Description

Cover Art: Queen Medb assembles her army.

Always nice to get a really interesting commission and this was one of the best. I was approached way back by Arnaud Carpentier and Christian Martinez of French publisher MATAGOT to join them in a new venture, a Celtic fantasy themed board game called Inis. I know nothing about board games but I do know plenty of mad gamers, all fanatics, so I replied ‘Count me in’.

It was a lot more work than I imagined as originally I presumed they would only use my already published artwork but we decided to do a cover that was original. As anyone who knows me can testify that when I create an original Celtic work it can take forever so a tight deadline helped and off I went. Besides as always, I needed the money and they were prepared to pay properly which they did and on time too. All helps sustain the art and the artist.
We don’t get pensions, we work till we drop… 🙂

Queen Medb the Main Figure

As usual, I start off with the main figure, the redoubtable Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connaught, a real historic and powerful woman warrior queen from ancient times in Ireland.
Around this extraordinary woman, an entire literature has evolved including her pivotal role in the greatest of all the Irish epics, the wonderful ‘Táin Bó Chuailnge’ -The Cattle Raid of Cooley’.
By all accounts Queen Medb was as fierce in war as in love and wanted to leave a dynasty behind her -she even built a huge earthen rampart around her kingdom called ‘The Black Pig’s Dyke’ to keep her enemies in Ulster at bay.

My painting for the INIS cover depicts this great queen assembling her army for the invasion of Ulster and her crucial and fateful battle with the boy warrior of Ulster the legendary Cú Chulainn. But that is another story for another day.
-Jim FitzPatrick. 2018.