Quickly Now!

So Calgary Expo starts this Friday and predictably time isn't something I have a lot of (this is also due to the myriad of work left to do on the museum exhibit that's slated to open next Thursday AND on-going joust practises for the tournament in Texas).

Sort of weird - it's the first time in three years I haven't been rushing to finish a costume (for myself at least). It's actually entirely disheartening and will certainly be rectified next year. I do have a commission in the works that'll be finished up by Thursday night for my good bro Cil - she's being the Marquis of Guy Davis' excellent comic of the same name. Would post WIPs but it's just a whole lot of black 1770s clothes and hey... there are patterns out  there for that.

That brings up a good point, actually. I need to start steering this blog more towards actual sewing tips and tutorials. That will be the goal for this summer while I'm working on my three mains for San Diego.

Those, to set the record straight right now, consist of:

Marius Leitdorf (Warhammer) New molded leather armour and new pants
Malfatto aka The Doctor from Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

And, coming lately to the fold, I give you Dr. Jacquin from the Duellists. Yeah, I know he turned up last post but GAIZ IT WAS INEVITABLE! Dark hair, wicked clothes. And let's face it, kids - he's pretty much Marius in Napoleonic form but without the crazy. I also need something relatively light to wear down there - not sure how a frock coat of melton wool and silk is going to be light but there it is.

 

So that makes two doctors and a madman. Should be iiiiiiiinteresting....

Speaking of mad, I did a quick test-run with Herr Leitdorf two nights ago since I wanted to do the makeup at least once before Con and try it with the new wig from Arda Wigs. They're absolutely GREAT by the way - REALLY decently priced, excellent quality, very thick hair, and huge wig caps to fit massive noggins.

Things might be a bit tricky at Expo this year - the weapons regs have tightened up A LOT and I really hope my runefang and dagger look "fantasy" enough to pass inspection because I'm going to be a hella lame Elector Count without my bloody runefang. Might give me a good excuse to practise my sporadic raging. Oh wait, I do that at work....

Anyways, weird and shitty regs aside, I still made a sheath for the dagger tonight. Have some before and after photos:

Wine is key to the creative process, don't ye know?

Aaaaaand half a bottle, two hours, and six million expletives later, I give you the following:

I'm going to pick up some burgundy/purple dye at Tandy tomorrow and spruce it up a bit with some gold scrollwork. As per the feeble education component of this blog, I used Noctiped's excellent scabbard tutorial. His work is absolutely immaculate!

And on that note, my stomach full of Wendy's should be tolerably digested so I'm off to bed to convert the rest of it to permanent love-handles. See you on the other side of Expo, kids!

Sunday = Day of Rest? Pfffffft.....

Quicko update here. Things are progressing anon on the jousting kit listed in last post. The following has been finished:

Arming doublet
Blue 'normal' doublet
One linen shirt
Max's hunting gown (turned out AWESOMELY)

Pictures and process outlines coming later in a more comprehensive post.

Today's adventures include recreating this scabbard:




















This is the scabbard for Maximilian's hunting sword, currently displayed at the Neueberg of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. I really dig the leather tooling and I would like to be able to reproduce it as closely as I can. The first step is to figure out what exactly is going on with the patterns there.

In the left image, there are some letters, reproduced more closely here:











As far as I can tell, that looks like MMILN, which would make sense. Max was pretty keen on having abbreviated forms of his name on his stuff, particularly his hunting stuff.

The rest of the scabbard features a lot of looping floral designs similar to the ones that show up on banded armour etchings in the first decade of the 16th century.

The tooling is going to take some improvisation since Tandy Leather doesn't sell stamps that will reproduce those marks.

But onwards ho! I'll try to be good and take WIP shots as I go. Can't promise miracles since this is my first go-round at a leather scabbard but I'll do my damndest!