Armor Progress - with PHOTO'S

This is my carry box

Now that my hands have healed from the great rush job I am back to working on Galen's armor. 

 Tonight I pulled out the box of pauldron lames (individual pieces) and crafted the articulation, designed the attachment, tooled the axeblade pieces that will go on top, finalized the tassetts, and cut and placed the tassetts as well.

WOOT!

Boon wants the armor

The whole family likes to help - from the beloved daughter helping me by being a mobile armor stand, husband helping with design issues, and even the cat! The dog ignored us, there wasn't food involved.

Doesn't it look great?

After fiddling with the Axeblade piece for thirty minutes or so Ray and I were able to come to an agreement on how they would attach. I love how this is looking! It is actually coming together really nicely. 

Of course, once I got everything cut out, tooled, and pieced together I get to take everything back apart so that I can begin the dye tomorrow. If I am lucky I have enough black on hand to get this all done.  It will be black with green details on the tooling and the pauldron (shoulder) edges. 

The rear and left side

Of course, I was still working after 9 PM, which means my cute helper crashed out next to me. Here is the pic of her as I type up this blog :) 

Sleeping baby...and armor

Purple = Blue?

So as I mentioned in my last post I was commissioned for a set of Purple Armor for a friend of mine. After my beautiful blue spotted hands, I went back the next day for the overcoat of purple which should have turned it into a royal purple.

Did you note the Should?



Should is not did. Not at all. It barely muted the blue. So, we ended up with a set of GORGEOUS blue armor. Thankfully the friend who ordered it also really loves blue. He says he is good with the color and since I am out of leather at the moment, I am taking it.

This project was very different than the last armor commission in so many different ways.
1) He didn't want his armor to be like either of Phydouxs which meant the entire sizing had to be original. The last commission was just for a matching set of the larger pauldrons, a MUCH easier task. He also wanted them to meet in the back, which I hadn't tried before and took a LOT of shaping work to make function
2) He didn't want a pre-drawn design, but did have a fairly specific idea he wanted. The last true-art piece I did was the phoenix waist cinch, which was drawn on command and edited as needed, but wasn't really directed much.
3) There is not a single truly good purple dye that I have found yet. They are all just a little to lavendar or almost pinkish if you layer them enough. I need to find a true royal purple or I am going to not allow commissions in the color.
4)The project kept switching details...which made it hard to keep up with. Many of the changes were mine, I didn't like how something happened to be working, or didn't like how something was turning out.
5) I am a little bit blue/purple color blind. This project was HARD.

But...I think it turned out well. It was a great challenge, and kept me working on leather for several months. YAY! Let's see what comes up next. Any suggestions? Kasha Armor? Spinal Armor? What would you like to see me create?

The Plague?

Well, it is blue spots - but its from doing the undercoat of blue for the soon to be completed Purple armor! YAY!

All the lames have the blue coat, tomorrow I will add the purple coat (Which ends up with a beautiful deep purple) and then the black edging. Once the edges are done the hole will be punched for the articulation and then it will be delivered off!

This project has taken me forever. Probably due to beginning the moving process right after getting this commission - I am really looking forward to getting this out of my project pile.

After I complete this, we are looking at at least one set of Spinal Armor and possible two. I can't wait to start a new challenge.

No pictures today - will post completed pics this weekend if all goes well!

More Armor for the Beloved

So, now that we have completed the Should Pauldrons we are moving on to Greaves (Shin Armor). Almost an identical leather cut to the Should pieces, but will require a more serious type of strap.

Last week I tooled all 8 lames into the same roughly 1-inch that the others were and tonight I dyed the outer edges black. Tomorrow I hope to go play at a park, which I will follow by doing the interior red.

I have pictures to share, but can't get them up tonight, so I will post a pic heavy one tomorrow!

YAY Blog! There will also be supply updates and garden updates (Which will consist of railing against the CO weather Gods and their hatred of growing things - Stupid snow!)

:)

Pauldron Update

Ok - We left off with the lames cut, floating articulation holed and set but with plain leather. If you know Ray, that won't cut it - so, part three was taking everything back apart and beginning the tooling. He wants the armor to be two-color, red with a thick black edge.

If you like your hands, don't tool armor grade leather. Really. It's a BAD idea. But it turns out so pretty I can't stop yet.

Here is the basic tooling (And wow did it eat my hands. I seriously need to find a better way to hold utensils than I do)

We did all the tooling Saturday, let it dry Sunday and on Monday when I got home I did the borders black. I know I could have done the red interior as well, but since I have lots of work this week, I wanted hands that were skin colored for Tuesday and more work would not have given me that.

Neat note that I discovered on Monday night is that washing dry hands with Dawn dish soap actually removed most of the black dye that had gotten on my hands. That doesn't sound all that impressive until you understand that Gojo won't even get the stuff off. I was (and am) thrilled with this new trick. Of course I still had one fingertip that is black, but it was my right pointer finger, the one that gets the most dye and the soonest so it soaks in more. Sigh.

Here is Monday's labor - black edging and attempting to shape the right-side lower lames into a better approximation of correct.



One of the issues we are having is we used scrap leather here for this piece. Which is awesome, I like using as much as possible and not throwing things away. Which also sucks because each piece is from a different hide, so they take dye differently, they tool differently, they warp differently. It's hard enough working out new idea's - but doing them with materials that are a challenge in themselves is hard. But still fun.


Tuesday night I did tooling the main right shoulder with Ray's traditional wolf and finishing the black edge dye on the other pieces. Then I will complete the edge dye on Thursday and Ray and I will finish plotting the harness and will do the red dye on Friday after I get paid and buy a new color. He is hoping to have it done enough to wear when we are up in Denver this weekend - I wonder if he's planning on wearing it to the club :) Gotta love the boyo :)

Here is tonight's work with the red


More updates to come :)

Armor for the Beloved

Ray asked me to help him create shoulder Pauldrons that we can attached with snaps to his biker jacket or to a harness to wear at the Ren Fair. We made a draft one, to size the lames and then decided to drastically change the design by moving from corner articulation to floating articulation. We have them cut, attached the articulation, removed the articulation and did basic tooling and will be dying and determining the upper shoulder design on the big piece.

Here are the current photo's.


This is the floating articulation


This is Ray and Kasha both working on it with me





There have been a few errors already - I punched holes as if we were doing the other articulation and so Ray and I are thinking about adding spikes over the holes :) Cause that would look neat.