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.

The Saga of Banner Painting: The Hares

This morning, I've been thinking about how to paint the banner for my Splintered Light hares. To the left is a (not-so-good) photo of the banner. I cropped it out of an older photo I shot. As you can see, the banner is only partially painted, and the hare holding it was still unfinished at the time, (Yes, I repainted the ears, getting rid of the green blob. LOL.)

As of today, I've only finished my sword and spear foot soldier hares. Though I've painted the fur on all the figures--using a multi-layered  drybrushing technique that created too much pain in my carpal tunnel hands (I'll have more about how I've had to change that technique in a later post as well!)--I still need to paint the tunics on my officers and archer hares. So here I am, thinking about how I will paint that pesky banner.

Shield Patterns & Banner Patterns?
As for the colors I've been using, the sword and spear hares have a red tunic. The sword hares have a solid hunter green shield, while the spear hares have an avocado green and hunter green shield pattern, with each color taking up one half of the shield. At the moment, the banner is done in hunter green. (My archer hares will have a different colored tunic, but that is a post of another day. Wow, many teasers this morning!)

My original inspiration for these figures has been a combination of British Zulu Colonials combined with Vikings. I wanted a simple but interesting look for the shield patterns, which the Vikings provide. This sheet of transfers served me well. Would it serve as a pattern for the banner?




Too Much Research!
This morning, I spent a couple hours researching banners for inspiration: medieval, ancient barbarians, Warhammer armies, Lord of the Rings, Redwall, you name it. This is an area I know little about, so it was a good education. Plus, I needed to keep quiet because everyone but me is sick. Internet research is quiet. So here we go....

Rohan Banners are Cool, Right?
Rohan warriors have horses on their banners, which makes sense because they are horsemen. Here is a photo of the banners hanging inside the Golden Hall of Edoras from the movie. I like these banners, but fear painting anything like them. Horses for Rohan. What would hares value so much that they put the things on battle banners? Hmm....

The "McBride" Banner?
Dave McBride thought of this as well. His hares have crossed carrots on their banner. Okay, I get the joke. Carrots and bunnies with pink ears, purple for Easter. Yep. But a bit too cute for my hare patrol. So no Easter carrots for my guys. Keep on moving...

How About Medieval Banners?
Okay, so let's look at historical medieval banners. I love Arthurian anything, so how about those banners? So I pop over to Little Big Men Studios to look at their excellent pre-printed banners.  A few seconds after looking at them, I realize why they are pre-printed. Amazing stuff, but way too complicated to paint by hand. Same for all the other Medieval banners.

So What Have We Learned?
Well, I learned banners come in all shapes and patterns. Most banners are very artistic, from Lord of the Rings to Warhammer Elves to GW Empire to historical. I bow in admiration to folks who can paint by hand amazing banners.

So what will I paint on this banner? I still don't know, even after all this. I might cop out and just leave it green for now, finishing off the trim and other bits. Maybe I'll just divide it into halves like the shields? I don't know. I need to think more, and eat some lunch.

I want the banner to look good because I think banners catch peoples' attention quickly, so they need to look sharp. If you guys have any simple ideas that a newbie banner-painter like me can handle, let me know. I'd appreciate it!

Splintered Light Hares WIP

Some work-in-progress of my Splintered Light Druid's Children hares. I tried dry-brushing the fur. It looks great on the table, much better than these photos show, but is very time consuming. I'll be trying a different technique on the rats. As for color schemes, the red coat below is just a base coat of the shadow color. I still have a  lot more work to do on these coats. The archers will have green jackets. The 'guard' units might have royal blue--not sure yet. I'm thinking of using 2nd Edition of Warlord from Reaper.

Inspirational Photos For Splintered Light Hares

After scouring the web, these are the photos of hares I've been using as a reference. I also have been using the Redwall covers as a reference, but I've never read the books. I watched a few episodes of the TV show online earlier this year, but it just never grabbed my attention. I just love the Bob Olley figures and am a sucker for anthropomorphic stuff, especially rabbits and mice. Oh, and notice that the inner ears and the nose are not pink!

Painting Splintered Light Hares Again

This afternoon, I once again began working on my Splintered Light hares. It's been several months since I started them and then stopped. The last time I worked on them, I was trying to find the right colors and technique. I did several test figures with varying results. Either the colors just didn't look right, or when they did look good the drybrushing killed my hands. In pain and frustrated, I shelved the figures. Plus, I did not want to start a technique and then change midway.

Having a few spare hours today, I was going to work on the pirates but pulled out the hares instead. Darn it, I love those figures and wanted to figure them out! I think I did. The painting has been going well and the fur looks pretty good. I'll post some photos. My holiday break starts tomorrow and runs about a month, so my goal is to relax a bit and do some modeling/gaming.

The Forces
Below are the figures I bought earlier this year, taking advantage of a 50%-60% off sale. The hares I mentioned above. The rats are primed and up next. I bought some additional figures at Cold Wars since this order, but I can't recall what off the top of my head. The figs will be based for skirmish gaming.

Druid's Children: The Faithful
1x The Faithful Boxed Set Item # DRFA01
1x The Faithful Heroes Item # DRFA02
1x The Faithful Otter Spears Item # DRFA03
2x The Faithful Hare Spears Item # DRFA04
2x The Faithful Hare Archers DRFA05
2x The Faithful Mouse Warriors Item # DRFA07
1x Mouse Spears Item # DRFA08   
1x Hare Swords Item # DRFA14
1x Mole Miners Item # DRFA15
1x Hedgehog Warriors Item # DRFA16
1x Badger Lords Item # DRFA17
1x Heroes Item # DRFA18
1x Mouse Warriors 3 Item # DRFA24
1x Badger Lord in Plate Item # DRFA28
1x Hare Command Item # DRFA20
1x Mouse Command Item # DRFA22

Druid's Children: The Rebels
1x Boxed Set Item # DRRE01
1x Heroes Item # DRRE02
1x Fox Spears Item # DRRE03 
1x Fox Warriors Item # DRRE04
2x Weasel Warriors 1 Item # DRRE05
2x Weasel Warriors 2 Item # DRRE06
2x Rat Warriors 1 Item # DRRE07
2x Rat Warriors 2 Item # DRRE08
1x Weasel Archers Item # DRRE11
1x Rat Slingers Item # DRRE12
1x Kobold Rangers Item # KOBO05
1x Kobold Skirmishers Item # KOBO04

Splintered Light: Pride of Lions

The last series of photos from the Pride of Lions demo game at Cold Wars 2010. You can see my earlier post on my Orcs & Goblins for more pics from the game. Jeremy and I only played a few turns before having to return home that evening to see my dad. The fellows were very understanding. Dave McBride and Rebel Mike graciously took our places. OK, let's get into the pics and the game. Captions are below each photo.

Photo 1: Here you can see my right right hand side of the table. Not much going on. We were just getting ready to deploy our forces. I liked the small 'islands' of scenery and want to use the same idea for my games. The rivers looked great as well. I learned it doesn't take a lot of work to make a good looking game table.


Photo 2: We played with six players. John McBride, author of Pride of Lions, had several armies prepared and let us choose and then deploy as we desired. Deployment is hidden, hence the cards some of which were 'dummies.' Picking and deploying sucked up a lot of time, followed by a rules summary. Though I'm a con newbie, I suggest game masters have the forces pre-assigned to each player and deployed ahead of time, maybe giving us a few options of placing a unit or two. This really speeds up a demo game when most of us have no idea what we are doing. Also, we had so many units in play all we could do is plow straight ahead. Maybe smaller armies or wings of a single army might be better? All lessons I learned if I ever run a mass combat game at a con. Still, I love John McBride and had a lot of fun regardless!


Photo 3: Jeremy (aka Rover Dill) played to my left. I was in the center. And another fellow played to my right. We each had a different army. I played Orcs & Goblins, Jeremy played Dwarves (the original smaller dwarves, not the larger Druid's Children dwarves), and the fellow on my right played the Leonines army. Here you see some of his cavalry. (Sorry, but I can't remember anyone's names!) Terror Birds lead the unit followed by Hunting Cat cavalry. Neat stuff!


Photo 4: Jeremy's army on my left. The stubborn dwarves, commanded by Jeremy, hold the left flank. Little did we know that Jeremy's was about to unleash his 'blitzkrieg' strategy using dwarves.


Photo 5: Jeremy is about to kick off his blitzkrieg attack with his Dice Roll of Doom! He plowed into the enemy and got amazingly lucky with his dice rolls, sending the enemy reeling. John McBride, in the overalls, looks on in anticipation.


Photo 6: John gives Jeremy some more advice on how to follow up his charge of doom. As you can see, my orc force in the lower right was having some 'issues' with getting the lead out, preferring the let everyone else plow ahead while they watched. Lazy bums! Ok, so I kept blowing my command rolls and having people clobber me with 'slow' spells.

We had a lot of fun playing with great miniatures and nice fellows. I haven't said a lot about the rules because I was having some trouble keeping focused (nothing new there!) and was a bit overwhelmed by it all. I've tried focusing more on the miniatures. If you like them, be sure to take advantage of Splintered Light's 20% off sale until the end of July.

Update On My Dad
My dad is doing well after the surgery. A couple days ago he left ICU and is in a step down unit--Jefferson's old ICU. He'll be there awhile yet. Still a couple more weeks in the hospital. The new liver seems to be doing well. All is going great. Thanks for your continued prayers!

Splintered Light Orcs & Goblins

Below are some photos from the demo game of Pride of Lions that John McBride put on at Cold Wars 2010. All the miniatures are from his son's 15mm miniature company, Splintered Light. The figures below were from my force of bad guy orcs and goblins. I love these figures! I'll get some photos of the game posted a bit later. Right now it's after midnight and I'm tired!

My father went in for a liver transplant today, so I am exhausted with shot nerves. He wasn't expected to make it to his 70th birthday at the end of the summer. This made me think of the McBrides and all the great spiritual support they game Jeremy and me at the convention. My folks live 30 minutes from Lancaster, and I grew up in the area. Cold Wars was perfect timing for us. I've written about this being a blessing during our difficult time in earlier posts. I'll end now before I really begin to get emotional and ramble more than usual!

Enjoy the photos. There are large, about 400k to save the detail. If I remember right, the bases are 40mm x 40mm? I'll have to double check that.

Splintered Light 15mm vs Caesar 1/72 Fantasy

Once again, I'm dabbling with my boxes of 1/72 Caesar's figures. We own a box of Elves, Undead, and Ch'in Chinese. A few months ago, the kind folks at Splintered Light sent me a sample pack of their 15mm figures from their Splintered Light range, which mostly are sculpted by Bob Olley.

Tonight, I snapped a couple quick comparison photos of the two ranges side-by-side. Wanting to show off the great detail on these figures, I kept the full-size photos at their 500k size. To me, the figures work great together. In the photos are some dwarves, a kobold, bugbear, goblins, Druid's children, saytr, and animals.

Dwarves Will Be Dwarves
The SL dwarves are about the right size, though a tad taller would have been nice. Yes, Caesar makes a box of dwarves, but they make only one box. Splintered Light's Bob Olley dwarves gives a gamer much more variety. Still, having taller cousins (or shorter cousins depending on one's point of view) might not be that bad after all. The choice is yours.

Mixing & Matching Other SL Figures
I would not mix 1/72 figures with some of the other SL figures in their older ranges, though I am curious how their orcs would compare with 1/72 figures. Yes, Caesar makes a box of orcs and a box of goblins, but once again that is the extent of their range.

So there you have it. I don't want to jaw on. Check the photos and decide for yourself.

For more photos and info on Caesar's several fantasy sets, see Plastic Soldier Review.