Following on from the recent set of old-school Citadel Judges I painted as part of Dave Stone’s Paint What You Got challenge when he mentioned that some people had decided to paint Judge Dredd models as well, I thought I’d keep going with a few more of my own. This Emerald Isle judge hails from the sadly short-lived Mongoose Publishing range of Judge Dredd figures. And.. uh. Huh. I might have something to do in uploading some images to the Lost Minis Wiki… Anywhoo… ss the other Judges I painted were started and inspired by that challenge, Old Judge MacO’Conihoonihan here was painted as a model for Fembruary. I’m not entirely sure if Alex over at Leadbaloony is “officially” running Fembruary this year, but regardless, I’ve been working on some models for it.
Not that we should need an “event” to paint female models of course, but given that I paint all sorts of stuff anyway it’s a good chance to make a specific pivot to paint a few more models that I wouldn’t have usually worked on – and a good chance to make myself complete some others that have sat half-painted for some time – some of those in later post(s)!
While I feel like I’ve read a lot of Judge Dredd stories over the years, given the sheer amount written and published over the decades I also haven’t read a lot of the Dredd stories. That “the” is pretty important to distinguish the meanings between those two sentences! And among those that I have never read are the stories dealing with the Emerald Isle, or Ireland, or Eire, or, perhaps in this case – Oireland as so elequently put by Sho3box when he shared this same model in a post some time ago. If you love cringe-inducing “Oirishness”, please do take the time (2mins) to watch the below “highlight” video of Becky Lynch’s first match in WWE/NXT (WWF for you old-timers!) Make sure you also have the volume up!
It’s got Foighting Oirish! It’s got Riverdance! It’s got Diddly-Diddly-Diddly! More cringe than you could cringe a cringe at. Thankfully, old Becks has come a looooong way since then.
I also took the name of Judge MacO’Conihoonihan from Sho3box’s post – which could be his own piss-take, or certainly well could be a legit name of a Judge Dredd character!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Excellent rendition of an Irish Judge mate, it’s funny how a challenge can lead to other models, I’ve been looking at some really obscure judges that I would like to have, including the Pan-African ones ! LOL
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Cheers Dave! Did you get all of the Mongoose ones? I guess if anyone is going to just sculpt some missing models it’d obviously be you though! (and then John would work with you on the vehicles!)
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I’ve only got the Foundry ones for the most part, and only a couple of Mongoose ones, been looking at the Warlord ones, and might get a test piece, to see how they scale against the others, as I know they’re a larger scale. Do have some thoughts on the Asian mega cities as well as the Pan- African, but hopefully can keep myself distracted enough to not go head long into another project ! LOL
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Haha well I guess that will depend on how many Star Wars sceen-viewed chatacters are left for you to buy, paint or just sculpt yourself! 😀
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That’s a nice mini! 🙂 I can’t pronounce her name mind you – it’s even harder to say than those impressive Aztec names Mark Morin educates us with! 😉
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I’m pretty sure she’ll also answer if you call for Judge Diddly-Diddly-Diddly or Judge Guiness, so you’ve got some other options. 🙂
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Nice painting on that peculiarity Azazel. The Mongoose Dredd range is all over the place. I had forgotten that I had painted an Emerald Isle judge actually.
“MacO’Conihoonihan” isn’t the name of a character in the comic.
“MacO’Conihoonihan” also isn’t a real Irish name. I made it up as a joke, referencing the sort of “Plastic Paddy” that often features in US TV and cinema, often as a cop. It usually goes something like:
“MacO’Conihoonihan, get your sorry Irish ass in here! I don’t like your methods, but I can’t argue with your results, but I got the DA blowing smoke up my ass, so I’m gonna need your gun and your badge… hand ’em over.”
The “Irish” character then sings “Danny Boy”, says “Top o’ th’ mornin’!”, eats a slice of potato set between two slices of potato, goes speilunking or some other head-scratchingly irrelevant pursuit that the writer regards as 100% Irish, gets dewey-eyed over a glass of stout that looks nothing like stout and then gets in a punch-up with some Italians.
These sorts of American Irish characters are kinda bewildering to Irish viewers like me. American Irish is an entirely different culture/sub-culture to Irish people. Culturally they have little in common, to the point that sometimes even their names are not Irish either… like MacO’Conioonihan. It’s funny. Regardless of whether I do or do not like say, the “Dropkick Murphys” or “House of Pain”, they don’t feel familiar at all.
As the entire country of Ireland has become a culturally void, theme park in Dredd’s world, I figured that I would name my “Emerald Isle” judge in keeping with that theme.
I’m off to eat some “Lucky Charms” (not for sale in this country).
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Thanks mate! I wasn’t sure if it was a character but I did know it was a far cry from an *actual* Irish name – but knowing the wry sarcastic humour found in 2000AD, I felt that it could pretty easily be a character name in the JD setting. 🙂
As for the whole American plastic paddys (as opposed to, say, Jummy Carr) I totally get where you’re coming from – hence my inclusion of the YouTube video of Rebecca Knox’s introductory transformation into “Becky Lynch”! 😀
I think the same disconnect between the natives and the distant relatives is true for a lot of the diasporas around the world. Perhaps moreso for the Irish and Scottish who have intergrated more fully than the Italians and Greeks due to the language connections. Look at the cast of Jersey Shore compared to actual Italians. 😀
…and let’s not even get into the descendents of the forcibly displaced Africans around the world. I think a lot of people often simply want/need a “tribe” to be part of, especially in countries like the US, AU, NZ and others that have very recent history of non-indigenous settlement in an age of individualism over community.
Regardless, I’m happy with the name you gave this figure, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s as offical as it needs to be. 🙂
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I think that we are on the same page Azazel 🙂
Its not that I think that one culture is better than another, just that calling them by the same name is pretty confusing.
I saw “Austin Powers” on release in Cork in 1997, The audience was quietly confused about the Irish assassin with the lucky charms. That cereal and therefore ad campaign isn’t a thing here and, funnily enough, even the “luck of the Irish” is an American construction (tied to the idea that a successful Irish person/immigrant must have been lucky considerin his/her inherent disadvantages).
And don’t get me started on clover vs shamrock ;D
As for that video, the bit where the commentator said that Becky learned to dance from Colin Farrells brother made me lol. Amusingly, because the population is so comparatively small, that may well be true.
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Yeah, I guess from my perspective of being part of a disapora and having a huge proportion of those around me being 1st and second (and third-gen) migrants I do get it – pockets of Irish, Italians, Greeks, Slavs, etc that have their own identity that is both part of the Australian one but also apart – and defined by where they (or their recent ancestors) came from (Melbourne, Australia is Greece’s 3rd largest city!) It’s not Irish to the *Irish in Ireland*, but it’s how these isolated pockets of Irish (Italians/Greeks/Somalis/whatever), have developed apart from the homeland. Things evolve in a bubble, bits of the local language become bastardised and part of the “old” language, meanwhile the old country also continues to evolve from the time those people left – and of course enterprising people find bits of bastardised or sterotypical culture to and sell back to them – so you get Lucky Charms (not here, either!) and Hornswoggle and Papa Giuseppe.
I guess the Colin Farrell thing is possible – it’s a pretty random thing to throw out there in commentary otherwise! (and an awful job of it he did, too!)
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Great work – have to admit I forgot about Fembruary this year…. Though perhaps a Warp Spider eldar is female; under all that armour who could tell?!
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Haha that’s true – especially with the weapon sculpted across their chests!
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She’s ace mate – a really tidy little sculpt & a lovely paint job
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Thank you, Alex!
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Great work- love the colour blending you got on her.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete! 🙂
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That is a nice-looking mini! “The Man” probably isn’t too proud of her early work however. I wasn’t aware that she had to do something so stupid but I would say the clip really shows WWE’s love of using wrestlers in a way that embodied cultural stereotypes. I’m sure everyone in Ireland not only can do but loves to jig when they can haha!
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Well, that’s “Sports Entertainment” in Vince’s company, I guess – She’s Irish? Okay. She needs a more Irish-sounding name than “Knox” and she needs to dress in green and do ALL of whatever things the Irish do!
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You nailed it, mate! 🙂 WWE has been doing that sort of thing since Vince was in charge anyway. I’m guessing it won’t change until he relinquishes control…
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Well, Vince used to be a guy who just worked and went with the simple stereotypes that ‘rasslin seemed to work well enough on, but as the years have gone on he’s become more and more out of touch and unhinged. No new phenomenon of course – remember the era where all of the wrestlers needed to have job-based gimmicks? TL Hopper, The Goon, Thurman “Sparky” Plugg, The Smoking Gunns, The Undertaker, Isaac Yankem DDS….
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