Up inna Tree

This is a set of commissions made for my dads friend. As I've mentioned before, he raises hunting hounds. And what do you hunt with a pack of hounds? Why... you hunt cougars and bears!

For the most part, the dogs chase the animals up into trees, and the hunters take pictures of them.

Since this weekend is the Hound Associations annual dinner and events, he wanted a couple of sculptures featuring hunt scenes. They'll be donated to the auction to raise money for the Association, and it'll give me some good exposure for my art.

The one on the left features a little cougar.

The one on the right features a little bear.

I'm posting them together cuz with the exception of the cougar/bear, they're more or less the same dimensions and design.

The wood base is around 12in x 8in x 1/2in. Bought that from the craft store.

The tree's stand around 13 or 14in tall.

This was my first try making pine trees, so I like how they turned out. Though OMFG!!!! Sooooo many pine needle clusters! >_< I felt like I cut out a million of those stupid things, and then I STILL had to go back and cut more to cover everything.

Ended up with a pile of little pine clusters left over, so I turned them into little bushes, then clipped some wire to make grass.
The little tree on the cougar scene was made from left over branch's that didn't fit on the trees.

I used an Antique Red/Brown patina for the dogs, a Copper Plate patina for the cougar and pine clusters, and an Auburn Rust patina for the bear. I then dusted the trees with a green metallic spray paint, since this paint goes on slightly transparent, so you can see the copper plate streaks I put on there. Then everything got sprayed with a clear coat to protect it.

These 2 took a tremendous amount of time to craft. Easily 2 or 3 days of work, which surprised me. I expected it to be a lot less, which is why I ended up finishing them at the very last minute. lol XD