Harness Collar Conundrum

You gotta love WiFi!  Normally, my phone takes forever to just upload one pic to Picasa over 3G, but over WiFi, it uploaded 8 lickity-split!

So, I've been just kind of working on this collar...more working on it during commercials while I watch TV :-P  I initially wanted to make it for the Totilas mold, though I want him to be customized to be more carriage horse-like.  I'm up in the air about it right now.  It's a decent collar, so I don't want to scrap it.  Here's what I have so far.

But, after I made the collar it just doesn't seem to look completely right on him.  Maybe it'll be better after a customizing.  I bought a GH Valentine & Heartbreaker set on eBay because I thought the mare would make a nice pair for Totilas (no, she does not as it turns out...she's way smaller), but the collar looks pretty good on her.  Her body type or position is just more harness friendly I guess.  I'm thinking of using 2 of her instead of Totilas, but the collar is now too big on her.  Maybe I need more than one harness set!  I don't know...since the collar is a lot of work to make, I think I'm going to continue with Totilas for now.  

Next, I need to make the buckle closure part for the top of the collar.  This is what has me stopped for the moment.  I want to make what's called a "patent fastener" instead of just your old buckle & strap type.

None of these pieces exist in the model horse hobby, so to use them I'm going to have to create them from scratch.  Kind of a daunting task when I am very unskilled with metal work.  I made one once out of needles and clay, and it turned out pretty decent.  But I'm out of the clay plus I want to make something that's totally metal instead of painted.  The paint rubs off when handled so I found out.  That's my patent fastener being held together with some leather scraps.  It moves & works like it's supposed to which is what I want.  I could just use this, but I was keeping that for my draft harness that I'm sort of, kind of working on.

Until next time my friends!