Splintered Light Spear & Sword Hares Finished

A Little Retrospective
If your a bit new to the blog, here is a little retrospective on the figures and how I intended them to look. They have been a labor of love and agony over the past few years. At times, I thought I would never finish them for various reasons, many of which were tied to my father's death. But that is all behind me now. And you know what? I am proud how these figures have turned out!

Bare Metal
This is what the Bob Olley sculpts look like in the bare metal. While larger than normal 15mm figures, being classified as 20mm, the sculpts have excellent features and detail. In fact, this makes painting them more like small 28mm figures than 15mm figures. This photo is of the archers, which are nearing completion as well.

The Real Thing
Below is a photo of a real hare in England. Notice the ears and nose are not pink like bunnies but are black and tan. (A running joke with me is that guests to our house should not call these figures bunnies--they are hares, thank you, and they do not like being called bunnies!) A couple years ago, I wrote an entire post about how real hares look, with many inspirational photos for this project. I also included some images from the Red Wall books, on which these figures and my uniform schemes are loosely based. You can read this article by clicking here.

Remember When?
Here is a photo early on in the painting of these figures. The fur has been drybrushed and the jackets have a base coat of red. Here is a little trick I did. Look at the photo of the real hare above. Notice how it's eyes are lined with a very light ring of tan? I took that feature but made the upper eyes more like human eyebrows, giving them an angry look while still looking natural. The white under the nose is also a nice touch. When you see the figures in person, with all the colors blending together as they cannot do in a photo, the effect is very realistic and effective. These little guys look like they mean business!

And Now The Completed Splintered Light Hares!
Below are photos of the finished spear and sword hares. To finish off the bases and add some interest, some of them have little rocks on them. Others might have a twig, a little bush, or some wild flowers. The majority of the bases are plain with just Woodland Scenic brown ballast and Scenic Express Pasture Blend flocking. Making the majority of the bases plain makes the other "decorated" bases a bit more special, thereby able to stand out in the crowd.

A while ago, I asked you all how I should paint the banner. I was stumped! I had many good ideas. I went with a runic look. It wasn't how I imagined the rune-thing in my mind when I began painting it, but I think in the long run my accidental slip of the brush and misplacement of the little marks wound up looking better. Some white and orange flowers top off the base.

The entire gang of sword and spear hares. I pity the rats who try to mess with these guys!

What's Next?
First, I need to take care of my back some more! LOL. After that, I want to write a post about how I made the flowers using Woodland Scenic flowers. I also want to pass along a few tricks about them that I learned along to way. The hares with bows and commanders are still on the sticks in various stages of completion. They should be finished soon. I have a ton of rats ready to be painted and on the sticks. Since the rats are the main enemies, they will get done asap so we can play some games with these figures. After those are complete, we'll see what I feel like painting next. Too many cool figures to choose from!

Bottom Line
If you've been thinking about getting these figures from Splintered Light, I hope I've inspired you a bit. They are very characterful and easy to paint. While I used drybrushing on these, on other animals I've been thinking about using some washes, mainly to save my carpal tunnel hands from the repetitive motions of  drybrushing--I learned that lesson the hard way on these figures! So check Splintered Light's website for more figures and watch out for the sales that they run.

As always, feel free to leave some comments below. I do appreciate them.