armor...its so hard to do.

[Nobuhide]

well MY armor- is coming along. slowly but surely. the lumps are small enough that with black paint, itll appear slightly worn and running a hand on it it will be slightly bumpy, but like effingham-sensei said earlier, only a corpse i am standing over would be close enough to examine such surface flaws. my iyo haidate scales are nearly done, i have cut 57 2" by 1 1/2" scales. roughtly 30 to go. piece of cake. im not sure if its period, but i flanged the edges of the do so it wouldnt dig into me, was this unwise?
i hope to be well on my way into a pair of sunate, the haidate, and pretty much finished the do in the next week, as i have vacation and they time to do so ^_^.
itll be good. and i should have the cloth backing of the kote haidate and sunate all done.
ill have some pictures of whats done soon.
when its finished im painting the do black, with a red sun in the center, and two gold dragons flying around it, and the kanji for NOBUHIDE in gold leaf on the sun. the haidate will have gold suns on their center. the rest will have gold leaf decor, of some kind. duno WHAT yet but somethin. lol.
i hope this works.(crosses fingers)

also i got my first commission today. two of them actually. im so cool they all just love me
one, is for a small girl named mina, her armor will need to be light and reeeally strong plastic. im thinking an actual leather suit. my friend alex wants a wooden one. i think hes an idiot, but he wants it so ill do it i suppose. i refuse, however, to call it japanese armor. effingham has indirectly influenced me to despise the idea of such a thing. so it will be japanese inspired wooden armor. ill charge like, $100 and be sure to take pictures of it before giving it so i can use it as an example in a college portfolio.

[Date Saburou Yukiie]

Nobuhide-dono,
The Japanese all wear wooden armor with big cross knots and and would rather die than sheath their drawn sword unblooded.
Sorry, I was thinking the Klingon Training Manual for boy school...
LOL
In reality, there were some very late period kendo armors that were made of bamboo, but that was not the norm. It was a cool solutuion, but never the norm.
There were wooden parts decoratively attached to various bits of real Japanese armor...but these were small bits. Nothing structural.
Perhaps, before you make a wooden harness for your friend, you could aim them to lists like this one or SCA-JM and try to educate them.
If you, as an artist, cannot justify the release of such a piece with your name on it to the world, do not do it. It is your name and reputation on the line, and for combat purposes, it is quite possibly the wearers life on the line. These are responsibilities that you must face as an artist, armorer, and human being.
Good luck on your endeavors. Learn well, study hard, and make honest armor.
Date Saburou Yukiie
Yama Kaminari Ryu

[AJBryant]

when its finished im painting the do black, with a red sun in the center, and two gold dragons flying around it, and the kanji for NOBUHIDE in gold leaf on the sun.

Please don't. The sun is fine. The rest is moving into the realm of "farb."

my friend alex wants a wooden one. i think hes an idiot, but he wants it so ill do it i suppose. i refuse, however, to call it japanese armor.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. There are things that I won't do or make, even if a client wants one. I won't make a white, blue, or green dô. I won't use a bogus lacing pattern just 'cause a prospective client thinks it looks cool. I won't make a bogus armour design. I won't make a big-fangy/werewolf/whatever menpo.

Part of that is self-defense -- so that no one would say "it must be okay, cause Effingham made one" or some such thing. Another part of it is simply that it offends my sense of "what they were really doing."

Date-dono has given you some good advice.

Tony

[Nobuhide]

thank you both for the advice, particularly date-dono's advice on the risks in a martial application. the only reason i considered doing the armor for alex was i know it will never be used, as he does not do sca or any other combative activity besides fencing, and they dont wear much japanese armor.

he actually had the idea of wooden armor from a suit in a video game called ragnarok online. there is a piece of wooden armor that looks somewhat like a clamshell okegawa do. i was working and he said "zipperrrrrrrrrrs.(what he and everyone in my drama group call me, im makign a japanese play actually and have to build 14 suits of armor for the actors, no functionality besides ability to move and pretend to fight its nessicary, andone wanna lend me some old kits? ill send em back when were done, promise. ) i said what
and he siad "make me armor. make me WOODEN armor." "like in RO?" "yes, exactly" "....no" "come on! ill give you a sword." and thats how it was. so its really just a fun thing for him to have on display or something. more a dedication to RO than kenjitsu or samurai.
so with that big thing there i just said "yes date-san, i believe if prompted, i could justify the release of such a piece to the world with my name on it as wearable sculpture, not a combat ready suit of armor though." at the time i thought the fact that no one normally did such things was a reason to do it myself, a thing so rare that its NEARLY unique in concept. i am rethinking whether i should risk the downthinking of fellow armorers who will not take the 'excuse' of "it was art, not armor. armor is art+protection."
it is definatly something to ponder.


effingham, i have since decided to make the do match the haidate. just a simple golden sun on the front. perhaps the dragons will find there way onto a dangly bit, or dancing across the splints of the kote or sunate.
i have also come up with yet another question. did the period armorers ever cover the outside of solid plate do with leather? and make it look like the piece was of several lames? i know the sometimes use patterned leather but was it ever to this scale? thanks again

[AJBryant]

did the period armorers ever cover the outside of solid plate do with leather? and make it look like the piece was of several lames? i know the sometimes use patterned leather but was it ever to this scale? thanks again

No, but I've seen examples where they went the other way and overlaid leather and lacquer on a multi-lame armour to make it a smooth surface.

Tony

[Please Delete]

Also, didn't they use a build-up of lacquer on smooth plates to make it look like they were 'sane' of some kind?

-Ii

[Nobuhide]

Ii said:

Also, didn't they use a build-up of lacquer on smooth plates to make it look like they were 'sane' of some kind?

-Ii

yes, i know they did that, also the used lacquer build up sometimes to make it look like a kabuto had more plates that it did by putting on extra 'ribs'
i think effingham-sensei has some examples on his site. one was like 8 plate hachi made into 62 plate with lacquer build up.

[AJBryant]

True, but in that case they were trying to make something look more expensive and fancy.

An okegawa do is, typically, CHEAPER and easier to make than a hotoke do. It's going the other way.


Tony