Freelancer Armour

 A while ago, when I was still at college, I indulged a little in LARP. There's a branch of Fools and Heroes that runs a short walk away from where I live, so once a month I'd dress up like an elf, run around in the woods and hit people with things. It was pretty fun, but I stopped when I went into my final year. What's that got to do with 'now'? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was helping someone out with some leatherwork for their degree, and we all got to talking about LARP. The girl made her leather thing, the guy insisted on trying on all of my armour and got rather excited. They made me want to LARP again.

That armour there, to the right, is my Freelancer Gorget. Out of all of the armour things I've made, it's my favourite. After far too long of trying to come up with a new LARP kit, I decided to make something like that, but something that would fit me.

So, the Freelancer Cuirass was set in motion. The pattern for it was draped on the stand, like how I learned at college for fabric costumes. I designed it to fit me, with the right kind of curves in the right places. With a bit of luck, it's going to be lovely to wear.

It has a bit of battle damage, like on the gorget. A scratch or two here, a couple of dents there... I think it just looks better than having perfect and pristine leather armour. It does the whole 'I have seen battle' thing a bit better, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with shiny armour, of course, it's just personal preference.

The front and the back will be fastened with buckles at the sides, and the shoulders will be riveted together. Then there's just a couple of details, like adding O-rings for attaching a cloak.

Armour is my favourite thing to make. I just gotta get people to get me to commission things.

Any takers?

Whitby Goth Weekend II

That time of year again - Whitby Goth Weekend! Well, I say again - This was my second WGW as a trader, my first with a stall to myself.

The stock, once again, was mostly steampunk, and it went down really well. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, the table was almost empty. A good thing, you'd think, but now I have to completely restock for my next event, Steampunk Doncaster.

The cincher in that photo (on the lady mannequin to the left) was a collaboration with Amy Randall, costume designer and embroidery superstar. Check out her Facebook page for some very pretty things, including photos of me painted green as the Wicked Witch of the West.

After WGW, I reopened the Etsy shop, starting with the bottle pendants that didn't go to good homes.

Check them out, they were quite popular at Whitby.


Next Event:
STEAMPUNK DONCASTER
21-22 JUNE 2014
Doncaster Deaf Trust

Obligatory "Whoops, I have a blog!" Post

So, a few little game-changing things have happened. My sister moved back home and back into my workshop her bedroom, so all work halted for a bit. Before then, however, I managed to get myself half a stall at Whitby Goth Weekend, sharing it with The Little Blue Gem. It went particularly well and we both rebooked for the April event, each with our own stall this time. My stock was mostly Steampunk, but I'm hoping to get a bit of Post-Apocalyptic stuff in there too. It's gonna be a long slog, making enough stuff for three days worth of a full stall, but I got a bit of an idea of what people liked from last time. Those belt pouches on the photo went down brilliantly, so more of them is going to be my first trick. 

What have I been doing since then, though? It has been a long time since November, after all. Not a lot, unfortunately. Christmas time is such a motivation-drain. Since then, though, I've started a few little things...

I got some more tooling tools, hurray! That means, of course, proper tooling is now a thing I can do. One of the first things that got the treatment was a Steampunk shoulder piece. Was it fun? Yes. Was it also frustrating? Yes.

Tooling-fun progressed fairly quickly to this gorget which ended up giving me a rather sizeable blister on my thumb. Remind me not to let that happen again, alright? It wasn't too bad, however, since the finished gorget (and pauldrons) is rather spectacular.







It's not all been armour, though. I've been working on some wristbands which ended up being a little Deco.



So, more stuff when I get some nice, non-WIP photos.