The Armour Archive

Right now I'm still just in the rough-design part of Sky Baron (Dominus Invictus of the Burning Heavens, Herald of Infernal Retribution. - Updated 25/9/2013); Zyrusil Ordane. What I have right now is the concept art below:

This song was what inspired the character. It's the main theme of Gankutsuou by the way.



I'll update the picture at least once a day, and after I'm done I'll be drawing the individual armor pieces/weapons/clothing separately and at different angles.

Gosh it feels great to get back to the designing phase.

Here is my other work (with actual armoring done) here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=140118

Due to password forgetfulness I haven’t been able to comment too much on Oceans wrath but this suit looks to be yet another progress thread for me to lurk in.

If only your work was the standard that fantasy armor was held to.... hell one day it may well be.

While your previous motivation may be dulled, I hope something equally inspiring drives you forward with this endeavor!

That's alright

Have fun lurking!

Done for today.

That helmet is gunna be sexy...

I have an entire year/2 years ahead of me to make it look even better.

honestly im hopeing someone gifts you a camera or something... its a shame more armours dont tape themselves when they work. Back to Dube...

Actually, my camera does have a video recording option, and even came with a tripod. I just never thought anyone would want videos of me armorsmithing, haha. I'll make sure to include videos once I find a place to work on the Pheonix Dawn set then!

Don't forget to take those videos! Pounding metal might seem like a boring video, but if you just speed up some parts like Dube, it can be so helpful to most armourers.

Also, that design looks really cool. The helmet designs you come up with are always so creative. Can't wait to see this get started.

Changed the shield into something more light. That entire steel bird would've weighed a ton. I'm not sure if the pauldron design will work. It'll certainly make overhand thrusts/throws with a spear impossible/very difficult, but it should still work as long as the feathered ends are flared outwards so they don't turn my arms into mincemeat.

Id like to thank you. Till now its been very hard to think of things to make and or draw for that matter. I hit a creative block as it were. But the way you make the character beafore the armor and then use it for inspiration just seemed to click. expect a pm with some concept question sometime soon...

p.s. Ah hell you dunnit now!!

My advice is to just get as many sources of inspiration as you can

I mean, I never invented fluting, plate armor, or floating sky bridges. I just take all that stuff and put it together in my own style.

Wow, it's 6:32AM.



I added a bit of detail and zoomed in on the part I worked on, it's a shame that I can only post 800x800px pictures. I'll probably upload the link to a higher res version every so often.

That helmet looks like it will be enough to make me armour-gasm if I ever see it fully made. Loving the details so far.

OF course you're as talented with pen and ink as you are with steel...

it's not fair... not fair at all...



(The design is looking great!)

My master told me I could have one or the other.

Oh my....

That helm is looking rather spiffy. What style of operation will it follow? or will it just fit over the head with no movement?

The pauldrons are definately neat in design, but for a spear they would definately hinder movemnet. Have you given thought to metal pualdorn with the "feathers" and lames from the bottom down being leather? not sure how that would look.

That helmet is pretty frickin' awesome. Looks like a burgonet style helm to me. Although I see a hinge up near what I thought was the visor pivot so perhaps not.

Glad you guys like the initial helmet design!

@Sigmund: You sure a hinge isn't suppose to be there? I checked a ton of google images, and it makes sense that the cheekplates would swing outwards so that the burgonet could be removed. Although, I suppose visor pivots would also work, kind of like lamborghini doors.

Anyway, I spent the entire day trying to reinvent the wheel. It's difficult trying to come up with a different helmet based off the burgonet (or anything that has been designed, made, and tested by the hundreds) without taking away from either form or function, so I stuck a fluted steel pirate hat on him and gave him a WoW-style musket.

Nah, I'm kidding. I was just messing around with different helmet designs the entire day.

Good work! Some ideas:

Make the shield smaller. Knee to shoulder is as big as you'll ever need, especially when wearing full plate. Anything else is just extra weight.

Personal opinion: Make the pauldrons smaller. The design is awesome, but to scale, these things will come to your elbow. You can forget about both lifting your hand above your head, and bending your arm more than 90 degrees unless you trim them down a bit.

Like I said. Just some suggestions. Rule of cool says this is awesome. Rules of physics may make you want to change a couple bits.

Zac

After doing a bit of research there seems to be both burgonets with the hinge present and also without relying on a close helm style pivoting visor and bevor. So like this http://www.ageofarmour.com/images/black ... rgonet.jpg and also like this http://clang.adkinssoftware.com/helm%20 ... %2001.html I suppose it's personal preference.

Reminds me more of a Negroli burgonet with an Optimus Prime mouthpiece.

with time, and materials I think Zetheros could be this generations Negroli.

So I took some inspiration from this harpy eagle today.







I made the shield and pauldron smaller, and added leather feathers between the cloak and pauldrons, which should add protection, aesthetics, and stabilize the cloak a bit.

@zachos: Thanks for the advice! I added your suggestions.

@Sigmund: I think I might be relying on the pivoting visor style now, haha. Thanks for the pics!

@Gerhard: I really like those burgonets. I read about gold gilding on wikipedia for this next project. I think I'll do it the old fashioned way with a mercury amalgam. I'll just need to build a sealed chamber with rubber gloves that are attached from the outside and an air scrubber for disposing mercury fumes. It'll probably be more complicated than that though.

@MJBlazek: Maybe.

Free ego booster:

I've been following your posts for some time and I must say, you are an absolute inspiration. I used to be an art student as well as an airframe/powerplant student, so naturally I loved to create & build however life had other uses for me. I am just starting to learn about armoring and realized it was a beautiful marriage of art & mechanics. I've lost my muse about a decade ago and armoring has brought it back. Moreso, watching your progress has been jaw-dropping and really has me eager to start new projects. I'm not much of a fantasy fan (actually, not at all) but your designs are stunning! I love the new helmet design, nice lines. Everything just flows. As for the pauldron, have you thought about maybe do a decorative blend of steel on the upper part of the last lame & make the "feathers" out of leather? might make it a little more functional?

Free ego booster:

I've been following your posts for some time and I must say, you are an absolute inspiration. I used to be an art student as well as an airframe/powerplant student, so naturally I loved to create & build however life had other uses for me. I am just starting to learn about armoring and realized it was a beautiful marriage of art & mechanics. I've lost my muse about a decade ago and armoring has brought it back. Moreso, watching your progress has been jaw-dropping and really has me eager to start new projects. I'm not much of a fantasy fan (actually, not at all) but your designs are stunning! I love the new helmet design, nice lines. Everything just flows. As for the pauldron, have you thought about maybe do a decorative blend of steel on the upper part of the last lame & make the "feathers" out of leather? might make it a little more functional?

Hey, that's actually a great idea! I need to get some sleep though. I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow. I agree with the 'marriage of art & mechanics'. It's brainwracking to visualize different weapontypes attacking the piece of armor at any given angle/speed while trying to make it look good. Especially since I've never been in a fight my entire life.

I've become particularly afraid of polearms and warhammers.

Okay, so when I sat down to work on the design today, I just thought "Yeh know, the pauldron just really, really needs a complete re-design. There's no way in heck I'll be able to function with a silly fantasy shield-arm pauldron with spikes jabbing me all the time on my fightin' arm."

So now I'm just going all-out at trying different designs that will deflect attacks, be comfortable, adjust to human movement quickly and efficiently, and look good (to me). It also has to be completely original. I think that's what the armorers of old would have wanted anyway; to not only have their names and works preserved, but for innovation to continue. I'd bet they would be shocked/horrified to see the advancements in today's weaponry, and disappointed by the lack of artistic effort on ballistic vests, haha.

Actually, I think it would be just be really fun if weapons and armor would continue to be improved as if gunpowder and firearms were not invented.

Just imagine what could have been accomplished! The epic plate armor and weapons war would continue. Different melee/ranged weapons for different sorts of plate armor. Special alloys, oils, and heat-treatment. all finely crafted with etchings, embossings, and perhaps even new ways for decorating steel armor. There probably would have been major advancements in chainmail, leather treatment and cloth, too.

Or what if firearms were overlooked in favor of advancements in engineering? Pneumatic warhammers, beautifully elaborate clockwork automatons that walk cobbled kingdom streets, crossbow bolts that unfold into thousands of poisoned needles mid-air, rapid-fire trebuchets, and the armor/forces to stop those. Or how about tesla coils? Advanced research in ball lightning phenomenon, walls made of crackling electricity, weather manipulation, lightning swords, taser arrows, and soon after, plate armor that is made without iron as a base element.

I think this is where reality blends with fantasy. That's what I'm aiming for in my own armorwork, anyway.

Here's my new pauldron design.




I woke up late and was busy for the rest of the day with a Chinese holiday of sorts, so I only got a few hours to design several pauldrons until settling with this design.

I basically took the shoulder lames and flipped them vertically. The lames will be slightly wider than normal, and there will be a lot of overlapping steel, particularly at the bottom of the pauldrons, so when I raise my arm, the plates will spread like wings. They'll be articulated only by leather straps (unless I find locations to place sliding rivets). These pauldrons aren't connected to my arm in any way, but connected to my cuirass via two holes (for each pauldron) in my cloak collar.

The downside is that they'll be heavier than a normal shield-arm pauldron. That can be fixed though, I'm still designing it.

On the upside, I really cannot see how a sword or other bladed weapon can get past it. Even if a sword does manage to get past my dodging, parrying, my shield, the pauldron collar, fluting, sliding rivets and wedge between the plates, the angle will be completely wrong and the blade will glance off the chainmail covering my shoulder underneath. And then if they manage to pry the plates apart, they still have the chainmail and a layer of leather, cloth, and other armor accessories to stab through, and that's only to get at my shoulder.

By that time, I would have already poked 'em in the belly, lol. Another benefit is that the larger plate on the very end will give me an enormous amount of artistic freedom in forging something interesting.

I found out I sort of completely changed the burgonet's working functions in the previous posts. So I started over and made something that fit my designs more than an articulated mask. It should provide better defense too, since less articulation = stronger defense/less gaps.



I also played around with forge-worked designs. Some may think I'm bird-brained! Hurr hurr hurr.

Ehn, not sure about that. I think the other pauldron design was more sound -in that the articulations were laid out more properly. On the old design, you could have laid the pauldron lames out on floating leathers, and when raising your arms they would expand like a bellows. With this design, if you intend to stretch out your arms, the ends of your pauldron lames are going to have to be double or triple width on the bottom edge, so you have enough materiel to make that much expansion. And your articulations are going to be a nightmare. You'll have to use at least two sliding rivets per lame...

No, I'd recommend changing it up again. There's a reason pauldrons were designed to pivot outward from the armpit like a big knee cop, and not inward from the point of the shoulder like a folding fan.

Yeeeeaah, I guess you're right. I'm going to do more research for different pauldron styles.

Ok, here's the next pauldron design. I basically took a standard 16th century pauldron and changed the bottom lames to accommodate the thickness of both my arm and cloak. I also added steel scales that sit on top of (and are riveted to) a second layer of leather 'feathers' to smooth out the transition from steel to leather.

These feathers will be riveted to a strip of leather that will also serve as lining at the bottom lame, and a similar process will be used for the leather feathers hanging from the medallions.

It looks like it should work.



The red arrows point to the leather parts that are showing, and the face is where I might do a bit of decorative forging. Although it might look better with just etching and brasswork, and maybe a bit of gilding.

At my grandma's house, celebrating another holiday, so no updates today. I drew down a great design for the forged decor on the pauldrons on my notebook though, and I'll translate it to digital tomorrow.

Happy New Year

Year of the dragon