forwardsh

Hey guys, I don't mean to do any free advertising for this guy or anything but I've found a great resource for anyone looking to make armor. Lederkraft Studios makes some great stuff and the dude who runs the site recently wrote an e-book (called The Crystal Anvil) detailing just about everything from leatherworking to 3D printing your own accents to put on your gear, sewing costumes etc. His site (lederkraft.com) also allows you to download 2 breastplate patterns for free which you can have printed off at a print shop and cut right out for your leather. The templates are so well made that even the stitching holes line up perfectly when you put your pieces together. The free templates use minimal tools and takes a lot less time than I would have thought possible to make really. The guy gets his products looking so good by using the right combo of finishing products (particularly antiquing gel) and I highly recommend trying out a pattern or two of his. He's also got a forum so any aspiring armor makers can talk directly to him (or with each other I guess) and pick his gigantic brain. The book and forum are both on a site called thecrystalanvil,com, it's not that expensive and is very very worth it in my opinion. I'm currently building the Norgir set that he gives you the patterns for and I've gotta say it looks great so far. I've attached a picture of what I've made in the past day and a half. The vambraces are done aside from antiquing, the greave needs to be strapped to a plaster form of my leg overnight and antiqued but other than that they're ready for me to go and get my ass beat in style at the local SCA meets. The greave not shown hasn't been stitched yet. Sorry for the product plug but good resources for armoring, let alone leatherwork is pretty damn hard to find. Also if you guys have any comments, criticisms or tips on what I have done so far I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to make them look well used, I don't want shiny brand new armor when I step on to the field.

Just ordered everything I need for the Nolgir or whatever it's called cuirass; couldn't find the brass domes so I'm just gonna sub them out for extra rivets. I can't see the brass domes being able to take a beating either. I'm also going to change the animal on the rib plates from their weird platypus-dog thing to a boar and stamp some nice celtic knot borders all over the damned thing. I'll let you guys know how it turns out, if I get my order this week I should have it done pretty soon.

The mongolian leather helmet plan is a great one for sure, it was a lot easier to put together than I thought it would be. I highly recommend it. It leaves enough space under it once constructed to either line the inside with fur, wear a padded arming cap etc, lots of room to work with. Here is the helmet I made, added some faux fur and a hair tail to the top for decoration. Since the pics were taken I've riveted the cross straps down to make them lay more flat.