Converting plastic Dark Age Irish

Now that winter is over, I've been getting more involved in my hobby again. With the recent release of the Gripping Beast Dark Age Irish, I've started with some conversion work by taking the Atlantic Irish and making hybrids of the two.

Irish hybrids

Both sets have their advantages and disadvantages, I like the bare feet with the Atlantic kit and the variety of heads, I prefer the bucklers and cloaks in the Gripping Beast set, which also contains a handy Dane axe. I see the Irish having primarily javelins rather than long spears, so have shortened all of them accordingly.

I started by chopping up the kits, so cutting the sleeves off of the GB ones and taking the left arms off the Atlantic ones. I then repositioned them on different figures to see what combinations I could come up with.

The heads are virtually interchangeable on each set, you may have to slightly trim the necks of the GB ones at the front to make the Atlantic heads fit. You can then use the arms from each set to build unique models.

The Atlantic weapons do look good on the GB bodies and expand the variety of weapons the Irish can carry, including the shillelagh club.

The reverse is also true. The Atlantic bodies look great with GB arms and heads. Hybridizing your miniatures undoubtedly gives you more scope and variety, whit the opportunity to create unique models. I highly recommend it. Hmm... now I'd best get some paint on them! That'll be for the next blog I guess!