 Hi there! It's DJB, and in this video I'm going to be showing you how to reattach your Briar Model Horse's head to the body to create a new neck position. This is a three-step process in which we will be using wire, tinfoil, and epoxy to achieve the final result. So here I have a Smartie Jones body that I have chopped the head off. I've also sanded down his nose, and I want to recreate a more upright neck position for him. So using some armature wire here, I'm just going to cut off a piece, and I have to twist this wire because it's quite flimsy. It's not as strong as I would like it to hold up the head. So just creating a twist in that creates a double reinforcement to that wire. When attaching it inside of the head, briars are hollow on the inside, so you want to shove that wire all the way down into the nose of the head so that it definitely doesn't fall out. Here I'm going to just fill pretty much the entire head with super glue. Really don't be afraid to use a lot. You want to make sure that that's good and reinforced. The neck itself doesn't need to be coming out of a particular position on the head or the body of the horse. It really just needs to be fastened in some way. You can even have one piece of wire just coming from the inside of the neck. So what I'm saying is you don't need to create a top line and an underside line for the neck. You can if you want, but I've just found that this leads to problems if they sculpt it too thick and then I have to sand it down later. In the terms of the body, you can attach it to this reinforcement bar. If it doesn't have that though, you're going to need to reattach it to either the chest or the back on the inside of the horse. So leaving your wire as long as possible in that procedure really helps with reinforcing that. You can even point it down into the very back of the model. So fasten it to the bottom side of the horse, but you just want to make sure it's really firm, really solid. We're going to use tin foil to create the outline of the neck and I have learned that dollar store aluminum foil is very different from high quality aluminum foil. So you can try both of these. Dollar store tin foil is really cheap. Tin foil like Alcan is a lot more expensive. You can get it at Walmart for about five bucks for quite a large roll, but there definitely is a difference in the Alcan versus just aluminum foil. Dollar store or just off brand aluminum foil is really flimsy. It's really soft and malleable. Alcan is a lot stronger and it will hold its shape a lot better. So I've actually been finding more success with Alcan, but for a neck like this, using the dollar store kind of stuff is better because it forms a little easier, but for stuffing the model, you definitely want to use Alcan just because it holds its shape better. So you're not going to have to use as much because the other stuff just bends too much and you end up just pushing way too much of it into the horse and then the horse ends up rattling. So I'm just going to fill the body of the horse to a point where it's flat on the surface so that I can add an epoxy base and then we're just going to free form the neck with some tin foil as well. So just taking a sheet, bending it over that wire armature, pushing it on in the shape of a neck because this is very malleable and soft, it's very easy to do so. You can use the base foundation with Alcan, you can mix between the two, but I would recommend trying both because they do work very differently from each other and you'll notice a difference right away. So here just keep forming that neck until you're happy with the placement. This gives you a good guide of what the neck actually looks like and you can use calipers and size charts to measure the approximate correct anatomy. Now I'm going to take some epoxy and I'm choosing to use epoxy because it's a bit firmer of a consistency than magic sculpt and so I'm finding uses for both of these clays in different areas and this part portion using epoxy is definitely a little bit better because it's a little bit firmer of a clay and I'm just going to wrap all that tin foil in a layer of epoxy. I am not doing the detailing at this phase, I'm not detailing anything, just making sure that that outline, that silhouette is correct but the bulk of this neck is just going to be a thin layer of epoxy so don't cake it on, just enough to cover the tin foil so that it is nice and smooth. It doesn't have to be completely smoothed out, can be a little bit rough, just make sure that silhouette is good and that is all that we are doing in this phase. And then you're going to want to set the model aside and let it fully cure. Epoxy cures generally the best overnight but you can go back to it within a couple hours, you just don't want this cracking or bending so I definitely let it fully cure so that I have a firm foundation to sculpt on top of. So once he is dry you're going to want to have your neck reference and you're going to proceed to sculpt your neck detailing on top. So I like using magic sculpt for this phase just because it's a slightly smoother clay, more malleable and blends a little easier. That's just my personal preference but epoxy would work just as fine in this situation. So generally I make rolls in the shape of the muscles and then I make sure that that top line is also working well as well as the underlying jawline. They kind of just smooth everything out with water and my finger and then I will go back in with some tools and really define those true neck muscles and how they work. I like using rubber silicone tools for this step and really paying attention to reference. It's best if you find a reference that's actually in the same position as your horse so if you're doing a high headed horse you want a reference that is high headed if you're doing a low headed horse vice versa so you want to really study the reference because the neck really moves around a lot differently in different breeds in different positions and constantly it's a lot of muscles underneath so having a good muscle chart and skeleton chart in your studio is really helpful as well. I like using this flat spoon tool too for smoothing out some of those details. This kind of pushes the clay a little bit in a more natural way than the silicone tool could. This is a recent tool that I've been using a lot more and I've been getting really good results with it so you're going to rework the neck in a sense of both sides until you're happy with the final detailing, final positioning, final muscle structure from all four sides. So thank you so much for watching. I really hope that this helped. It's easy to be intimidated by redoing necks but I find that original briar sculptures a lot of the molds have really thick bulky necks which isn't truly accurate. Horses have kind of skinnier necks than that normally and you can add a lot of detail and it's fun to just take molds cut off their heads and reposition their neck. That's enough of a drastic sometimes to create a one-of-a-kind piece for sure. Thank you so much for watching and happy customizing. Please subscribe for weekly Wednesday uploads. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at DJB Studios. Check out my website and sign up to my newsletter to be the first to know about commissions, tutorials, and sales pieces. All of the tools used in this video are in the description below. If you have any questions feel free to message me.