The Wanderer Returns

It’s fair to say, I’ve been an absolutely awful blogger of late. Everything happened at once, leaving uni, moving house, two new jobs, off on holiday, and now another new job for the next few weeks. It’s been all go. But I’ve finally sat down with a sprinkling or energy which for once is simultaneous with a (mostly) working internet. There is so much to catch up on. We finished the dagged hoods (previous post) and moved on the the main part of the outfits; the gambesons. A sort of historical puffer jacket worn under armour.

Just for a bit of fun, we made the mock-up (above) out of this completely inappropriate floral fabric, very many we thought. The sides don’t match because we tried different patterns of quilting. I prefer the side with less diagonal in it personally.

Aside from the quilting, the actual pattern was very simple. Just a standard straight jacket. But for each pattern piece, there was a long process to go through to get it ready. It was made of four layers, a beautifully soft brushed cotton lay next to the skin, a wadding, and then two layers of linen. The wadding was an authentic cotton, it was so much nicer to use than the normal man-made stuff. As the gambesons were going to be broken down, we used two upper fabrics so that we could really work into the top one, and where holes were formed you just saw a slightly differently coloured linen; rather than straight to the wadding (below).

When all the layers were so completely pinned we almost faced the catastrophe of empty pin pots, it was time to quilt. First with a standard straight stitch to hold everything in place, and then with a decorative one over the top. The second layer of stitching is what can be seen above in grey, large stitches which the machine goes back over 3 times. It took a long time going backwards and forwards like that, but it was definitely worth it, the quilting was much more visible (see difference between the two sleeve panels below). We also added strips of leather between every other row of stitching, for an extra dimension.

After all the panels were ready it was assembled together. So that the panels flowed together nicely, we waited until this point to add the leather pieces which would cross seam lines, which especially across the back gave it better continuity. I hand stitched cotton twill tape over the top of every single seam on the inside, grading down and enclosing all the seam allowance.  It took hours, but was completely worth it, it really finished off the inside. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a picture.

After I had done that, Denise bound the edges in leather, and our work was complete. 

Making the Neck Piece

In total it took about 4 days work to complete the Valkyrie neck piece. It’s scale mail like I was doing before, but instead of the jump rings I was using before, for this one I was using split rings. Split rings are very similar to key rings but these ones are much smaller, about 0.5cm across.

I was using scales of half the size as well, so the whole job was much more fiddly. I used a simple link method for the main body, which means there are two links per scale, but the join at the shoulders was more complicated and involved five links per scale.

Took a while to work out how to to the back, I ended up just making a line of scale, the hole was big enough for it not to need a fastening, it could slip on over the head.

Final Valkyrie Pictures

Well it only took me 5 months, but I finally managed to get round to organising a proper photo shoot for my Valkyrie costume, and so after a brief hiccup when I accidentally locked the costume in university, here they are.

Forming a Something

The scale mail really is coming along, this is the product of a days linking. The rings are really quite solid, and using the pliers all day means me thumbs feel like they’ve dropped off.

After trying both, blunt nosed pliers definitely make life easier then needle nose ones.

This is going to be part of a fairy costume, scale mail top and skirt with under-bust corset.

Learning a new thing

I started learning how to make scale mail the other day. Its similar to chain mail, but some of the rings are replaced with scales (those metal pieces with holes in).

The scales are about an inch long, so it came together quite quickly once I got the hang of it. It’s actually kind of therapeutic.

This was just a test piece to see how it went.

This is why I’m not the photographer

I wish I knew her name, here are the pictures taken by the professional that uni organised for the end of the project. I get my feedback about how I did soon, hope it goes well.

In the mean time, I’ve been feverishly corset making. 2 down, 3 to go, I have 5 full sets of Moulin rouge costumes to make for my flatmates birthday night out next Wednesday.

The Completed Valkyrie

Of course these are not from the proper photo shoot, these are very feeble in comparison. But you can see the costume. I'm so happy its all come together, no major drama's at all.

Completely finished armour

I'm not sure why, but the pictures have come out in completely different colours, this first one is the most accurate.

There is a slight bend to the helmet crest, I think that came from easing the plastazote into place.

Well not quite finished, I still have to work out how to fasten it on. Body tape, ribbon, or flesh tone elastic are the current contenders.

Painting and Finishing the Armour

Time to paint the armour. I mixed gold acrylic with latex paint.

After coat one.

After coat 4. I had to wait longer than normal between coats of paint because the studio I work in was averaging at what felt at about -20degrees. As you can tell by the need for my oh so fashionable woolly hat below.

After all the layers of paint, it was time to airbrush. This was by far the most nerve racking part of the entire process. Something about having to keep the airbrush nozzle at least 3" away from my work, and pull a trigger where a few millimetres variation was the difference between a light mist and a dark brown splodge.

To make the detail stand out I used a dark brown in all the crevices and shadows. Most of it went well, there were a few hiccups that stand out terribly to me. I'm hoping its just because I know where they are.

Finally I varnished it all with this, great stuff. Just a 5 second spray and its done., wonderful.

Glue it all together

Lovely looking isn't it, this is the glue to stick the plastazote together.

Its contact adhesive called evo-stick, you paint it to both surfaces to be stuck together wait until its mostly dry then press them together. And like magic, they bond, joined for eternity, its wonderful stuff.

Here is the first stage of the helmet.

And the completed glueing. I stuck the details to the panels on the flat before bending the entire thing into shape.

Here is the pauldron, again I failed to take a picture of the gauntlet.