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| Hello again! In keeping with this little weblogs function, its time for another armor update. I've tried several times to pick up small maille projects over the past few months, a coif, arm braces, leather palmed gloves, but they all currently reside in pile in a dark corner of my room. The shirt seems to have caused a burnout in the maille department of my brain.
Amid some discussions with Phillip on ancient military (no, not the ninja vs pirate talks) I took up a position supporting the Roman Legions as some of the most kick ass armies in history. These talks got me to thinking, I have made leather armor to (somewhat) mimic that made in medieval Europe, and the maille coif and hauberk, but I don't have anything from the Roman period. So its scutum time.
Scutum- Latin for shield, though it most often refers to the large, rectangular, semi-cylindrical, shield carried by Roman Legionaries.
So, its a large project that will require time and my wood/metal shop to complete, I wont be able to start until winter break, but I have gone ahead and started on the design. For the most part the shield will be made using authentic methods, as much as I am able to (afford ably).
And so the design:
The wings are typical of roman scutum. I found an image of Mors, roman god of death, with the words "SUM FINE" written on his scythe, supposed to be "I am the End" in latin, so that explains those parts. The spears just seemed like a good way to divide the shield, and the green, well I'm a fanatic about green, though it seems most if not all the roman legion shields were red. The darker gold color is where the brass boss (dome and surrounding square) and rim will be.
Edit: Shrunk some of the plumage on the lower part of the wing, smothed out some of the longer feathers, and smoothed out the scythes. Feel free to comment on any other changes you think should be made.
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| Shirt's done!
 
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| So after waiting for 2 weeks for a replenishment of copper from
theringlord.com (sells the copper wiring I use to make rings) I
finnally had the material I needed to start the project back up again.
As the shirt stands now I have the full front and back patterns
completed and sewn together to make a vest that fits me like a very
comfortable metal glove: that is to say, better than I could ever have
dreamed, pics of the vest will be posted in a few days, or I may wait
till I have the sleves on.
The sleves have presented a big problem as far as design goes. First
off, for comforts sake, I have decided against the full length sleves
and will be making them to just above the elbow. Secondly the maill
hangs in the opposite direction from in the shirt, making the "line"
edges of a pattern sharper and colors less vivid. In short: It took me
about 5 hours to make a design of equal quality with the rest of the
shirt. Shown below is the finished second pattern and the planned
pattern for the sleves that will wrap arround the arm.
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