringe when I watched this through the first time because my fingernail is so long. I don't keep my fingernails long anymore ever because I do a lot of sculpting so this kind of grosses me out because I know the sensation of having long fingernails bothers me now. This custom was really great at the time and I was really proud of him and he did really well for me in the show circuit as well. In the live shows I took him to he placed really high and I remember the judge specifically saying that she wishes I did a better outcome here like the the spots are kind of just flowing across the body diagonally so there's no real like spot interjection in the flanking. That was a really good piece of advice for me because I did go home and I like completely revamped my apple is the painting process and I really made sure to do those spots good the next time. This is mink minks lady phase that I redid new hair new face cranky ears. I was trying to make myself like the lady phase mold. I sold her right away. I didn't like this custom very much. She is a city palomino which was a color I'd also never painted before so I took a lot of time in 2019 to experiment with new things and a lot of these you can see the difference in the two faces there a lot of these really are like the first time trying more drastic customizing trying more gruella color uh so this is another drastic marwari uh that I did you can see him in comparison I really widened his chest and whatnot so just experimenting and that's really how I got into this is just painting a lot experimenting a lot like experimenting here with better apollosa patterning still didn't really hit the flanking mark there but that's okay. This was the premier club horse that I painted she was my highest selling custom at the time my first time painting a donkey and my first time painting textured hair. Rattler is my most favorite custom from 2019 and I kept her as a period piece so she still lives with me actually a lot of people don't really care for this custom I'm obsessed with her even now in 2022 I still feel like she's one of the best pieces I've done she just has a lot of dynamic hair detailing and shading and her expression is really good and I love the like detailing I did on all of the spots and in her face and I just really like her attitude she's a cranky apollosa horse but even here like looking close up I can see that I had some blending issues happening and it's very stark contrast but I really like the eye and I just I love this custom and I'll keep her as kind of my 2019 custom I try to keep at least one piece from each year so previous to this who didn't make it into a video was finnigan and I still have him as like my first traditional custom I never did sell him I've kept periodically several pieces from the last two years pongo I also still have because he was just the flat nicota mold that I wanted to have a custom on I added some sculptural details to his face I still really love him he's very contrasty and I feel like it's some of the best detailed hair I've ever done as well that's all we had for 2019 so moving on to 2020 let's play the video I painted a lot of horses in 2020 like I know this for a fact drastics I didn't realize I painted most of these in 2020 kind of nuts 2020 was a crazy year for everyone well I remember setting myself up for success in 2020 and saying 2020 it was gonna be my year and I delivered a lot of horses in 2020 holy macaroni and I know that I was supposed to go to briar fest and then covid happened so I did have some time where I was not working because I had a few months where like I was a full-time artist for a little while this was also my first year starting with sculpture so I created arrow that was only two years ago that my first medallion came out he sold out so that was exciting and then I painted one and I painted a lot of medallions and that was really helpful in like understanding color and trying new things if you think I'm like you know what I'm doing I don't I just I'm really good at just trying things and seeing how it goes so Keon majority of him was created in 2019 he wasn't finished with painting until 2020 so some of this is like a little bit of a gray area because some projects I will shelf for a while and then come back to so like technically his skills were 2019 but he was completed in 2020 ET I finished ET he turned out really nice I always loved that horse I'm not an American saddle bread fan so he had to go to a new home Oscar was one of the ones that I almost threw in the trash I almost stripped him I was talking about him on a live stream and everyone was saying don't strip him don't throw him out finish him you'll learn more from finishing him and I did finish him and he turned out so cool and I really paid attention to his feathers here and really detailing the hair and this hair took forever to paint this horse took forever to paint in general but he turned out really cool this was a commission that I took on the sculpture is just not my jam and this horse was like heavy it wasn't like smoothcast 300 it was like that chalky resin I think he turned out good his dapples are a little too small and a little too uniform that was a phase I went through as well divana was my very first personal resin that I painted and one of the first dapple bays I've painted or only yeah I mean pretty much the first one on like a size that wasn't a stable mate as I like a test I love this horse I still have her sorry that was my stomach I need to eat lunch I was really going through a micro phase here I painted a couple of them it was really fun to play with the scale then I had my albarozo for the briar fun day event so I did a live stream where I painted this guy in real time but then also provided a youtube video so that video is on briars youtube channel so that was like a really big moment part of this process was that briar sent me like I don't know eight of these stable mates to use for the live demo because I had to like paint each one in a different phase this particular one that I picked for the finished like final outcome what that your horse could look like piece for whatever reason this albarozo isn't standing properly his tail isn't touching the ground and I didn't notice it until I finished him and photographed him and I was like he's not supposed to be like this something happened to this one I painted a baby juggernaut into a doppelgrey and then yorg was created in 2020 it's crazy the classic famous yorg he gives me goosebumps every time I look at him I still am obsessed with him and you can see that like I definitely pay an attention to the flake and the apollosa spots this is all correct here and then I painted this little donkey in a crown for my mom and I still have this piece it was a mother's day gift for her and she loves loves loves her I named her blossom she shows really well for me too this is a commission juggernaut I wanted to get my hands on a juggernaut and I was commissioned to do so he turned out pretty good his color to me is a little flat but I I love him I think he's a really he's a nicely painted piece this horse he's not very well executed he's quite grainy I still have him he doesn't show well I like his color but I think I can do better I'm actually considering stripping him and redoing him I also finished pacillus in 2020 he was finished pretty early in the year because he was finished during COVID time this horse has won many prizes for me he's been featured in bryer magazine he's like kind of the pivotal career point for me where people are really starting to understand my work and see my work and follow me so 2020 was like a big deal for me first dapple gray and traditional scale this was I guess 2020 you could say was like my year of upgrading from stable mates to traditionals so I was playing with a lot of large scale techniques here this horse I think she was a really cool idea like not a lot of people had done roxy in braids but I didn't love this model I don't know what it was about her I just she wasn't doing it for my personal collection she turned out really expressive and really unique to look at and unfortunately what happened with this custom I agreed to trade her for a blank juggernaut resin because I really wanted a juggernaut resin to paint they're brutally expensive like over a thousand us dollars which I wasn't willing to pay so I worked out a trade deal with a specific person to trade this model for the juggernaut and it was like a flat trade and this person was talking as if she was really excited to own one of my customs and this was like a dream come true and she couldn't picture her life without this custom and this was the one that she wanted and I was really excited because I was like we both win in this situation but basically what happened was this particular person kept the model for like two weeks and then listed it for sale at auction and this horse sold for $1900 which is like I haven't personally sold any of my work for that much so that was like kind of a kick in the face for me because it was not the agreed upon deal and a lot of people on instagram really loved this model for whatever reason so I should have known to like not trade this one I was pretty upset for a few days for sure I felt like that was kind of a low blow whatever we learn we move on this guy uh my mom has claimed she has claimed him as her own technically she bought me the micro juggernauts and she said I had to paint her one in dapple bay blanket apalooza and I missed the mark and I missed the mark regularly in dapple gray is with having the wrong tones in the hair versus the body so I'm using like a specific pastel color for the body that comes across a lot more warm and then my acrylics tends to mix really cool and that doesn't really work I think that happened on Sirius as well so his body is really rich and really warm here kind of has some yellowish hues almost through it and then his tail is like ice cold and that's just not good so I've learned and I like add some of this pastel into the hair so that it like better flows through I also didn't realize that I created ghost ghost is another really intense drastic that I completed and this is one of my favorite models ever I will never sell him he's actually a portrait of one of the veterinarians that lives in my town I had taken a photo of her horse just the color of her horse the blue rome color and wanted to paint him and so I created this model uh pre working at the vet clinic and then I went to work with her and we actually became pretty close friends and we do a lot of riding together so she rides this real life horse of ghost uh his name is smoke she has all of the sticker designs and things of this horse because it looks like her horse so she basically got a free commission and ironically what's really funny about the whole thing is that drifter absolutely hates smoke he does not like him at all it's the only horse I've ever known drifter to like round out I love ghost he doesn't show well nobody really seems to give him the time of day and sticker sales or or in posts but I love him I love him this was a commission portrait of someone's chestnut horse this is a fun little project I had to change the main a little bit and create a shed to chestnut which I'd never done in traditional scale either this guy was actually based off of a custom that I had seen in passing somewhere and I had always kind of stuck in my brain with a similar kind of salinero that they added more main to a more tail to like touch the ground and I wanted to paint like a truly light gray and see how hard it was because it's really difficult to paint light colors successfully and have like enough shading and stuff so he actually took a lot longer than he looks like he would take he did really well at my last show that I took him to it was a test on this kind of roaning method on a stable mate I did two of them just playing with some pastelling methods that sort of worked sort of didn't work somehow I also finished another drastic from Clydesdale mayor to Trotter I don't know I don't remember doing this much in 2020 he's very heavy he's like five pounds of epoxy and I don't know how I'm gonna ship him I would like to sell him but I literally just don't know how I'm going to ship him without damaging him oh I also used not testers dull coat I used a Windsor and Newton satin finish on him so that was like another testing and this was my Peter Stone entry for their holiday custom contest this was also a whole story whole ordeal Raven Maddock of chrysalis studios messaged me she was rallying up a bunch of Canadians to enter this contest and basically you have to pay for the body horse they shipped you a model at random so you didn't know what model you were gonna get you had to create a idea paint coat for the model slight customization if you wanted but customization wasn't going to be judged if they picked you you would be selected as a design contender for the Christmas specials that they were going to make so I was like really excited I could have a stone made by stone the models ended up being really expensive because of customs fees and shipping to Canada so it ended up being like 60-70 dollars for this stupid horse and then the kicker was that stone sent us all this standing draft horse and in my opinion it's one of the least favorite molds of Peter Stone that they have to offer we were all like this is ridiculous so I did finish it and he was actually selected to be the custom model but then the custom thing got pushed to like a year later and then I had to buy the test piece it's the whole thing but anyways this is humbug humbug was made into a stone and there was only 10 or so available of him I made all these little hollies for his hair so he turned out he turned out cute and I ended up selling him and I made the money back so it was fine I don't love this horse it was kind of a flop in my opinion she turned out okay she didn't really do it for me so I ended up selling her this guy as well kind of missed the mark and a lot of these are other okayish models that I forced myself to put in the video this was a pier I was commissioned to resculpt the mane and tail he was later painted by Heather Balock to a really nice chestnut this was not good so like you can see that like if I don't have work that I like I just sell it and then there's work that's like really well received and everybody loves and then I hoard it 2020 was a sweet year and the cherry on top was that I finished my first original sculpture orange and that is all and holy man that was a lot that was a lot so let's move on to 2021 this is the most epic music significantly scaled down I did not paint nearly as many horses in 2021 but I painted better than 2020 all of these horses can stand their ground so that is the difference here 2019 was like trying everything for the first time 2020 was like also still trying everything for the first time but like really honing in on my skills and like just doing as much as I possibly could to learn 2021 you can see I'm like bottle necking into like finding my style Todd is the epitome of that he's a customization he has a lot of soul character to him Todd got a lot of flack on the internet when I was posting him originally they all said his neck was too fat and that he didn't look anatomically correct and I said to you I do not care because he is a sassy fat pasture Avalusa that probably has founder and that is fine I may actually part with him at some point he is one of the ones that I would like let go this little guy was really fun this was the premier club stable me and mine was painted really horribly from the briar factory so I was playing around here with Avalusa texture so not making the markings the white markings completely 100 solid I was actually like leaving some hair texturing through here which is a really unique effect this horse doesn't look amazing in these close ups but he's next to a quarter man he's only this big so he turned out really nice in person I also took this time for briar fest 2021 because it was all online to create a bunch of stable mates to sell for the festival these guys were all head and tail switcheroo stable mates so they're like one of a kind unique and then painted so here I'm applying my hair by hair method on this grula paint color so this is something that I've been adding to all of my recent customs and I've really fallen into loving and it's like a certain method that I do that I haven't shared with YouTube or in any workshop tutorials and I feel like it's a proprietary thing and I feel horrible for saying that because I want to share with you guys how to do things and this is a tutorial learning experience I don't know when you find something really good it's like hard to want to like tell people your secret so we'll see the Jerry is still out on that and I may still make a workshop so here's another little one that I did this guy was really fun the other side of this horse this leg is really wonk I don't know I had fun with these um this was also part of the stable meat switcheroo tutorial that briar fest hosted for me this little guy was really fun I really think I nailed the dapple bay here I really liked his coat color he was hard to sell this one I kept sooty buckskin is my favorite color of all time to have and to hold I just think I did a really good job and this is like this horses are small and then I did a little dapple gray arab still making the error though of the tail being too cool but these are also really in scale dapples for the stable meat scale that was also something I was practicing one of the first times I painted palomino I think it was successful I really like the color this guy was really fun I really played with like ghost spots in here and he actually has herring texture throughout his whole body even though he's just white and I really want to paint another leopard apollosa I love them so much I also sculpted this medallion Izzy she was a horrible terrible flop I still have like 20 of them if you'd like to buy one message me my good friend Haley was gifted this for her birthday her dad contacted me to buy it and was gifted to her she was like a static to own a piece by me and this particular piece so that was really cool this was another bryorfest thing a little micro I had a hard time selling this one I have a thing for black I went I don't know she even has in scale micro dapples he turned out okay also turned out okay this was really fun this was a commission thing it was an interesting challenge because I had to make it look nice and after painting it love this is another commission for some of our first time painting fantasy I love this horse this is not the color I would have chosen for this resin in a million years but I love how it turned out and it turned out so good it's all interference gold and like shimmer like I put metallic through the coat and these are these are actually reverse dapples that turned out so cool this moth was so fun to paint I love this project so much I love his eye too his horn was so extra though it's very stressful shipping this horse back to the owner this is one of my favorite pieces I've actually finished ever this is just a basic repaint to a liver chestnut before bryor decided to release it in of liver chestnut so I did it first and I love his dapples I finally am understanding in scale soft dapples that have variation a lot of my earlier customs were very uniform and here I'm actually exploring past that and making them very unique and different and that makes this horse look very realistic in comparison so this was a horse that sat on my shelf forever and then I finished him in 2021 and he was a challenge because I wasn't using my like pastelli hair technique here I was just painting him strictly with airbrush and shading on his muscles and I think he turned out lovely he just looks like a show horse and then the king was completed in 2021 denali this was the year that I was allowed to enter the bryor fest best customs contest and he placed second in the most drastic and then the next year they kicked us out of the contest again so we will never know if I can actually win we have entire videos on him I don't need to divulge into him the only thing about denali is that I feel like his dapples were a little too many I feel like this troubadour dapples were really realistic I feel like denali's dapples they're okay but I consider him as an art piece I don't consider him as a show horse he doesn't need to prove himself he's a he's a soul piece uh this was a commission she requested I resculpted the meme to match better match the tail this was originally a braided anise this horse was painted while I was like moving house so I'm just impressed she turned out as nice as she did because it was a bit of chaos to get her out of the door and then I completed fable my first original sculpture at the end of 2021 I remember because I was living in my parents house it was pre moved to this house and after we'd lived in the rental she was mostly made in the rental and then she was completed at my parents house and I knew that was my goal was to finish her in 2021 great video so 2022 is an overview you can see that I have arrived like I've actually I have a style now and it's just honing in on that style and just continuing to paint more and like I didn't paint very many horses in 2022 and that's only because my 2020 year was like absolutely insane we did so many things we moved house we built the studio we got married still was working part-time and managing the business I painted this at the very beginning of the year it's a very different style for me actually these like larger sized aplusa spots and that was the goal for her was to create larger spots not so intricate this horse was actually a pain in my side for like seven months I sold her to someone in the US who sent like a money order and the money order was rejected by my bank and then the money was like lost and so I was dealing with the people that bought this model and my bank for like literally six months trying to get the money back and the people were so amazing in the process because it was a nightmare for everybody involved I am glad to see that this horse is loved I've heard updates on this horse it's doing really well in the show circuit and she is much loved so I'm just I'm just happy about that because it was a hot mess to get this horse out the door and sold this is the fighting medallion by Raven Maddock that I painted I really felt like this showed me that you know my painting skills have you know reached the next level for sure I'm noticing my color theory is getting a lot stronger and I'm mixing colors and doing colors more appropriately than I used to I was so proud of the teeth in here too this is the first time painting teeth then we created Odyssey so this was my entry for 2022 best custom contest before I knew what was happening with the rules and then I wasn't allowed in so I just created a really awesome piece for nothing I'm just kidding I knew that I probably wasn't going to be allowed in because Briar Fest went back to the in-person event and I was just going to create a piece anyways and push myself and this was what I created I really like how he turned out I don't feel like he's my greatest piece I've ever completed his paint job is lovely these are some of the best apple lucid spots I've done for sure the best blanket I've done for sure I actually may sell him one day as well he's not a york or a basillus you know this horse was part of my Briar Fest 2022 workshop video that I submitted I painted her to this really really deep dapply bay and I love how she turned out and then I completed my apple medallion who also sold out so I was really happy with that he was a lot much bigger and my first medallion two sculpt in monster clay my second original sculpture frit who was actually created off of a deconstructed fable but he's like all new epoxy he's just he's a drastic fable is what he is I really like his vibe I got some critique on him as well that he's not realistic enough or anatomically correct enough and I agree I see a lot of errors in his shoulder and his hip and errors in him but I like his vibe I like that he's not a hundred percent realistic and that's okay and he's going into production and will be shipping in 2023 so um yeah I like him I like him a lot and this was like a dream come true for me I got a commission he doesn't belong to me unfortunately to paint this star watch this was the colors chosen by the client and I feel like this just because this sculpture is so real it makes my paint job look like better than my paint job is like this horse is amazing I love him so much I love this briar mold so much and I had to have him in city bucks again the judge didn't even look at him at the live show but I love him and I love this color and you can see like I am honing in on this dapple technique and then I painted one of my fable copies to a grula pinto and I was practicing again with a blue eye trying to recreate soul food which has never been successful I like how she turned out this color was really hard it actually took a lot of passes to get it like good then this was my dapple gray attempt on Kylie parks truly jolly these feathers are so good I love them I love the tones I love the dapples I love the shading I love that it looks like I painted it and she's super realistic and so fun I matched the main tones so I finally did it so now this something that I'm like hyper aware of which is good I've learned from my mistakes I interestingly enough in this video I kind of put some of the other stuff because I didn't paint all that many horses in in the whole year as I like I ran my sticker club again I built a studio I hung out with my horse I made my own merch I went to a live show I went to a sculpting workshop fable sold out I got married and I became a full time artist oh and also frit was released oh and I made a coloring book 2020 was crazy it's all I'm trying to tell you it was absolutely nuts I did so much and the end of this video I say bring on 2023 and I will preach that again because I find this so cool to go back and like look at all those yeah this has been really fun I hope you enjoyed watching this and thank you so much for watching this until next time I guess I have to wait like another three years to do another one of these I gotta build up some more content thank you so much for watching and happy customizing