 In this video I'm going to be teaching you how to make stablemate switcheroo's. A stablemate switcheroo is when you take briar stablemate models and switch around legs heads mains and tails different parts of the stablemate to create a new one-of-a-kind stablemate. This is a super easy way to make a drastic custom with not much skill time or tools required. I really like this form of customizing because these pieces come out very unique and they're super easy and fun to do. The most time-consuming part of this process is the planning phase and the reason being is that there are a lot of briar stablemates to choose from and a lot of them vary in their sculpture. Briar has released several kinds of stablemates over the years so I spend a lot of time sorting through my body box finding the right models to combine. Generation 1 stablemates are the oldest of the briar stablemate collection and you identify them by the thin legs, small hooves, and large seams. These guys lack detail in the face and body structure but are quite realistic in proportion. Generation 2 stablemates have a little more detail in the body and the face but generally the legs are still quite thin and the heads are small. These guys are also quite accurate in terms of proportions. Generation 3 stablemates are a little bit different in that they have slightly chunkier legs and hooves. You'll often even see detailing of frogs in the hooves. Their heads have more detail as well and almost have a cartoon-like style that gives them a lot of personality. And then recently briar has been releasing different kinds of generations in the shrinky versions of traditional briar models. There's also generation 5 and generation 6 stablemates but they all kind of fall into the category alongside the generation 3. So once I've picked models that I feel like match in the legs, body shape, and head sculpturally then I can line them all up and get them ready. It does take time to accumulate enough bodies to do this but you could buy a briar deluxe stablemate set and get away with doing some switcheroo. You just have to be careful that the molds are compatible. So I've chosen this jumping mold, this Mustang mold, two of these warm bloods because I really like the face and legs on the scalp. I have a standing Thoroughbred, a running Mustang, an Arabian, and the new 70th anniversary Raring Stallion. In order to plan this properly there are two methods. The first method is the printout method. So you're going to want to take a photo of your stablemate and I'm just using my cell phone here, photographing them in the same direction, in the same positioning so they are in the same size in the photograph. Then you can just print these photos out at the same size and cut them out in order to see how your switcheroo plans will work. So here I'm cut out the Mustang and I've cut out a warm blood and the other Mustang and then I can chop off heads just as you would in the customizing phase but these are photographs so you can play around and see if things actually work and because you took the photos from the same orientation the different body parts should line up accurately. Here you can play around with lots of different combinations to find the look that you want to achieve most. So another method is taking images from online of the stablemate sculptures that you want to customize. I like using the website identifyyourbriar.com that's just because they have the full archives of all of the briars that exist. In putting them into a program like Photoshop, cropping them out, and digitally manipulating the photographs to become your switcheroo. I do this method because it's a lot easier for me but it does take the software and understanding how to run the software efficiently. So I understand that's not for everyone and that's why the photograph method also works. So these are my final plans for all of these stablemates that I want to complete. That's nine stablemates in total and they will be based off of those original models that I chose. So then after I have my layout complete of everybody that I want to change, I will use a Sharpie to block out what I have to cut. So I made a printout of this sheet that I made in Photoshop and I'm able to Sharpie on those cuts in the plan that I think will work best. Then I'll take them over to my Dremel station and the most important tool you'll need for this video is a vise and I just have it attached to my desk and that works just fine. You'll also need a mini hacksaw. I got this at home hardware. Now one of the more important tools is to practice safety in the studio and so I do recommend wearing a glove. I have a work glove here that has a rubber finish to it. To be fair, during the filming of this video, I did in fact cut my finger pretty badly. So I would recommend wearing gloves. You'll see me not wearing gloves in this video but I do not advocate this because I did hurt myself and it's very easy to hurt yourself. I'm going to be cutting off the tail of this model and so I insert her into the vise and make sure that the vise is good and tight so she doesn't wiggle or wobble around in there. If you have a vise that doesn't have rubber like this one, you can put the model in between a piece of paper towel to protect it and I'm just going to hacksaw into the tail here and you can see that it takes not much effort, time, or frustration to remove the tail. For the head is same kind of thing and I'm just switching angles and now like I said be very careful of your fingers if you're not wearing gloves. I would recommend wearing gloves and here you can see the head pops off the same way and for the hip removing it in the same fashion just hacksawing and you can take it in at different angles. One thing to be precautionary about is that the plastic inside the briar as stable mates are solid gets very hot with repetitive friction so be sure not to touch the hacksaw blade when you're done hacksawing and also make sure to be careful of the plastic because it can get quite hot. The fumes also are a problem so you'll want to wear a respirator in most cases as well. So here you can see taking off the entire hip of the model allows me to attach a new leg in the correct hip flexion position. So this is really important that we cut off the entire hip and not just the leg. In some cases though the leg can just be removed like off of this jumper and often the leg doesn't have to be from the same side of the briar so if you're just cutting off a leg it's okay to attach it to the opposite side of another horse because stable mate legs don't have enough detail to differentiate the inside and the outside of the leg. If you're cutting off the whole hip though obviously the whole hip needs to be transferred to the same side of the horse. The next phase is I'm going to be using a dremel on a flex shaft. I have a dremel 4000 hanging on a dremel stand. I'm using a quarter inch sanding drum 120 grit so it is the fine grit and it leaves smooth marks. I find the 60 grit is too coarse and it will leave scratch marks so the 120 is much better for stable mates. I will also be wearing my respirator 3m mask in medium with 2097 particle filters as well as some goggles. You look super cool when you wear this but eye protection is super important and I'm just going to dremel down the briar logo off of these guys and all of the cuts that I made I'm just going to smooth out the edges. You don't have to use a dremel for this. You could get away with using sandpaper and more hacksawing but the dremel definitely speeds up this process. I understand these are expensive tools and not everyone can access them. You can see my thumb is quite close to the sanding bit so you definitely want to be wearing gloves while doing this. I see a lot of people not using gloves in the dremeling scenario and to me that seems super dangerous. So even dremeling off these little legs make sure you have a good grip on them because they will go flying otherwise and I'm just going to sand out and smooth out all of these seams and make these models super pretty and ready to be put back together. Then I'm going to take a drill bit the same size as the armature wire that I have in the studio and I'm going to create holes in all of the locations where I will be reattaching parts. Using wire as reinforcement is really important because it increases the longevity of the custom. So after everything's sanded you can take a moment to check and see if everything does work in reality and you will find that some heads are too big for some bodies even though they look like they're okay like in the case of this rearing horse that head looks just too big and this jumper head seemed to look better. Still not great but better and then I'll be taking my wire cutters some super glue and some baking soda which is the magic mix and I will be putting in some armature wire into those holes and creating these bonds between pieces. So just checking how long the wire needs to be cutting it appropriately and super gluing that in once I have the correct size. Doing this for all the parts prior to gluing allows you to visualize even better what the custom will look like having those parts attached and then just adding a bit of super glue into the hole and around the wire and then dabbing some baking soda on there. This is just a q-tip that I have in there to dab on. You don't want to touch this stuff because it can cause a chemical burn on your skin. The super glue acts as a chemical reaction that will bond the model together instantly and so adding more baking soda to the glue just makes that glue dry just a little faster than it would letting it sit and you'd have to hold onto it for a significant amount of time compared to curing it instantly. If you have a part that's too long I find holding a piece of sandpaper flat on your table surface and scraping part of the stable mate across that is a really easy way to sand down. So once I have all of my stable mates reassembled with the appropriate legs, heads, and tails in certain cases I can start the sculpture phase. So you can use any kind of two-part resin-based clay. I have used epoxy and magic sculpt before. You're gonna need some isopropyl alcohol the higher the percentage the better and some silicone sculpting tools. I like these individual ones that I bought from a Canadian online art store but you can find them on amazon as well. So you mix up parts of your clay here. I'll be using magic sculpt that's my personal preference and you're gonna put on a glob. You'll use less than you actually think you'll need and I find that I glob on too much and then I end up taking a majority of it off and I like working with my bare fingers and dipping them in the alcohol to smooth those seams. You want these seams super smooth so that you have less sanding work to do later. Dipping the tool in alcohol before you sculpt is really helpful because it allows the tool not to stick to the clay and make the clay drag in weird ways but it rather smooths the clay out really nicely and running my finger over stuff really helps and I use this tool to actually pick off some of the clay that I put on as too much and you're gonna want to create like the detail of a seamless connection between neck and body and doing so we can add more alcohol as we go to smooth out those sculpture lines. Running a paintbrush over the sculpture also helps in the smoothing process. Your finger can't do everything so and I'm gonna do this for all the bonds that are on the model. If you have a complicated custom that's switching all four legs or too much happening on the body at one time it's best to sculpt in chunks and let the model dry so if you have too many legs on one side and you're gonna end up touching things and wrecking things you're gonna want to go a little slower and let things cure there's no harm in letting it cure even for a couple hours to come back to it later and finish it off. For the hand quarters here we actually need quite a bit of clay because there was a quite a large gap in between the leg and the body and so I'm smoothing that out with my finger and just doing more refining using those tools the paintbrush and a combination of my finger and I will repeat this phase for all of the stable mate minus the couple that needed new tails because the tails will have to be applied after the model has cured fully and I can drill into that epoxy. If the clay appears hard and firm and is hard and firm when you drill into it it's generally okay. The epoxy and magic sculpt cure in 24 hours so I let things sit overnight for sure as long as you let the model cure fully before priming it for paint. Then after the model is set to the side to cure I will come back in with some hand sanding so I use a combination of sand papers and sanding sponges actually. I prefer using a 220 grit as a starter and a 400 grit as a finisher. Anything less than 220 is just too coarse especially for steel mates and it'll show up in the priming so if I have big areas to sand down of epoxy or like the barrier logo you're gonna want to use that 220 and then to smooth it out so that there's no sandpaper lines I will go back over that with a 400 grit and that just really smooths out and finishes off the model. The finer the sandpaper the smoother the finish you'll get and the less prepping issues you will have. If you don't understand sandpaper essentially the lower number is a bigger grit and the higher number is a finer grit so you can get up to like 4000 grit which is super fine. I like including mistakes in my videos and this was a mistake that I had. This leg turned out too long for my opinion so to pull something out you just snap it off and pull out that wire with some pliers and remove the extra epoxy sand down and you can reattach that way. Then I'm gonna give these guys a little water bath and that's just because they've had sanding and they are gonna have a lot of granules on them. You're gonna want to let these guys air dry because if you use a cloth of any kind you can leave linties that get caught in the primer. If you're impatient like me with waiting for models to dry you can actually use a hairdryer to dry them really fast on hot. I will be using duple color sandable primer in red oxide. The color really doesn't matter you can use rustoleum primer as well and I always prime outside and bring the model inside to cure. I prime the horse in small strokes you're gonna want coverage but not necessarily dripping coverage. You want to do more layers in finer coats than one vast layer in a drenched coat and once you let that primer cure once again a couple hours before sanding usually and a full 24 for cure. So I work on these guys in phases but you can prep a model in a day just waiting a couple hours between each prime job and you'll know it's wet when it appears quite tacky and it doesn't sand very nicely. The duple color is very chalky and I like it for that in that it's really easy to know when it's dry. So here we have some in-progress horses happening you can see the lumps really show through the primer and you can see the flaws and see what's working and what's not just by adding a coat of primer and essentially you will sand down imperfections prime sand and prime until you're complete. For this bucking bronco guy I added some wire reinforcements into his hooves because he will be on a base and I cut these wires to be about the similar size and I just super glue those guys in and I'm not going to worry about sculpting around them because you're not going to see his feet as long as he's primed again he should be fine and I'm curing that super glue with some baking soda and then I'm going to take a tile that I have just like a floor tile and put some parchment paper over it to create a smooth surface. Using a super sculpting polymer clay I'm going to knead out that clay into a workable form and press that down onto the parchment and so the tile is just working as a flat base and the parchment is what the clay can actually be baked on. The polymer clay is a clay that you do in fact bake in the oven and I just find this faster and good context for bases generally because you can form and play with it a little easier than you could in epoxy and taking some crumpled tinfoil we can create some texture on top of that base. I like to add static grass and realistic turf elements to my bases so it's not super important what this clay looks like but we can create some dirt texture and I'm going to insert the horse in there to create his marks and we can play around with some more texturing just using random objects around my studio that seem to look like nature and once I'm ready with that base I can pop it into the oven or toaster oven works as well 20 minutes at 275 degrees and you can see it burnt a little bit it was in there a little too long and here are all of the completed stable mates in a row after their prepping phase so you can see that they all turn out very unique and very individual and that's what I love about this process so this cannering mare is so cool we've got a spicy Mustang to kind of charging we've got a prancing Arabian that looks very majestic I love this side of him turned out really cool we've got a standing proud warm blood type we've got a angry pawing horse here we've got a running Mustang type and a buckin bronco who's looks super drastic super cool and this wearing guy didn't turn out as cool as I thought I don't love the neck attachment so I never really finished him but it's pretty cool that we can take these stable mates in just a few steps and create them into one of a kind original pieces I think that's so awesome and these guys turn out so cool I hope that you learned something in today's tutorial I really enjoy creating stable mates with your roos thank you so much for watching happy customizing