I thought some of you might get a kick out of this. My youngest, age 11, was inspired to dress up as Achilles for Halloween after reading and re-reading Gareth Hinds' incredible graphic novel version of the Iliad (https://garethhinds.com/wp/iliad/). Here is how it all turned out.

We contacted Mr. Hinds, who graciously gave us permission to use his drawing of Achilles' legendary shield. We had a print shop transfer his drawing to a vinyl sticker and then mounted it plywood. Though we should have used a dished design, for simplicity's sake we left it flat.

The helmet and tunic are from Etsy and Windlass, respectively, with the helmet just spray-painted bronze.

The belt is also from Etsy and the scabbard is the lower half of one of Kult of Athena's low-priced modular scabbards.

The sword is a solid bronze blank from Dave Chapman at Bronze Age Foundry in the UK. I burned it into chunky oak scales and pinned everything together with solid copper pins. Rather than polish the blade to a mirror finish, which seems to be the typical approach with bronze replicas, I decided to leave it rough from the foundry, just sanded it down a bit. I like the chunky texture.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

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Nice one! They are never too young to get started.

A great Christmas present for him would be Connolly's Ancient Greece of Odysseus. Lots of very cool illustrations in an easy to read format.

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greece-Odysseus-World/dp/0199105324/

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BEST.

DAD.

EVER.

Seriously, that's all amazing. If you haven't seen my humble site already:

https://www.larp.com/hoplite/bronze.html

I've got a friend in Austin, gonna have her give you a big kiss! Thanks for sharing that.

Matthew

Thanks guys!