Battle Armor Mark II : Phoenix Rising

This armor started out as a simple armor to test some new ideas and have it be my workhorse armor, as the mark III is an experiment in seeeing how wax and many thin coats of a painters grade wite paint will hold up. I decided it was coming out to nicely to use as my practice armor, so this armor was born.  Originaly it was going to be based off of a hussar suit i've pictures of. and i'd make pauldrons that where faces. (i've a side project of making a 'face press' for masks though due to ther nature of the trail and error process its taking more time then i have right now. ;) so I decided to take it back into a japanese design influence. working off the later periods where Japanese armorers where beng influenced by western designs in armor. this will be my interpretation of such designs. the chest plate will have a tooled patch sewn and glued to the upper chest piece with the engraved image of a phoenix in the foregrond and a rising sun in the background, using reds and golds. on the first pic here is its current progress as of 4-27-05. not pictured is the non laced sode plates. the leather under the main do plates and the one partialy done sode are of the kusazuri, tsuneate, and other pieces of the sode rig. I decided on the secondary theme of the phoenix and sun, a i wanted this suit t have a more yo (yang) look & feel to it. and The phoenix is probably one of the core stories we as humans have, and i've been feeling it lately as well. -Joe

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Directly above is a shot of the breast plate. Im sure y'all figured that out, but brains like to go through the process of labeling things ;) above left the breast back and one partial sode and to the left here are all the kosazuri plates. all the marks have been made for the lacing holes, and they await drilling, then lacquering. a wax coat has allready been applied to their backs. you can see a spot on one of the plates where i either put to much wax or the density of the leather is less and allowed the wax to soak close to the surface. (thus darkening the leather) -Joe

here we see the sode getting closer to done. the top plate is just resting up there now, later i'll drill holes and sew it tightly to the top. also are the plates for the tsuneate and hiadate. the one plate for the tsuneate i cut from a near belly section of the leather. which means its very pourus leather and you can see how because of that the wax soaked through so quickle. the tsuneate and hiadate are 10-11 oz double shoulder water and heat hardened, with one coat of wax on the back. the sode are 14-16oz sole bend hardened the same but the denser and thicker nature allows for abit more wax. once lacing holes have been drilled lhese plates will also recieve a lacquer top coat. -Joe

Here's a rough sketch of the armor -Joe