Rumours Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

Its been a while now since my last post here & longer still since I actually laid brush to miniature. The reasons for this are long & somewhat tedious to relate but briefly come down to a lack of enthusiasm for wargaming in general & a renewal of interest in roleplaying; GMing is a very time consuming business.

Anyway with the lengthening evenings of Autumn upon us I laid out some hard earned cash to complete the Lion Rampant army I started back in 2014:

A few Highlands & Islands Fierce Foot. 

West Highland Men at Arms.

MacDonald Lord of the Isles.

Clan Chatton, strictly speaking not West Highland but closely affiliated.

Flemish Mercenary bearing the Arms of Ghent.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, painting Heraldry is a Royal pain in the arse; but not nearly so bad as applying transfers, a Dantesque torture in my book.
Almost as bad is researching West Highland heraldry, there are a few common elements scattered through it ( Ship, Eagle Rampant, Red Salmon, Red Hand) but these can be put together with a bewildering randomness, where they are recorded at all. Quartering arms! what a good idea, lets dispense with the expensive business of marrying then including the wife's heraldry on our kit, lets just bung a bunch of stuff on there in the first place.
You could look at this two ways I suppose, on one hand it gives you carte blanche as a painter to well, make it up; but that deprives one of the enjoyment of researching a subject & thus expanding your knowledge which is the approach I like to take. Could be why it takes me so long to finish projects, thank god for the internet, there's always some one out there who's beaten you to it; try typing in West Highland Heraldry, you'll be amazed.