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Ela_hara’s suggestion sounds like a good one to me. I mean, there’s no point in twelve people PMing about Oriental test paints if there are no Oriental dragons in the collection! Some general categories such as ‘family group’ (hoofer, Western dragon, griffin) or years (for production pieces) would really help people know where to start.
I sent you a PM with the Grails I could think of! But there are probably more that didn’t come to mind while I was staring at a blank PM and trying not to just list “everything that’s not a unicorn and not pink?” 😀
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Forgot to say, but the only pieces that come with names that I know of are a few Ebay pieces (most or all of the “Stray Cat Edition” flap cats had names, if I recall correctly), some raffle items, and some of the Grab Bags. Once, I remember there being a “submit a name for a GB Unicorn” web form where forum members could offer name suggestions for the upcoming batch! That was fun. 🙂
Speaking of which, if you haven’t checked out the raffle section of the forum yet, do that before the end of the month. You just might win a Windstone!
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
I was able to help someone get something on their list!
This is me — thank you for my lovely Shell Pink Lap!
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Thank you for the compliments on Valkyrior the OW!
Relatedly: I mostly don’t name my pieces, but Valkyrior is one of the exceptions. I once read a myth that said the aurora borealis was considered a sign that the Valkyries were coming for a fallen warrior. His colors remind me of the aurora, he’s a warrior of many battles, and “Valkyrior” (actually just the plural of Valkyrie) seemed like a great name! The only other pieces I have that are named are “Echo” the GB fox, who came with her name, and my Oriental Dragon family. Their names are Taishyou (Sun Ori), Shouwa (Ori), and Heisei (Young Ori).
Love those Akhals! It’s still my dream to have a real one someday, but until then I’ll make do with resins. 🙂 Breyerfest was so much fun when I was a kid, though it’s been years. Last one I went to was… Atlantis Bey! (Haha, I can remember them by model name but not by year.) One of my never-sell favorite models came from BF, in the first year they released the “Tent Special” models. I bought “Valentino” the glossy mahogany bay Silver, and I LOVE him. I had to find a glossy bay Prancing Morgan to keep him company, because it turned out to be a color that I completely fell head over heels for!
The “hats” you’ve seen are mysterious creatures called Fuzzies. If you sign your Windstone order with “Love, Fuzzy” then a Fuzzy will hop in the box and come to your house!
There are some excellent artists here who paint on commission! You can check out the PYO section of the forum, which has a sticky’d post for people to list their commission information in, and you can also look in the Classified Ads – there’s a category for commissions there! A year or two ago I commissioned Siberakh1 to paint a Kitty Griffin for me, and it turned out simply awesome! You can see it here if you scroll down a few posts: https://windstoneeditions.com/topic/show-off-your-conga-lines/page/22/ Siberakh painted the one on the far right.
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
How beautiful, Gardenninja! The black-and-white and the black-white-yellow ones are the only ones I really like when it comes to koi-based schemes; I hope Melody someday does a koi grab bag on a sculpt I can’t resist, because I’d really love to have a dragon with that coloring in my collection!
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Nightcrow, what’s the difference between your OW (prototype) and the ones that are cast now? I can’t tell… …they’re gorgeous btw
The main differences are the amount of green, and the shades of green! There is a lot more green on the production BVP than the prototype; and the prototype has none of the bright “lime” green that ended up in the production BVP, he only has the “emerald” green paint for his green areas. (Maybe because there are fewer paint colors competing for space, he also has a lot more violet than the Lap – appropriate, since it’s Black *Violet* Peacock!)
And thanks! I think they’re lovely, too. 🙂 Though I seem to have subconsciously decided that having OWs and Laps that “almost” match is my thing… I also have the Obsidian Frost OW and a Blue Morpho Lap who look great together.
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Oops! Asking tough questions, huh. Well, if you like surprises and a wide range of colors, grab bags are a good way to go! They do tend to sell out quickly – and often have a “one per household” limit when released. If there’s a large number of them and they don’t sell out immediately, the limit is sometimes dropped. And a few, like the recent Koi Coiled and Autumn Coiled grab bags, are very large and a purchase limit is never set. How many items are in a given grab bag varies a lot, and mostly depends on how difficult they are to paint – I know at least one GB ended up with fewer than planned because once Melody started painting them, she found them very hard to do! So she ended up painting fewer than she had originally intended. It seems some sculpts are better than others for GBs. 🙂
Ebay releases vary, too; sometimes there’s 1-2 on there, sometimes none. I don’t know if they have a particular schedule, or a quota per time period, or if it’s just what Melody and the factory painters feel up to – that would be a good question for the “Ask Melody” forum, actually! 😀 I’d love to know the answer.
Your model horse collection sounds amazing! I used to have a lot more, but after moving all over and then buying my own house last year, I let most of them go; I felt they weren’t being appreciated and it was time to stop telling myself that they’d get displayed “once I had a place” – I now have a place, and it’s just not big enough for everybody! But I kept my resins, some sentimental pieces, and few whose color I just adore, two Connoisseurs, and my boxed BreyerFest models. I don’t show, but as a kid I was a regular BreyerFest attender! (I call them my Breyers, but there are some Stones mixed in, plus the resins, of course!)
My Akhal resins are Kara-Kush, the original Eberl Akhal, Thompson’s Akhal, Ekemen, and Tokhtamysh. Only the Eberl is painted as of right now! (Any resin collectors reading this, want to trade a Tokhtamysh for a Garayusup or Genç?! ) I thought I had a Kiska, too, but apparently not. I dream of one day owning an Apple Techie, Yarka, Tuvaksholeh, Luka, Atalar Sevda, and/or Almaz-Bek, too!
Trying again to post my OW (with apologies for photo quality; these pictures are from 2007 when I got him, several digital cameras ago):
And here he is with the Production Lap; you can see the differences between the test version and the released version of this color!
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Welcome, Megan! And congrats on the job.
My favorite of the older colors are the old Whites, with Emerald in second place. Of the newer colors, I love Tanzanite and Blue Morpho! My favorite sculpt is the Lap Dragon, but I’m very fond of the Old Warrior and the Young, too.
The old Browns with turquoise accents are pretty,too, aren’t they? I have a Brown mother who is one of the darker/heavily shaded versions of the Brown color, and it’s really soothing and earthy. I got her an Old Green male to keep her company and represent the ‘ancestors’ of my collections. 🙂
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
I definitely think a first Windstone should be special! When I was buying my very first dragon, I waited and saved for longer just so my first could be one of the “big ones.” (Now they’re kind of medium-sized, but back then the Scratcher, Lap, Old Warrior, and Spectrals weren’t around; the Male and Mother were the big dragons!) I could have bought one sooner if I went for a smaller piece like the Young Dragon, but I really wanted that first Windstone purchase to be impressive. The Mother has such an expressive face, and the eyes really appear to be looking at you no matter where you stand in a room; she made a huge impact on me and I knew I had to have her and her partner as the foundation of my collection.
Is there a specific species, or color, that you’re drawn to? I always love to hear how people make the decision for a first piece, or a ‘first piece in a new branch’ of a collection. (I’ve always loved griffins, but my Windstone collection was completely dragon-focused for a long time because I was determined to complete it. My first Griffin didn’t happen until the Black Sunset color came out. I was so blown away by it I knew I *had* to have it! So I went and wheedled a local store into carrying Windstones so I could order one!)
And, since you don’t have a Windstone (yet!), what are your Breyer ‘specialties’ or interests? It’s great to run into another Breyer collector! My collection is much reduced from its former glory, but on the other hand a few years ago I got interested in resins and now have ~5 Akhal-Teke resins from various artists; they’re my favorite breed! Do you specialize your collection by breed, or color, or some other factor?
[b]Edit:[/b] I just realized that my post before this one isn’t showing up! I posted pictures of my first test paint Old Warrior, like you requested. I know it went through, because I saw it after posting! But it appears to be gone now. 🙁
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
I’m sorry to hear that your dragon has gone astray, Drag0nfeathers! I had that happen once when I was living in IL: it was delivered at 608 [b]S.[/b] Oakland instead of 608 [b]N.[/b] Oakland, as far as I can tell, which was a mistake the postal workers made several times. But that doesn’t explain why it was signed for (by someone who obviously knew they weren’t expecting a package and their name wasn’t Nightcrow) or where it went between the initial misdelivery and the time, several days later, when it mysteriously turned up on my doorstep.
I hope that yours either turns up mysteriously, like mine did, or else the postal service is able to get the money for a replacement!
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Aha! Thank you for the update and workaround, and for the new posting place! Hope you and the plugin guy can figure it out eventually. 🙂
Edit: Not sure you’re the person for this, but there’s a small spelling error on the ‘Browse Ads’ –> ‘Category’ page. [i]Commisions[/i] should be [i]Commissions<[/i].
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Wow, Angelika, Pastel Rainbow & Mossy Waters look <i>fabulous</i> together!! Like cousins, if not quite siblings. The same goes for Bryophyta & Etna, actually – they’re in the same color family, which makes your conga look very coordinated. 🙂
Yes, I’m still waiting on my floors before taking pictures. Spent a couple of hours tonight with Dad, scraping up the old linoleum glue in the kitchen, but there’s still a lot to be done. (Sigh. I am patient, I swear, but this whole process began weeks ago and the <i>idea</i> was born in <i>June</i>. I am not sure my patience can last forever!)
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
I agree with what etruscan has said. Test paints generally don’t get turned into production pieces. I honestly view them not as “test paints” but more like an individual creation. In the same way forum members create pyos, no one would ever expect them to create the same one twice. That’s how I view “test paints”. The test paint I have (as I mentioned, I think he’s call Purple Fire) was painted by Melody. And I do believe that if I were to sell him I would never get near the amount that I paid for him. So if you’re going after ebay pieces, go after them because you want them, not because it looks pretty but you might sell it later down the line (of course no one knows if they might need to sell something, but I have seen people win ebay auctions then a month later have that piece up for sale). I do have a laying cat from ebay as well (I think he was called that?), painted by Melody. I might be able to get what I paid for him, but I’m always doubtful with any ebay piece.
Building on what Kujacker has said here: I think that the test paint expectations have changed over the years! It used to be pretty common for Windstone to do multiple test paints for a specific color. There were 25 test paint Old Warriors for the Black Emerald Peacock color, 15 for Black Violet Peacock, at least 18 Sunrise Lap Dragons, 2 families (so 2 males, 2 females, 2 Sitting Babies) of Collie Kirins, 2 Black Ice curlies, at least 3 Males done in Sand, etc. There could be pretty significant differences between versions of a color!
Nowadays Windstone doesn’t seem to do this anymore; instead they tend to do one “family” of test paints (so 1 mother, 1 male, 1 Lap, 1 Warrior, etc.). If it seems popular they sometimes expand to another family. For example, “Snow Fire” was done on both the Kirin family and the Griffin family, plus a Flap Cat.
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
So, question for you all! I’d love to hear a little more about the “test paints” that appear as auctions on ebay. What’s the likelihood that the color/sculpt combo will be put into production? I imagine there isn’t a formula, but does it generally tends towards one way or the other (being put into production, or remaining the only sample)? And, if they do end up getting produced, are test pieces generally worth more on the second hand market than the regular production pieces?
If a test paint color becomes a production color, I think values for test pieces tend to fall. How much will depend on the sculpt, and the popularity of the color/how long it runs, as well as whether the test paint piece has any significant differences from the production color.
My special Old Warrior was a test paint for the “Black Violet Peacock” color, which did become a production color later! I own a production-run BVP Lap Dragon as a friend for the Warrior.
He would probably still sell for more than a regular BVP Warrior, due to his being a special sculpt (he’s the “Prototype Old Warrior,” not the one that is used for production pieecs! He has more scars, and a slightly changed head & wing position) and small differences in color – his version of BVP does not include lime green, which was added to the production version of the color. But I probably couldn’t ever make back what I spent on him. Which is okay with me – I’m not looking to sell him! He’s too sentimentally valuable to me, because of his being my very first test piece, my only Prototype Warrior, and the mental agonies I went through to acquire him (I bid on, but lost the auction for, one before getting him, and I was running out of chances; only 15 were made, and mine is #13!)
Windstone auctions for test paints always mention in the auction text that the color could be put into production (or more test pieces could be made) in the future, as a sort of warning to buyers.
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Welcome to the forum (and maybe the hobby)!
Like you, I fell in love with Windstones when I was young. My best friend had two of the Kirins, and later as a teenager I saw the dragons in a store at the local mall and was smitten all over again. I knew I had to have them, so I started saving up my allowance. My first piece was the White Mother Dragon!
Now I have, uh, a lot. 🙂 I got most of the family in White, because it’s my favorite color. Once I had most of the Whites, though, I needed something else to keep me going, and that “something else” ended up being the Lap Dragon sculpt. It’s my absolute favorite, and I now own over a dozen! It’s nice, because it allows me to experience all the colors without having to have an entire family of them the way I did with White. (The pictures are slightly outdated, but you can see most of my Lap collection if you check out the Show Off Your Conga Line thread!) I also have a few random other pieces, like bookends and a Frog Prince I picked up at a store closing when visiting my friend with the Kirins. Since I paint, I also do PYOs. I fell in love with the Kitty Griffin PYO, particularly; I own four painted ones and there’s one in progress on my painting table right now. 🙂
Now that I have a house and pets to pay for, I don’t buy as often as I’d like to, but for most of my teenagerhood and young adulthood I was a pretty steady buyer. (Not always directly from Windstone! Brick and mortar stores and Ebay were important sources for me long before there was a Windstone website. In fact, I ran the Yahoo Group for collectors for many years so that there would be somewhere to have Windstone discussions, because the forum didn’t exist yet!)
I’m not a big grab bag fan, because I’m kind of picky about color schemes. The two grab bags I have purchased were a Sitting Red Fox Pebble and a Horse, both of which I ended up selling – the fox because his color didn’t suit my tastes, and the Horse because I decided that I didn’t need yet another collection category. (I collect Breyer model horses and Windstone dragons, kirins, and griffins; I couldn’t justify collecting Windstone horses, too.) Plus, a lot of the grab bags are on sculpts I’m not interested in (I haven’t gotten into Poads, I’m not really a fan of Curlies, and Unicorns hit the same “I already collect a different kind of horse” problem as the Pebble Horse.) I do, however, love some of the Ebay test paints that Windstone has produced! My first non-regular production piece was a Black Violet Peacock test paint… and until I bought a car, it was the most expensive single item I had ever purchased! 😀 He’s still my pride and joy, but he has been joined by another test paint Old Warrior and a test paint Lap Dragon.
Welcome again, and please enjoy all the lovely information and pictures in the forum – and ask us forum-users if you have any more questions! We will happily talk your ear off about our favorite pastime. 🙂
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
