The following post originally ran on August 15, 2017.
[Editor's Note: scroll down for pictures of each entry and commentary from each team's armorer. All photos by View Staff.]
Team Iste - Mouse and Higer (Renee and Derek Booke)
** WINNER **
In many ancient cultures the stag stands as a majestic and complex symbol of regeneration, and the cyclical nature of all life. His antlers grow in the spring, and fall off when autumn comes. These creatures are no strangers to change, and stand for the ability to move through life and all of its trials with grace and dignity. It is for these reasons, that we believed the stag to be an appropriate symbol for Queen Iste’s armor entry. The Queen herself proudly wears antlers upon her helm, and is also a Changeling by blood. As such, she is keenly aware of her own personal cycles of being. This piece is a celebration of her life and Sylvan nature, but also the perseverance and strength of our team.
Throughout this piece you will also see the use of oak leaves between the pauldron plates, and laurel up top, just like what is depicted on the tabards of the true supporters. In many ancient cultures, laurel and oak were used to make wreaths and crowns. These crowns were given out to acknowledge martial victory and strength in competition, as well as heroic acts of protection and valor. Many people speculate that because oak trees were honored for their endurance, stability, strength, and noble presence, using their leaves in rituals and military awards became common practice. The oak, just like the stag, represents a powerful figure and tends to stand taller than the other trees around it.
Now that you understand some of the ideas and symbolism behind this project, we can talk about how it was made. We started construction with a lengthy design process. Hygar doesn’t work from patterns, so even the basic shapes and plates of the pauldron had to be created from scratch, and then tested together to see if they would fit and flow. We knew we wanted more curved edges than straight or pointed, and believed this would give the project a more Sylvan feel to better reflect the Queen’s heritage. Once the initial design was done, we hand drew the shapes and leaves, and cut them out of a six ounce hide. Once this was done, we moved onto sanding and preparing the leather; which took over eight hours alone even with two of us working on it.
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| Front detail |
After our shapes were cut out we soaked them all in water to begin the tooling process. Every individual plate on this project was struck hundreds of times with a stamp to give our background and empty space a more detailed and textured appearance. Then you have the plate borders, which are completely freehanded with a sculpting knife. We chose this intertwining vine work pattern not just because it looked Sylvan, but because it highlighted interwoven strength and grace, one of the concepts the stag stands for as mentioned above. Visually, we thought it lent credence to the original symbolism. Altogether, this portion took a little more than twenty hours.
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| Trim and stamping detail |
For the next part, we moved onto the oak and laurel leaves. Each one of these is hand tooled with the same sculpting knife used on the vine work. No patterns were used here either, and Hygar drew out each line in the leaves using his own creative intuition. One aspect we are particularly pleased with here is the molding of the leaves and how we curled them at the ends. This allows them to better hold their shape, and gives them a relatively natural look. This entire process ended up being a minimum of around thirty minutes per leaf.
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| Side of armor with individual leaf details |
The neck guard/collar was another separate piece that had to be cut, measured, and shaped. Believe it or not, this piece started as a flat rectangle. Hygar soaked it in water and folded it by hand, molding it into what you see now. This was a gradual process, and involved jury-rigging the neck guard onto a mannequin form overnight as it dried. After that, it was strong enough to hold its shape on its own. If you look at traditional plate armor and pauldrons, they often had a neck guard of some kind, or what is called a “sword breaker.” This small piece had the very important job of preventing a sword from decapitating you.
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| Back of piece with neck guard and detachable cape |
With all of this done, we could finally move onto dye. We chose the colors of green, brown, and gold because of the already established nature/Sylvan theme we had going on. Each plate used both a green and brown oil based dye that was applied via paintbrush, and received at least two coasts. Once these coats were dry, we went back and started to paint the vine work. For this we cut a gold acrylic paint with water and applied in light, thin layers to help reduce cracking, as well as wear and tear. Every piece was also treated with leather lotion and sealant, which cleans, polishes, and preserves the leather and colors below. This step took about 3-4 hours if you ignore the time in between waiting for the pieces to dry.
Once all these artistic aspects were complete, we arrived at the assembly part of the process. We started by riveting all of the leaves to their respective plates, and then attached the lower plates to leather straps. What this does, is allow the plates to collapse in on themselves as the wearer moves. Fighters need that extra flexibility in the arms, and this design gives them that while also giving them adequate coverage. After that, the uppermost small plates were riveted to the larger plates on the top of the pauldrons; and all the remaining pieces were riveted to each other. Connecting the pauldrons to a chest/back base in this manner allowed us to avoid straps that go under the arms, something people frequently complain is uncomfortable if worn for long periods of time.
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| Individual plates help the pauldrons move with the shoulder |
The last step was what we like to call “fancification.” With everything in place, we wanted to add a little extra just to make our project pop. This involved adding conchos on the main upper plate towards the front side, as well as adding matching d rings on the back. The conchos add a much needed splash of color where they are, but also provide a more pleasing visual symmetry from the front side. The d rings, on the other hand, play an important part in allowing these pauldrons to not only be appropriate attire on the battlefield, but the feast hall as well. Using snap hooks, you can attach and detach a cloak to the d rings as you see fit! Your armor just became that much more versatile, and you can make it a garb centerpiece.
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| Shoulder leaf detail with cabachon |
All in all, it took several weeks of work to get this piece done, and we were quite pleased with the results. It was my first time designing pauldrons, and Hygar’s first time doing such an in depth creative collaboration. Neither of us had made a full set of pauldrons before, so the challenge was a welcome and rewarding one that tested our ability to work as a team. We hope you enjoy the outcome as much as we did. If you have any questions about our process, please feel free to ask! - Renee Booke
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| Front of armor |
Team Saegan - Aiden Penclaw (Arthur Granger)
So what we made was a piece entirely made from scale and chainmaile. It is approximately 5000 scale, 1000 ring, and incorporates seven different forms of jewelry weaves into an armor format. Without the coin bag the entire project has a weight of one lbs in total and is a fully flexible piece to your arm and shoulder in combat. On the artistic end of things it shows two large skulls in scale (a throwback to the planar shield stone), a 3D Chaos wheel in a byzantine weave, a smaller section of scale in a Knights of the Steward shield, and Iron Lotus pendant. The project took my fiancee and I four months to design from scratch and piece together. - Arthur Granger
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| Aerial view |
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| Side view of the piece |
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| Small scale in detail |
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| Close-up of detail work |
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| Skull pattern worked in scales |
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| Attached maille pouch |
Team Jack - Dan Neville
This is a set of scale pauldrons made from blue and black anodized aluminum scales and rings. It incorporates two sizes of scales, extra large and large. It is attached with leather straps and collar. I tried to make sure this would fit snugly to the wearer and not shift or slip in combat. This item and custom ones like it will soon be available on my Etsy shop Forge And Fleece. I make chainmail and scale mail armor and jewelry for costumes and Larp. I greatly enjoy working on custom projects. Please feel free to contact me at Scalesmythe@gmail.com or on my Etsy shop. - Dan Neville
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| Close-up of shoulder scale detail and strapping |
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| Aerial view from the front |
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| Side view of scales, front chest strap, back adjuster plate |
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| Side view close-up |
