I have always preferred putting personality and action into the breed I'm portraying, rather than trying to show perfect conformation (who can agree on that anyway)? I have been blessed with several good dogs, but all of them of questionable heritage; and I don't show dogs, so I am not biased toward any particular breed, although I most enjoy doing the elegant sighthounds with their their grace and dignity.

I have ridden horses nearly all my life, starting with "stealing" rides from the neighbor's horses out in pasture.  Mostly I had permission from the owners, but sometimes, maybe not.  (Something I'm not proud of, but...well...when you're poor and horse crazy you do what you have to!).  And then there were my Granddad's calves...   As an adult, I became a horse owner and have always had horses in my backyard from that time.  My horses are  Arabian or half Arabian, so my models nearly always end up as Arabian because that's what I see when I look out my back door. 

I still do most of my things "the old fashioned way" in glazed ceramic, and occasionally in porcelain.  I always prided myself for always handpainting the color with a brush, but after purchasing an airbrush on a whim and using it for large areas, I've learned to love it for the subtle shading I can get on smooth coated dogs and horses. So far, I have resisted plaster (and all its cousins). I have made companion animals for model horses in resin but have phased out that medium (too many projects, not enough room to work on them), and most recently I have cast my western pieces (and a few of my smaller dogs) in bronze--a medium that had always been out of reach to me until I started attending a bronze foundry casting class at the local college. There I can build my bronze pieces myself and cast them in the school foundry.