Some years ago, probably back in the late 1990's, I had purchased a Carmel jumper quarter-size blow mold. It ended up in the basement until 2023 when I finally had room for it to go on display.

I had started painting it in more traditional Carmel jumper color theme with a white body, mane, and tail with green and tan tack (see picture below), but I decided I wanted a palomino body color with black mane & tail, the tack coloring was ultimately inspired by a 2000 reproduction by Oscar Pivarel seen below.  I've also found the ad for the original blow mold from the 1980s which I included below as I thought that was kind of fun.

For painting my blow mold I used acrylic craft paints, my favorites are Delta Ceramcoat, Folk Art (I especially like the matte finish colors), and DecoArt (their Americana series is full of traditional colors).  I also used some translucent rub-on paint "embellishments" put out by Craft-tastic.  Finally to seal everything I used a spray polyurethane, I used Minwax gloss, but Varathane is another popular one. I am also very interested in, but have not yet tried, Krylon's UV resistant finish which is getting rave reviews in the painting and crafting world.

I started out with a base coat of a yellow gold colored paint on the body and black on the mane and tail.  To get that yellow gold paint more inline with a palomino I used the walnut  metallic rub on embellishment and was extremely happy with the results.

 I also added a darker brown rub on called chocolate to add shading to various places, like the nostril holes, neck crevices, ear bases, etc.

 Then I painted the mane with a glossy black acrylic paint.

For painting the tack I used a maroon for the saddle and accents, navy blue for outlining, metallic gold accents, metallic silver on the saddle blanket armor, and white for the fringe.  I alternated white and a blue-grey on the hanging feathers, attempting to do do an ombre with lighter color at the top and darker color at the bottom, though it did not work as well as I would like.

As a finishing touch, I added two shades of blue rub on to the front and back bands, and a silver rub on over the feathers.

I then painted the bridle tack and free-handed a pupil in black with a black rub on over it.

I plan to eventually print out a brown horse eye sticker for this, but put down the black circle to get the size and shape correct.

I added socks with a black rub on, painted the hooves black, and did a blue-silver rub on for the shoes.

Finally I put on three thin coats of polyurethane semi-gloss.