Torso-covering or body armour can be part and parcel of a larger suit of armour. I have made full matched sets, and standalone items to suit many clients. Examples of my work at this scale are found below.

Winged Vengeance

‘Winged Vengeance’ is a character designed by Keith Thompson, whose design was used with the permission of the artist. I replicated her main armour and wings (!) as closely as I could with a view to taking the entire rig on a plane to Venice, Italy. And I made it all in two weeks, with whatever I had to hand. Given that, I am extremely delighted with how she turned out and her reception in Venice was marvelous. 

The armour set consists of a belt with hanging strap-tassets and a fabric skirt, a torso piece with guard-collar and attached upper arm guards, lower leg guards, and a waist sash. And of course, the SIX METRE WINGS made from a combination of chiffon, cotton, mop handles (no, really), and fibreglass/plastic rods. 

As this character is the property of Keith Thompson I am not going to make another Winged Vengeance to commission, though I plan to re-visit her design and finish off the pieces I never managed to make from her original artwork.

‘Night’ Mage Armour

I adore making ‘Mage Armour’ because it is typically brightly coloured and allows me to have fun with gradient hand-dye work and tooling. The blue and black set pictured above was made in 2014 and designed to look like a dragon (the middle tasset at the back is a dragon tail!). Ah, I remember when it was new, and not muddy. That set is still in use with many in-character revisions and additions!

Each set is patterned to fit and can include tassets, shoulder pieces, wide belts, etc. Please get in contact if you would like to commission a set.

Rogue Jerkins

Rogue Jerkins are soft and flexible but don’t skip out on protection or warmth. They are made from two layers of leather with multiple layers of padding sandwiched between them and held in place with hundreds of rivets. They are some hybrid of the ‘studded leather’ D&D / LARP armour type, and Brigandine which ‘studded leather’ was based on!

Perfect for Absolutely Legitimate Types, these jerkins are fitted to size and typically have buckles on the upper shoulders, and lacing down the edges. I can alter the fastenings/fixings to whatever is convenient for you. The black-blue version pictured has extra eyelets added in order to lace pouches and belts directly onto the jerkin. 

Caius Armour

Romanesque armour based on the armour worn by Tom Hiddleston in his portrayal of Caius Marcius in Coriolanus (Shakespeare) at the Donmar Warehouse in their 2013 production.

I loved the organic shaping of the Coriolanus armour and how it looked more like a rib cage than the Roman segmentata. I needed armour to suit a light and fast fighting style, without the shoulder guards as it was to be used with a bow and arrows (standard segmentata kept catching on my bow string). This set fastens with two buckles at the upper front, adjusts at the shoulders, and laces at the lower front/sides. The ‘rib’ sections are hung in overlapping rows from the upper chest piece.

The whole set is made from thick 3-4mm veg-tan which was dyed a deep mix of reds, blacks, and dark browns. I wanted this armour to look powerful and almost visceral under the fur mantle that it was worn with. It became a signature piece for the character and to this date is one of my favourite pieces.

Non-Leather Armours

I will work with non-leather products for armour at request! The above set was made entirely of synthetic leather products and medal fittings, and was animal-product free at the request of the client. In general I will prefer to substitute a heavy natural fiber fabric for the leather, detailed and painted to match, however I will use plastic-based fake leathers if asked.