Monday, September 17, 2012

Ideas for making Faramir's Quiver, Pants, Shirt, and Bow...

FURTHER IDEAS


Quilted Shirt
Cotton or linen. Use batting of some natural sort in sleeves? high cut mandarin collar like neck, split and laced up at front. Make sure to make the roomy, gussety sleeves.

 Josh thinks the lacing all the way up under the arms may be overkill. I want to lace from the elbow to the wrist though...kind of like the buttons on a cotehardie. I like how it comes down and covers the back of his hand.





 
Belt
Buy beat up real leather belts at thrift stores, keep my eyes open :)

Pants
Simple, if I can learn to make a good fitting pants for active wear on Josh. Just need to use a decent all natural fiber, cotton or linen. (I don't think I'll make him suffer in wool pants).

Vambrances
Possibly make this out of black leather? Depending on the after-shooting coloring of the film, the vambrances can look anywhere from brown to grey to brown-black.







Also, I suspect the shade varied a little on the multiple makings of it.

pictures from here http://www.alleycatscratch.com/lotr/Things/GonVambrace.htm
and here
http://www.alleycatscratch.com/lotr/Human/Faramir/FRanger.htm
and here
http://www.gryphonsmith.com/fileg/toronto/gondor/Faramir.html

 I think black vambrances look very Gondor-ish. Leather on Leather. Buckles from somewhere....no clue. I think I might try to use my brother's wood burning iron on the leather to tool it (I think thats what entropyhouse did http://entropyhouse.com/penwiper/costumes/faramir.html  they look pretty awesome)
From the alleyscratch pictures of Boromir's it seems that the top diamond part is blacker, with quilted softer leather beneath. I think I would make the quilted part out of canvas or something, I'm not quite that good to quilt leather yet...
I'd scrounge buckles off belts or something.
This being a more armor like project, I feel Elijah's input or Josh's would be valuable here, I may end up on arador.com...
I need to learn how to tool leather, but cheaply, and with already finished leather (the old motorcycle coats). My sister says she found a comparitively cheap seller of new leather on etsy, if it was just for the vambrances perhaps I could splurge on new leather.



Quiver
necessary. Perhaps make the quiver straps from a couple belts and a cloth covered something? Or leather covered something? I don't want just a costume level, cardboard covered something. I want something that will survive all night in the woods, in the rain....
Here's a tutorial for one from a PVC pipe
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Hunter-Quiver/?ALLSTEPS
few instructions for a cloth one  http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Quiver-for-Arrows
but I kinda want to make one Faramir might have owned....
From the pictures I've scrounged (alleyscratch and the gryphonsmith website mention earlier), its kind of hard to tell whats going on




It seems like some kind of weathered green leather with gold(?) trim on it, as a case, with an open hole on it, in which a cloth bag for the actual arrows is inserted.
Here are some general 'medieval looking' quivers pulled off the internet (their website is in the screen shot)

So it looks like a rectangle of leather, folded around some kind of cylindrical frame, with a belt attached.
Then there's this one, less bag like, more cylindrical

Right now I am leaning toward making something more along the lines of the rectangular leather bag like one, of some weathered brown leather, with perhaps some tree of Gondor faded on it. The shape looks more 'authentic' to me somehow, even though I know its not historical or anything. Faramir's quiver in the movie seems to me too open, just a holder for the canvas bag. I don't know, I'll get Josh's feedback on this, I am sure he has preferences about this sort of thing.

Boots

Must have. There's our engagement pictures with Josh in an Elven cloak, and his sneakers sticking out at the bottom somehow detract from the impression :)
I could make moccasin boots like my extremely talented sister, but I want something Josh can go through the woods in, something with tough soles. I saw a beautiful pair of knee high leather boots with buckles that a stylish girl was wearing. I wish they made those things for men, but cool, not cute....
All the LARP/SCA boots I've seen on the internet are either cartoonish or way out of my price range.
I want something with decent (preferably modern rubber) soles, sturdy base, and come up almost to the knee. I have a few options here
  1. Make boots from scratch. Its been done by SCA types before, and they have tutorials. Drawbacks, its probably expensive and requires a lot of practice.
  2. Buy them. Look through discount shoe stores, Thrift stores, etc. and pray for Ranger boots.
  3. Something between the two. Find decent men's leather boots, and possibly extend them somehow up higher to the knee with more leather, and put on decorative leather lacing....or really any buckled brown leather boots that were tall enough would work...
We'll see what I can find and learn to do...


BOW AND ARROWS
These are so important. For just walking around, a decent fresh bit of oiled wood from the forest with some twine on it can shoot arrows through pizza boxes (as Elijah has shown), but something with beauty, and with true aim.... Perhaps I can start learning from Elijah now, and over time make something really bow worthy. Perhaps a good long bow (or recurve??) might be worth paying good money for. We'll see.
I DEFINITELY want to learn how to make arrows. If Robin Hood could do it at 13, if all those hunters in the middle ages made them at home, I think I can learn how to as well, with dowels from Lowes, and feathers (I'll never forget trying to carry home a dead bird because Elijah wanted to use the feathers for his arrows...) bought in bulk (Bekah got a bunch for Micah's Hussar outfit) and the arrowheads....we'll see. Elijah made his from tin cans. They're functional (to kill pizza boxes) but not beautiful. Maybe I can find someone who sells arroheads. Maybe I can make arrowheads one day...I always wanted to smelt metal :)
If I'll ever be any good at archery, I need to make my own arrows anyway, eventually...

But for now, we could just get a reasonably priced modern set, and try to paint them so they wouldn't be bright orange, etc.





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