Armour Making

Armor is an indispensable defensive device in ancient wars. I have great interest in it since I was a little kid. Now I have designed and restored an ancient armor system by adding some modern aesthetic elements.

After doing research on ancient armors in Chinese and foreign history, I designed a 13-hole plate for my armor, and send the design to a PUNCH METAL factory to have pieces made.It's made of steel plate.

I tried using different materials to connect the plates, and finally decited to use Lynon boot laces, because the size is suitable for the holes and they are durable.

In the making of the arm defences, the edges of each plate are overlapped from the middle to both sides, and the number of plate diminishes from the shoulder down to the arms.

I designed a leather lining for the shouder part, which can distribute the weight of the whole armor, and make it more stable and comfortable when wearing it

I used a kind of machenic device (see the photo) to bend each plate to form different curves, serving the purpose of the collar part.

The back of the armor is carefully designed to have a slim shape which embodied the modern aesthetic effect

When the waist part was finished, I started to make the lower part of the armor in a enlarged way

I used genuine leather to make the belt and the attached leather boxes. On the belt, I nailed some copper dots to produce shining effects, which was based on the research on the armor belts from Chinese Liao, Jin Periods and Yuan Dynasty.

The lower arm defences were made of genuine leather, carving pattern and then dye black.

I used a sword in Tang Dynasty style for my armor system, while the shell of the sword is in Japanese style. The shell was painted by using Japanese Maki-e technique, adding some gold powder into the refined Chinese lacquer paint. When the paint got dried, I hand glassed the sword shell. The pattern of the cotton belt is similiar to the belt of the sword from Tang Dynasty collected in Shosoin of Japan.

The archery system is in Tibetan style.

There are holes in the inside of the arrow case which are made of leather belts to fix the arrows when putting inside.