So, I give you the Rule of Horsey Mutalation
1. Those safty glasses look sexy! - protecting your eyes, not the top of your head or the floor. Safety glasses are very important when you are using a dremel tool. Plastic will be flying everywhere, trust me, I know from expirence, that plastic will be hot and it hurts when it hits your hands. Imagine something like that hitting your eyes.
2. Take a seat, relax a while - I prefer to sit on the bottom step, with my feet sitting on the floor so that I can rest my arms on my knees so that my hands will be more steady when I am working on the horse. Sitting in a chair is ok, but I find that I don't really have anywhere to rest my arms. A table is too high and if I rest them on my knees, I am bending over too far. Find someplace (preferably in a garage of outside so you can make a mess, because you will) comfy, you might be sitting for a while.
3. Dremels move fast - really fast. And think about that tool you are holding in your hand. It can cut through plastic, wood and metal. It will cut through your skin in a heartbeat. I almost lost a good chunk of finger today because I didn't respect the tool. And NEVER hold the dremel close to your face. Let's face it, none of us what to lose our money makers, so keep the dremel away from your face.
4. Don't worry, the horse can't feel it - Cutting off a models head, neck and/or leg can be scary the first time. Don't worry, once you cut the first one, the rest will come easier. Actualy, once you cut off your first whatever, you will find it hard to stop. Soon you will have 15 or 20 horses laying on the floor missing all sorts of body parts with plastic everywhere and you will be looking for more models......just put the dremel down, and slowly back away from the models.....
5. Saving everything makes you crazy - Don't save everything you cut off the horse. It's not worth it in the long run. Heads, tail and neck can be saved if they are in great shape. If they got nicked while using the dremel or don't look confirmationally correct, don't save it. And for heavens sakes, don't safe necks. You can't use them for anything, trust me, nothing. Oh, and ears, not worth saving either. If you can ever find them after your dremel tool sending them across the room.
6. Your eyes are bigger then your stomach - Every model you look at will give you ideas for new horses. Don't worry, this will get easier to deal with as you come down from the mdoel mutilation high. My recommendation, work on no more then 2 horses at a time. That way you don't have a bunch of different bodies, heads, legs and tails getting mixed up and getting put on the wrong body.
7. Sculpting is easier said then done - Sculpting is something that you have to learn. It mostly likely will not come naturally. If it does, the rest of the model horse world hates you. When sculting anything, do research, lots of research. Look at pictures of not only real horses, but models horses too. They are a great reference for what model horse whatevers are suppost to look like.
8. The Secret of the V - after gouging and nicking horses a bunch of times and almost ruining another horse. I started doing something that I call the V. I start by cutting along the behind the ears towards the area where the head mets the neck. Then I make another cut down the neck a little farther, this time cutting towards the first cut. It removes a chunk of mane/neck and alows me to cut deeper without risking the head. See pics below for full steps.
9. If you are not having fun, you are not doing it right - repsotioning model horses is an adventure every time. Have fun with it.
I took some steps by step pics so that you can see the bit I use, Ashley Lewandowski told me about this bit and it works perfectly. I use the edge of the blade to rub rough edges away and I used it to remove the logo on the bottom of the horse.