Elizabethan Ireland Update

So with last week off I decided to nudge the Elizabethan Ireland Project along. I was picking more Irish up at Fiasco and had only painted a dozen or so of what I had so Irish it needed to be.

This next shot is a goup of the Irish blasted out and sent over to the basing department. This should give me a couple of units actually finished now for both sides so photos shoot of finished units on the way. One thing that does confuse me however. Crusader do Medeival Irish (more of them later) and Dark age Irish. In the Dark age these all have breeches and bare chests but for Medeival and Renaissance they are tunics and no breeches. Seems a bit odd randomly swapping clothing one half of your body for a few hundred years to randomly clothing the other half for a few hundred more. I imagine some clever soul out there knows what was really going on.

Looking at the below the Gallowglass are all the old Claymore Castings range as is the kneeling bowman in the middle and the javelineer on the far right. The rest are Crusader with the figure front left being from the Dark Age range, with a minor conversion for his helmet, and the rest from the medieval range. More detail on these once they are back from the basing department.

My haul from Fiasco was almost excluseively for Elizabethan Ireland. Six packs of Perry Irish (they are lovely) a pack of Graven Images Englsih Pike and a pack of Hoka Hey Elizabethan Demi lancers. All cleaned up for priming same day before tea!

As a bonus as I was getting stuck into the Irish this pack of Elizabethan Pike from Ebay arrived, these Foundry swashbucklers are a really good fit for the Graven Images being tall and chunky with lots of character.

In short order I was able to paint a few of the Gallowglass and Kern, these really are fantastic figures as we have come to expect from Perry.  The middle figure is unashamedly based on the Queens Gallowglass in the Osprey.

I have decided to do this post as I go along dropping pictures of figures in as and when I finish a few, hope thats not too bitty for folk.

With some of these Kern I am making the Saffron a bit darker, as much to give the overall effect a bit more variation as anything. The one on the left is the shade I have used most (although I have some  less yellow and some lighter) the other three are the darker colour I will use quite a bit off for the Perrys figures. Excuse the poor photography above, still experimenting.

I think the genius of the Perrys really comes out with these figures, the glib haircut is brilliant and the folds of the tunic look fantastic, I think this darker saffron works well with all those pleats.

I have not been neglecting the English either. the below picture shows the last three pike to finish a twelve man unit nd the first of the next unit. Three are the Graven images figures I have favoured so far and the last one is a Foundry Swashbuckler which I think fits in quite well, the first figure with a blue jacket is the start of my second unit, undecided on this colour scheme so far. Second from the left with the combed Burgonet helmet is a head swap, more of this later but I dont think you can tell. Lots more of these to come.

The Demi-lancer is from Hoka Hey's Elizabethan range, to be honest I am not a massive fan of the range but this figure is actually very nice. I wasnt sold on the Hoka Hey horses so I used a redoubt horse in this case. Recognise the riders head?

As there is only one Demi lancer and I didnt want them all to look the same I did a head swap with the next one, yes his head ended up on the earlier pikeman. I think this works really well. For the horse I went with a Perry Wars of The Roses plastic horse, the tack looks about right to me and the figure sits on it quite well when I trim off the saddle sides. A bonus here is that its easy to order more of these lovely horses as they are available seperately at only £3 for 4.

Sat together I think they work, I am planning a further head swap for my third, a different helmet again. for the fourth I may use the original head but cut it off and re-adjust it so it still looks a bit different. I know a lot of effort a small reward but I really dont like using the same figure over and over.  I have 5 of this figure so will need a sixth Demi lancer and might get one of the Redoubt figures to fill the gap, they should be chunky enough to work alongside this figure.

As the basing departmrent is home tonight I have decided to get a few more Irish done for her to take back to sunny York. I love these three, loads of character, I am really happy with how they have come out. The Kern with an axe is from the Kern with double handed weapons pack, these will form the basis of a unit of Bonaught, slightly more proffesional Kern.

Two more Gallowglass and another Foundry Pikeman, the one in the middle I wasnt too sure about but now hes done I really like him. The helmet is 15th century specific but is nice for all that and the layers of clothing do look great once finished.

So going home with the basing department are 15 Irish foot and one light cavalryman. I have not talked about the Irish horse yet on purpose as I am not happy with them yet, more on that later.

We also have 5 English Pike and Two Demilancers. I wonder if the basing department will be bringing me anything finished back?

And the answer is NO! Nothing!

Oh well, she has been putting the hours in so nothing ready for a week or two, when they are it will add best part of 40 figures to my Elizabethan Ireland project at which point I will a photographic review of the collection so far.

In the mean time I am keeping myself enthused for this project with Elizabeths Irish Wars by Cyril Falls and really enjoying it. I have to say it makes me wonder which part of the Elizabethan period to go for although I think the troops may not look massively different except at the begining the English have more longbows and the Irish less firearms perhaps.

Anyway I will keep you posted, we have a Lilly Banners Great Northern War game coming soon so after action report at the weekend.

See you then.