Hey- Ohhhhhh
Wow, I can barely take all this in
It's too many colors, right? What's that? Too many colors. Too many color and too many gauntlets! Do you have-
Lot more than when you saw last time
Wow, I can't even take this in how beautiful this is. Can you guess which ones are yours? Huh!
I'm actually thinking maybe what's that to Paris two pairs Oh
On the end are the biggest ones, okay?
But I have no you tell me
Medium
These aren't these are mediums
This is medium enlarge. I drew it. I did a medium and large because your hand was kind of in between my sizing
Okay, so I'm like, you know what?
I'm gonna I'm gonna see how this works out and I thought would be easier and more interesting to show something that was on the
Verge of looking kind of traditional but not like this
Yeah, and or like my first pair of gauntlets and also something a little bit more fancy
Because it was right there. You can see how they color shift and this one's a bit more intense
These two are much more flamboyant and you're doing this in your shop this coloring. Yeah
This is it comes out like this as a cast really. Yeah, it pulls out like that and
All I do is a simple trim with scissors
Is it starting to become apparent as you show this to other makers how radical the work you're doing is I found out when I
Was in LA two weeks ago. I
was like I just want to do something cool and and we had some martial artists like we had 2x Power Rangers and
another actor in Supernatural he they were like pertaining to fight in it a little bit last week and
I'm quite as working by the flexibility. Yeah, I was working with a musician. She was playing around with it on the piano
We wanted to see how that was going
But as you know, it's also modular. So there's a whole lot going on here. It's this is how it looks as a whole
Um, you got a little glimpse of it. Actually it was still in a very very early prototype stage
So when you were playing with it?
It was a beginning of October. Yeah, I didn't make any size beyond smaller
Right. So that's the result of it. That's a walk me through the walk me through the pieces
It's an it's such an incredible achievement the color variants the the depth of the color the fact that you're casting like this and also
I mean we weren't filming when I saw you in New York, but you're doing this all in
Effectively a small office and my sister helped me
my sister Fionna she helped to do all the casting and she actually was the one that chose the
The color selection because I'm like, I like silver and gold and she's like you're boring
And there's lots of casting like tutorials on YouTube and stuff like that, but you're doing this in a fundamentally
Totally different way as you know
I only had small molds and they're in each and every single plate
It has its own support jacket great, right and you how are you making those jackets?
Yeah, so all my support jackets are 3d printed to help me save on silicone
so when you make the silicone your 3d printing a jacket and you have a 3d printed part and you're just pouring a
very small amount of silicone in between but yes, usually I measure I measure I designed the models the the support jackets to
be
About eight to ten millimeters away from the the master copy of the the the gauntlet piece
So you're using just like a couple of dollars or at the silicone I make this super efficient
How are you with these super thin jacket molds? How are you getting rid of air bubbles?
When you pour your these are these are very flexible resins. What is this material?
This is a task 16 smooth on resin and you have lots of sizes to it to make it flexible
So that material itself is is impact resistant. It's pretty tear resistant
I'm still working on making a good-enough finish to help protect it a little more but for the most part this would
Have you been to Vasquez rocks? Yes
well
They were all the guys they were climbing up in
Seoul and these pieces and they were like
Holding swords and guns like they're holding real weapons and just kind of fling you and about and this is the condition they're in right
Now that's my but you see there's a little bit scuffed but they did they also
Did a great job and like really taking care of it too and I appreciate that. So you look it's a little little worn
I think of that as scuff you haven't seen a prop after it's been
Things get very abused in filming. That's it
There's always something that can make it better
But and I want to be able to to make it really shine a lot more a lot more. Yeah
Your ambition is amazing. Ok. So then once you have these, how are you attaching these all together these are these are
Duty, oh my gosh, you've got the rivets molded in. Yes
So these are all integrated rivet designs
Yes, that's mechanically very close to a real gauntlet, yeah, I do work with an armor consultant an educator
His name is Ian Lavina. He's he's amazing and he was able to send me a lot of
Documents to help me understand the inner workings and designs of gauntlets and specifically 15th century gothic style gauntlets
Which are my favorite and specifically so that they have all movements again see here rotational
It doesn't so even if this was my original design before I used the the rubber
Was in a much harder resin and it could still you know articulate right fairly well
But uh, it was when I was talking to the actors the the martial artists
One of them he asked
Well, I want to make I want to be able to do backflips
and I was like
My rivets are gonna pop out
Because it's gonna pull out of these resins because of the resins. Are they hold up well,
But I didn't want to risk I didn't want to risk it and then that's when I thought you know
I'm gonna integrate the rivets design into it because I think even if you tug at it, it's it's it's
Given it its are already pretty good with articulation, but a little bit more doesn't hurt. Right, right? Yeah
Okay, so imagine if you're doing a flip, you know this right? No, I know they're gonna have to crazy
Is this lighting underneath here? Yeah, you wanna you want to turn this one on Yeah right here
Switch it
You'll see a red one, yeah. Oh
Look at that
So you see it's kind of fallen out good. But cuz again, there are a lot of
It's been a lot of beta testing. Yeah
But you see there
Gorgeous you hold it here. I
Love the alternative future you've seen for Armour in your head
Do I you saw how the LEDs go in the right? You can just yank it out. Oh my gosh
These are just little Christmas lights. Yeah, that's I
Love the low impact solutions, but it's nice and flush comfortable enough, you know
No hot gluing tons of like LEDs or soldering another replacing them or they're very easy to replace. Yeah, okay
I've gotta try these on okay. Let's try the mediums first
Are you building these gloves from scratch - no, I am working on
Improving that that part of it so it's not too bad if that's one of the final stuff look at that
So you can imagine fingers are already very difficult all our fingers shapes
I mean if you looked at both of ours, yeah, I mean we can't
Custom making that sort of stuff is insane. Yeah
Um, so yeah
It's not gonna be a perfect fit but it's it's close enough it really it looks I hope looks pretty good. It does
There's a way in which the shininess sort of takes your eye away from the fact that it's flexing
It ends up just feelings more solid. You're it's a like a little bit of like a misdirection than an optical illusion
You know, you want to see my favorite pose when I do these things. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's always about the poetry. Yeah
yeah, my favorite thing to do is um
Can you go like this, yeah
All right, I want to try on the largest
This is this thing tonight, but I feel like it is just a tiny bit small
This is the small and the the medium and now you want to put in a large it fits like a glove
like a leather glove I
Love how that fingertips look a little like sharks. Yeah, they really didn't like
If you want we just I would you know what,
I totally want to rock this just to like a fancy dress party, but don't forget. This is modular. Yes. Oh
Look at that
But if you look at the color the color shift in this one
Yeah, there's a lot of purple in there that's happening. Am I right? So even though you see it's very flexible
It's flexing a bit too much but I think it's it's a it's a minor issue if we're the comfort that you also get
even if it wasn't a harder resin, it would still pretty be pretty good but
Look look they've been you know
This is you have to balance that flexibility with the with the look and I think you really have done it
I mean it there's a lot more flexibility than even the audience can see
alright
I think these look much harder and until you realize how
How much how much this is super super flexible. All right, I love tapping. I love tapping the table with it
What unbelievable thing you've done oh
My god, I need a sword anything. All right
Yeah, that's how it should be and no loss of I
Know it's very sharp. Oh
Look at that. It's like it's fulfilling its purpose
Do you want to see them taking apart? Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, Oh fabulous. So let's start out
You see this?
So and that's it
so these rivets are just you you've cast into them these little tabs here and
That matches up with this and that's enough tensile strength to hold it all together
yeah, I bet it'd still be super flexible because I wanted people to really have like that that
range
Have a greater range of use for these things. There's a lot of people think oh armor great costume and everything, but I
Love how fashionable they look right - I could throw on my coat to show you just what it might look like
Yeah, really quickly. Yeah, these are the gauntlet cuff links
That you can do oh
Look at you. I just thought was kind of cute. I thought this all the way through as a fashion accessory
Yeah, I thought it was really cute
See, this is a my little armors mark that done on both. It's a em
They're the
Specular
Aspect is really awesome. That purple is just great. It feels very magical. So I'm gonna join you wear these
Countless
But you can see the very different feel when you wear it with maybe of something more modern right right, let me see this coat
You're totally pulling that off
I've been told this looks very, New York
Especially the brass zipper with the with the brass pants. So I feel like I'm like a boss magazine
That's my fix my cuffs but you can see if it pops out you don't want
Think that doesn't look this nice right now. So you have the cuff
You need the cuff link the cuff link that looks a little bit nicer
But you
See this one. I thought it was interesting. This is marks
But if you pull this off and put a like with a lighter jacket with a motorcycle
I thought that would be kind of fun. Really fun
Not too flamboyant won't draw too much attention
If I gotta draw a fair amount of attention that one that one not too much compared to what you're working. Absolutely. Yeah, I
Just can't believe how
how
really otherworldly this feels
You know this one I love the color the way it's just between Gold's green. Mm-hmm
And this one if you hold it in different lighting, it looks more silver like in very overcast weather
Right, but right now looks very green because we have a lot of warm light
Mm-hmm passing verses the very very strong color shifting. You see here
This one's more interesting when you just bring in two different different kinds of lighting
I can't believe how much color you're also getting into the casting material, but this isn't a paint treatment
Yeah
You can also compare it from the very first pair just how they fall
It was a huge amount of work learning how they are constructed since you can see they're all these are all actually riveted
But this is my very first pair from the sovereign armor, which you saw a year ago
Yeah
And this is all glued on with like hot glue and he's a thousand
But you can see it if you look at your own hand. Mm-hmm, if you look at mine the way they fall
This this looks much more like yeah much more like a hand and this looks like something that was slapped onto a glove with glue
and that's I think the difference with understanding the
armor articulation ribbiting and I am
Engineering behind it and I really appreciate the the armor folks the community that have been so generous with their knowledge, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's I mean the thing is is that we think of you know
There's that myth that a knight and armor was an inflexible thing and that is nothing could be farther from the truth
Yeah
I had
So much ability to move him if it was fitted to you and even though it was like 70 kilos if it's fitted to you
And distributed across your whole body. It's much more much more wearable than we realized
I mean my friend in the one who helped me. He actually consulted helped me
Understand a lot about armor with the sovereign armor. Yeah
he actually has a demonstration video where he
Goes around jumps around does push-ups in his full so he actually has a full suit because he's a reenactor, right?
So his armor is uh, you know, beautiful piece of work. He jogs did push-ups. He did pull-ups like
It was all of it fine. I think it was fine. Amazing
Thank you
Have fun. Yes. Oh, I will I ain't gonna figure out it I'm definitely wearing these to a party
But uh
next is a
the other armor components
the rest of it
The parts. I think that people I want men and women to feel like this is something they that we can all enjoy
um
Cuz I actually originally made these because I couldn't find something that would fit me right and allow the options out
There were massive just massive pieces of metal, which is fine. Yeah, but not everyone wants to wear
Just really metal things like a fashion. Gorget. Yeah
And the some pauldrons that are detachable that maybe can fit on like a nice blazer or shirt
Just something fun that can be used all and maybe all different types of performances or just for fun
Yeah, because we all like to play
percentage
Or are you just wearing it is just kind of fun and
The next is like probably I mean I'm always interested in making another full suit of armor, but
Just some of my favorite pieces are really the pauldrons Boulder's
Or J and everything this the helmets if I can make them
Double as a mask and a helmet to really give people more options and I really like having that that versatility right options
Yeah, because we didn't as a woman I could not find options. I mean
There were not
I will tell you I have
noticed because I keep tabs on what people are making on Etsy and I have noticed over the past year a
significant shift in armor to wear now
there's a ton of lady armor on Etsy and I find that really I'm so glad because
It's just like it's a it's a totally different area and the designs are are
Really busting out of what has normally been a very traditionally male
Centered sphere and I just think it's you know, it's only them it's only for the better
Yeah, and I feel like it understanding the research. It's it's also a
Really great thing to have much more well informed design
that really
increases a range of like the possibilities
Yeah, cuz I feel like if you understand how things are working, then you can know how you can change it, right?
Your fidelity to the original mechanics and engineering of these problems that were solved 500 years ago
And then we can do all these color options and the nice thing is you can see here
This is the alternative design you can swap out
Oh look at that so you can right right right away from that super ornate to a slightly more ya traditional sort of fluting
okay, I did a lot more fluting on this but
This is very this is much more like the traditional gothic
15th century gothic style gauntlet versus something. That's much more luma clustered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You must have really liked the Dracula armor
Yeah
How'd you know?
Yeah, I loved that and you can see this here
You can pop out the felt the the panels that help diffuse the light
So then maybe you have a really nice church for anymore
If you have a really nice shirt, you know, you can just oh, yes. Keep that under there
So nothing is permanently attached on these things aside from the stitching
So these are all hand stitched on finger leathers. The finger plates are all stitch on and you can see
That's they've been these feel I could wear these all night. And you know, there's just no no inhibition of my movement whatsoever. I
Love me
if you're thinking about this all the way through into
into fashion and every date where that is that is that speaks deeply to my love of
the fact that all of our clothing is costume, but also think about a
Performer, let's say if they're singing with a microphone
I mean we are we are so expressive with our hands the way we move the way maybe think of an opera singer
or someone who's just holding a mic or you know, I feel like that possibilities are endless and
Why not look better while doing it? Hey
Melissa you have made my week. You made my month with these these are so beautiful. Thank you fist bump
You