 Hi there it's DJB and in this video I'm going to give you a history of my model horse background. I guess this could be a model horse biography because I think it's interesting where it started, where it came from, and how it happened. So I've only been customizing for about two years, very seriously. Prior to customizing I was a heavy collector and I have a really interesting collecting path. So I'm going to share a little bit of how I got into model horses. I still don't understand where the love of horse came from because I grew up in town, we didn't have horses, I wasn't really exposed to horses but I always loved horses and I think that actually did come from my mom. She was big into horses as a teenager and as an adult. There's pictures of me sitting on horses when I was a baby but we didn't really have a horse until I was about six. But I loved horses from the moment I was born because I didn't play with dolls, I didn't like makeup, I didn't like anything girly. I was honestly only interested in animals and specifically infatuated with horses. The whole model horse thing didn't start with briars actually. It started with a different brand of model horse called Grand Champion. Some of you may have seen these, they're pretty ugly but they're great play horses. They had real mains that you could brush, they feed and nuzzle ones, they could put their heads down, they had magnets in their noses so that you could feed them and they were just really fun. So what actually started the whole thing I blame my mother for? She went to a garage sale at one point and bought this entire girl's collection. She had like a hundred grand champions and she was selling them for two dollars a piece and so my mom went and bought the entire collection and slowly over the course of a couple years she would give me one. So I'd get one for my birthday or I'd get a couple for Christmas or if I did something good or I was home alone with her she would hide them around the corner of the house and then of course you could buy them in the store at that time so I had all the stables and I had all the barns and everything. So I loved my grand champions. That's all I played with as a kid was Grand Champion horses. The only dolls I played with was a little riding dolls to go on the Grand Champions and then at one point my uncle actually gifted me a classic briar. It's a classic briar Arabian. His name is Joe now. I call him Joe. I didn't like him. I didn't like briar. I had seen briar. I've heard of briar but I didn't like them. They had hard mains and tails. I thought they were ugly. It just didn't feel as good to play with as the Grand Champions did. So he kind of got like tossed to the back of my room and I never really did much with him and continued to play with the Grand Champions. I wasn't introduced to briar until my mom actually bought me a leather briar saddle and this thing was made of real leather and I was so excited because I finally had a real leather saddle for my horses. So I was so excited to run to my room and grab my grand champion and it was too big because this briar saddle was made for a traditional scale model and so it fit my Barbie horse that I had but it didn't fit any of the Grand Champions. So I was solely disappointed and very upset. So I went onto the briar website and the one that I picked for whatever reason was treasured moves on the lady face mold and I thought she was the prettiest briar and for like the longest time I was like asking Santa for this briar and it was really hard because I live in Canada and they're hard to get. They're really expensive and at the time there was no Canadian influence of briars hardly at all. So in my early teenage years I was a dancer and with dance I traveled all over Canada and within the US. So we spent a lot of time competing in the US and because I'm a horse person because my mom's a horse person we'd spend a lot of time going to those funky tax stores in the US that had everything and lots of things you couldn't get in Canada. So we went to the one and it was the Big R stores and so we were walking through this store just looking around and then I saw this little girl and she was carrying the yellow briar box. Oh my god there's briars in the store somewhere and so we asked this little girl like where'd you find that briar and she's like oh just down that aisle. So I went down that aisle and it was like all of my dreams had come true. It was the wall of yellow that we all know and love. This is the first time I had encountered traditional briars let alone that many traditional briars in one space. So I remember literally screaming and jumping up and down and the little girl with the other briar was laughing at me because I was so excited. For whatever reason in this store they decided to put all of the models on the top row which I found really weird because most people buying them were small children so I couldn't get to any of them I just could stare at them and they had my treasured moves so of course that was the one I had to get but I admired them all for probably an hour while my family finished the rest of the store and I think at that time I also got Flicka but my mom saved it for my birthday and then every time we went to dance competitions in the U.S. we'd go to the store and I'd get to pick another one and then the traditional briar collection started. So I got treasured moves then I got the Gypsy King then I got Flicka and then I participated in the color crazy treasure hunt so that was kind of my era and those guys were there and then it progressed into the entire collection that it has become today. Back in those days I did in fact play with them they were play toys so I had set up this whole briar barn in my room and it had evolved from like one little stall to two little stalls to like a whole corner of my room to like the whole wall of my room and I was really infatuated with making this huge setup for them and then at one point I actually took over the entire basement to make a barn and I used to film little videos like I used to make little briar series with my models and I still have a lot of the footage but they were terrible because I used to watch YouTube videos of like model horse people filming their briars and making little YouTube series and I always wanted to do it I just was didn't know I was too scared to do it and I wasn't allowed the internet at the time so it never happened so I did it in private but I have a whole bunch of series videos that they're really bad so on like another note this love of horses and this love of a model horses also bled into drawing horses and I have always been on equine artist I've always loved drawing so I've been drawing horses as long as I've been loving horses and so of course this led up into a very artistic background and so being involved in briars and collecting them and playing with them there was this whole other realm of you can make tack for them and you can paint them so I started with just tack and I would make halters I tried the real rondo saddle kit and made that I used to make all kinds of bridles and breast collars boots like blankets like anything you could think of I was making for these models and I used to watch ebay all the time and there's people that were marketing and selling their work online and I was like well I could do that but I never really it never really amounted too much I was also involved in photo showing a good way to research horse breeds and learn more about horses and colors and so I was really heavy into the photo showing when I kind of gave up the play and photo showing is great because you do learn so much about breed and confirmation and color all the different things that come with understanding horses and how they work and then winning prizes for them so it was a really satisfying process for me and then at a point I realized oh well you can customize them and I thought this was great I tried it I did a couple customs I bought a vintage body box off of ebay which was like the proud Arabian stallion and proud Arabian marimolds which needed so much work I took the mare and I rasped her whole mane off which was disastrous it didn't work it took so long and I took a silver body and I chopped his leg off and tried to make him in a new position and that didn't work and so like I tried bending their legs with boiling water I tried all the YouTube tutorials I tried painting with pastels I tried painting with acrylic and I was semi successful I created some good pieces I sold a couple things on ebay because I was watching people sell their work for thousands of dollars online and I was like maybe I can do that I don't know but I never really clicked with me and it wasn't something I spent a lot of time on it wasn't something that it was a huge priority at that time I was more interested in traditional artwork and drawing and kind of I felt like I had a career in that I felt like there was a future for me in that and so the model horse thing was just like fun and I would do it once in a while but I didn't do it enough to justify it and it really didn't amount to anything I was terrible and I gave it up completely so at one point the photo showing was not satisfying enough and I decided that I needed to do a live show and that was really intriguing to me and there was a couple live shows in Canada so I actually attended a couple of those and I found that really fun uh showing my OFs and showing off what I had learned and having good documentation and understanding breed really well but one time I won the entire show I won overall grand and reserve champion of the OF division which was insane I want to wait to film school to study 3d animation so within this time I was two years I moved to the big city so I didn't have money and I didn't have time so I actually stopped collecting completely and I was void of the hobby totally like I didn't have any contact with Facebook groups or models of any kind it was I was purely in school and I couldn't focus I think I bought maybe one model maybe one or two models in the whole two years do I didn't have the room for them either I was in a really tiny apartment so then I graduated that and I started working and when I started working it was kind of fun because I was like oh I'm making my own money now and nobody can really tell me what I can and can't spend it on so I started collecting again and I bought a lot of models that were very sought after on my wish list and it was very exciting because I was finally able to complete the wish list in ways I had never thought I reached a kind of a weird point where I was working in 3d animation and that's purely based on the computer so you're eight hours behind a screen you're eight hours on the computer and that's a lot of computer time and I wasn't a big computer person like I like working on the computer but I felt unhealthy to be on it for eight hours a day like the work was okay but it was this weird disconnect where I had grown up doing so many things with my hands and I loved drawing and painting and I never really caught to digital design or digital artwork in any way it never really satisfied me in the same way that making something with your hands did and so I kind of had to find that in my off time because I was spending so much time at work on the computer that I felt like I needed something physical in my life and even traditional drawing wasn't really giving me that gratification anymore so because I was like collecting briars I just decided I haven't customized in a long time and I was following people on Instagram that were really good and I was like maybe I should try it again you know I'm older now I'm more concentrated on what I'm doing I feel like I could figure it out and so I had this whole bin of customizing supplies that I had left at home when I moved away for school because I was like there's no way I'm going to do that while I'm there so I was able to buy some stablemates and then I got my mom to ship me some stablemates and I bought a can primer and I had some pastels that were in my house I was like why don't I just try this you know like I can buy some ceiling spray I was had access to all the supplies of being in the city and so I attempted my first custom and that was the little Dursage stablemate to sooty buckskin he turned out really sweet and at the same time I was like why don't I just start a second Instagram page why don't I call it djb studios start a second Instagram page and just you know be more carefree about it instead of posting completed pieces and having to worry so much about is it good enough just be free with it and just post I'm painting a model horse because there was clearly an Instagram platform for it I had been watching it prior to that I made an Instagram at the same time that I started painting them here's me priming here's me sanding like it wasn't anything really intense people started to follow people started to notice I was definitely a lot better than when I originally started the first time so it was exciting to me so it kind of just tick off from there I started painting more stable me I also started buying stuff and I found myself a little desk and the rest kind of became history with the customizing realm I've taught myself how to do things I've watched tutorials and looked at tutorials and then the whole idea of starting a YouTube channel was kind of through this film background where I've always liked YouTube I've always liked making videos but I never really could find anything where it fit and this was like the perfect opportunity here I was doing something with my hands so it was super physical it was really rewarding because I was able to share online and this following was happening and it was like the first art where it was like I could be obsessed with horses and nobody could say anything about it like unless you're really infatuated with horses you'll never be good at it and I am so infatuated with horses all I wanted to draw was horses and people were always like you should draw dogs or people or something different paint a landscape and I'm like no I just want to do horses so this is like the perfect art because I can just do horses all the time and then at the same time nobody was making really useful tutorials like there was some good blog posts there was a few good videos but the videos were lackluster there was nobody really doing tutorials saying like this is how to do it this is how to start this is you know what I'm using and so I saw that and I was like I need to catch that and even if I'm not the best artist even if I don't know what I'm doing the like idea behind this channel is that I can teach somebody something that they don't know so even if I'm not the best at what I'm doing even if I'm not the top artist because there's incredible artists in this hobby I'm doing more than someone who doesn't know what they're doing is doing if that makes any sense so me showing you how to do what I did because I'm achieving some form of result is better than you having no guidance and not knowing what products to buy or how to start in any way so at least I'm giving you a little bit of a base and saying I've created a piece out of this using these tools so I think you can too and I mean my tutorials have only been getting better and my skills have only been getting better and I've only been doing this for two years and some of the great artists have been doing it for at least 10 so I have a ways to go I'm really really proud of where I've come and like it's been really gratifying just owning it and saying yeah I collect model horses I have a collection of like way too many but I also paint them and sculpt them and I sell them for a ton of money and then I make youtube tutorials and teach people how to do it and it's like this whole community thing it's this whole like niche that I had been looking for all my life and it was always there I just didn't know how to utilize it since everything took off and I was like this is this is insane this is crazy and since my work has been selling for so much more and the success on youtube and instagram and facebook and my name and the hobby has becoming bigger I quit my job and I no longer work on the computer eight hours a day I found a job that was more physical and hands-on and I've really learned that's definitely me and I need a physical hands-on job and I can't work on the computer for eight hours a day I don't think anybody should do that it's not good for your body or your brain or anything and I've moved to a small town and I feel like this whole model horse thing is going to take me somewhere one day and I'm really excited about it but I feel really cool in that there was a history behind it and it started since I was born basically and I've been collecting since I was five years old people have told me in my life oh it's childish and it's a waste of money and it's a waste of time and I feel really sad for people that tell you that because you shouldn't ever think that something you enjoy is a waste of time or it's stupid or it's childish because if you love it what does it matter if the people around you really love you and you say I really love this thing they should support you in that 100% they should support you in that and now the live showing portion of model horses has really changed for me it's become an art competition it's like a it's no longer like me here's my OF briar that I pulled out of a box and it's very flawless and I picked a good breed for it it's like here's this thing I worked on for like six months I think it's good and the judge says yeah it's good and gives you a first place ribbon you're like oh my goodness like it's it's art it's an art contest at that point it's no longer childish or silly or a waste of money or time it's genuinely art competition and so the customizing has made it this whole new thing for me and I am so in love with it so I think I will always have model horses in my life I really like the art form I think it's very different from drawing and traditional art in that you're actually attaining this three-dimensional piece that needs to look good from every angle but you're still capturing a moment in time a pose or a piece of the horse that you wouldn't normally see so I find it really really satisfying and I'm very excited to see where it goes from here but I just wanted to share my past because it's always been there and I think that's really interesting thank you so much for everybody who has followed me and supported me in this journey because it has been a long one and I'm very excited to continue to create tutorials and customs and see where this art form takes me thank you so much for watching and following and subscribing and supporting me in this journey and I hope to continue this journey for a long time to come