Madog's leather tutorial Design
Designing a new piece of armor is not always easy. Often times we use several references and pull together some sort of idea. This projectis a new suit of armor for myself. I intend on spending many hours in it's production. This will not be a simple make it in one night suit like my original Ravager armor was. I am writing this huge "How to" on the wiki, called Madog's leather tutorial which takes up some seriouse time showing the process as I go along, and I plan on investing lots of time into making this look flat out mean.
Since this is probably the first section your going to look at I want to give you an idea of what I am trying to bring into creation. I would like to state that this armor may someday replace my standard Ravager armor, but all you ravagers out there don't get your hopes up, while this suit is themed like the Ravager armor for the Uruk-hai it is going to be heavily modified, it is up to our War Lord V-hil to make the call if I can wear it on Saturday as my uniform with the Uruk-hai. Now the theme I am kind of dreaming of in my mind is this suit of spiked armor where the organic segments sort of have pocky spikes coming out of everywhere, giving the entire suit more of an evil look. Lets go on a journey of some things that inspire my vision..
First off a regular Ravager suit:
- Here is my regular Ravager armor (yeah it will get re-colored more green since most of the green has faded or been browned out from getting wet). It has a bulkhead(belly), lorica'sh lames for ribs, and ork skull on the chestchompy, and it buckles up on the sides. My vision is much like this, only with trim, gashes, and points all over...
Lets get some idea's...
Goto Google Image Search:
- First I am going to search for [[1]]
And I get some pretty wild stuff: (nevermind the picture of George Bush that comes up as the first one, LOL). Here are two pretty nice links:
I really like the spikes coming down the belly, and actualy imagined this before I saw it. So they are definatly going into the design. I like the blackend grey ish coloring, I might work it into the final somehow as well.
Sketch it out a whole bunch
Here are two of the basic scetches I drew out. I did maybe 10 pages of idea's just drawing abouts. Anyone can draw on a napkin at Dennys. So sit around and think stuff up when you do your own.
Setup Applied Knowledge
Now I have to get seriouse. How the heck am I going to go from base leather to the final, hopefuly kickin armor that I was meant for *smack* humility is a virtue, well I guess I have a name for the armor, Uruk-hai Pride Armor. First off this thing has to fit me. So I better start measuring myself to know basic dimensions. I think this is going to take a mountain of leather, good thing I have almost 2 full hides (70$ each bought back in May). I am going to have to buy coloring(10-50$), buckles (12$), Rivets(25$) and strap leather(30$). Which will have to be added into my budget. Some other things I am going to have to aquire like the cardboard for the stencils. I'll cover the things purchased and used in each section.
Luckly most (all) of the tools I already have. I inherited tons of leather working tools from my father, who inherited them from his father, who got them probably from his father brought over on the boat from Germany(it probably is my only truly Kiesel lineage brithright). I have added to the collection over the years as has each generation, and look forward to the tooling secion I probably will go over them and their uses. If your getting into this, BORROW someone elses tools (replace them if you break them) since a full set like I have would cost litteraly 1000$ if I were to piece it all out.
I am going to need some work space. Good thing the Fiance' is going to Arizona for 3 weeks, I can trash my apartment and not look bad in the process, save to my friends who happen buy. I'll just move the furnature and walla 50 square feet of floorspace! The vacume cleaner is going to love me.
Measuring
You think I am going to tell you how large I am? Well of course not. Frist off I weighed in at 250 when I made my frist suit of Ravager armor. I can fit a milk jug in the torso section when I have not eaten. Depending on my workout sessions (I bowflex) and eating schedule I basicsly can be anywhere from two hands under the armor to milk jug. I think I am going to trim down 2" from the 27" lames I made my original suit. So I use to have 27+27= 54 w ~3inches over lap on the sides, I am now going to 25x25 with ~2 inches overlap ont the sides... I hope. Unfortunatly I expect to loose more weight in the future, so we'll see.
more to come...