Rolling and Revision

Greetings, one and all! So… let’s see what we have this week. Well, first off, we wound up crafting entirely new ribs for the upper half of the armor. On top of several other reasons, the free-floating ones were starting to show wear and tear even before completion. Now they have the added perk of also matching the gut and back plates. Speaking of, we also added the nylon straps for fitting said plates to our actors. After that, we began the process of crafting the pauldrons, and added a coat of paint and weathering to the pendant.

Last but not least, the team returned to refreshing themselves on the finer points of stunt work, such as falling and rolling, (there may have been some back stabbing involved,) followed by a speed choreography exercise.

All in all a productive week, despite the Memorial Day weekend.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

After the Silence

Greetings, one and all! So, this has been a full week. Starting out, the back and gut plates for the armor have been finished. However, this underscored some problems with the ribs, which is leading me down a troubleshooting rabbit hole, so… fun? On top of that, the wood scales for the stunt kindjal hilts have been cut out, and now must be shaped. Also, we seem to be prototyping a medallion of sorts…

Last, but not least, the surprise...
While we had been preparing for a reunion of the stunt team, our county hitting phase one of reopening came rather suddenly. There are limitations, of course, vague terms like “local” in the reopening guidelines led us to err on the side of caution, (including things like grouping sparring partners by family or household,) but a good part of the stunt team returned this week, looking like the cheerfully aspiring minions they are.

To my great pleasure, all I had to say was “Grab your swords,” and they immediately started running through all the drilling they needed to get back up to speed after ten weeks away. They may look young, but they’re pros.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Cuirass Creation

Greetings, one and all! This week had a considerable dose of real world interruptions, but we still managed to get a fair amount of work done. Chief among our achievements is the further fleshing out of the cuirass design. After affixing the shoulder straps, we gradually built up the front and collar area. Next up, the spine and shoulder blade plates.

On top of that, we repurposed a plate intended for the gut area into a fourth “horn” on the back of the helm. The design was beginning to look a little unbalanced, otherwise. (Note: After publishing this picture, I realized I'd put the "horn" on lower than I'd planned, so it has since been cut off and moved higher.)

Last, but not least, we are beginning to look into what would be required to resume stunt meets again. Given the current state of the world, it could be a while before meet pictures appear on this blog again, but we’re preparing for the time when we can do just that.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Blades and Bands

Greetings, one and all! As mentioned last week, after all these weeks, we have finally had the opportunity to meet our team for a group video chat not once, but twice!

The first allowed everyone to catch up, but the second allowed us to beta test a new game system that’s been percolating for a while. It was good to see everyone again, even if only digitally.

In other news, we’ve shaped the stunt blades to roughly simulate their real counterparts, and also cut a slot into a PVC pipe, so it can act as the haft of the axe.

Cutting perfectly parallel lines into a round pipe is difficult with our limited tools, but we managed to rig up a jig using 1x4’s and clamps, and it turned out fairly well.
On top of all that, we’ve been working on webbing and strapping for the torso armor, trying to keep it fitted, yet flexible.

In retrospect, I probably should’ve just cut a seam in the front of the ribs, and hidden it with a plate, but I’d grown fond of the overlapping look. Odds are we may still do something like that, but time will tell…

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!