About SLM
Hello and welcome to Splintered Light Miniatures. SLM is owned and operated by David and Lucy McBride. We are currently in our third year of marriage and have recently celebrated the birth of our first child, Archer. I am currently teaching history and Bible at a small private school in Atlanta, and Lucy, who used to teach drama and English, has retired to stay at home with our son.
I have been a gamer as long as I can remember thanks to the influence of my father and have particularly enjoyed 15mm fantasy over the last few years. The idea for SLM originated from my desire to have certain units for an army I was creating at the time. After failing to find what I wanted, I began bouncing around the idea of selling some of my painted figures to fund the creation of a small company to make unique 15mm fantasy figures. Over the course of many walks and many “dork” pads (as my wife calls the small notebooks I jot notes in), I began contacting sculptors, mold-makers, and casters.
Long story short, Rodrick Campbell and Sandra Garrity were kind enough to take my sketches and turn them into sculpts. I have really appreciated their encouragement and professionalism over the last year. Tom Dye was kind enough to spend a lot of time with me at one Historicon explaining the ins and outs of mold-making and casting and has been a tremendous help molding and casting the sculpts I have sent him.
In case you are wondering, the name Splintered Light Miniatures comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s poem “Mythopoeia.” In it he says:
The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.
Lucy and I are both excited as we begin this new adventure, and it is our hope that we can provide a solid product with outstanding service and communication for our customers. Please feel free to email us with any ideas you have for figures. I cannot promise we will make them, but I would love to see what the imaginations of my fellow gamers can create. We would also love to see examples of your painted Splintered Light Miniatures so feel free to take a picture and send it our way.
