Birth of an idea

So I got an idea to make a horse. I found this great photo of a stretched out American Saddlebred and thought, "Hey I wanna do that!" So after looking at several ideas I decided to make two. The first though would be inspired by a photo of the horse Winter Sultan. I tend to be weirded out by the giraffe neck that a lot of ASBs seem to have and it is hard for me to wrap my head around. So I found several horses with head at a lower angle yet still parked out.
Step One : Secure horse so that dismemberment is easy. Here I have put the horse in a table top vise clamp and just started sawing. Since he's so small (He was only about 2.5 inches tall before changing his position.) I had to use a small hand saw and not a dremel as I usually would so that there was still material left and I didn't ruin something that would be a pain putting back on.

Step Two : Take all of your pieces and survey the ultimate destruction you have caused to a model horse that did nothing to you. How could you! You have mutilated a horse shaped object. What if you can't make it look half way presentable again? Feel sadness and put away. (Also by the time I was done cutting him up, I had cut him into nine different pieces. I also cut him hind legs apart and his tail off and his face in half. So yeah, I was a little intimidated.)

Step Three : Start gluing back together. I used a soda glue mix here and cut paperclips up to use to hold him together. I have glued the front legs together and the back legs together so that I know that he is standing square. I also heated up the pasterns to get them so they are flat on the ground. I also shaved down the legs a bit since they are really out of proportion and make him a little ponyish. Then I put him against something to act as the body to see how it would look when put together.

Step Four: I attached the body to the front legs with soda glue and paperclip pieces and then filled in the gap with soda glue. Then once again I used something to hold the body to the hind legs to visualize the angle I needed to achieve to attach him. He is a little off in the photo though now that I look at it.

Step Five: Once the hind end is connected I use a paperclip measured to the right length to attach the head and use some painters tape to find the shape of the neck that I want. Then I bumped the head and realized that the neck moved and had to find out where it went again.
Was he looking over his shoulder?

Was he doing an impersonation of a giraffe reaching out for a tree?

Was he looking down?

There he is. He was looking to the side kinda.

Step Six: Now that I know where I want the neck to go, I fill in the neck and shape it with apoxie. I also fill in his tummy with apoxie and somewhere along the line I chopped his face in half and soda glued it together again to lengthen it.

Step Seven: All that is left at this point is to sand and try to carve details and add those little extras that make him go "POW!". Well, maybe not pow. actually I'll be happy if he's horse shaped by the end of all of this.

Step Eight: It's also helpful to take a look at what you started with and see how far you have come and that it is still somewhat recognizable as a horse shaped object.

Step Nine:
Here he is all done up in primer. You can see that he is much more smooth than he really looks with the black apoxie on him.