Assassin's Creed II - Ezio Gear (Primarily Leatherworking)

[Athanasios]

Sup guys and gals, welcome to this Thread. Unlike the silvery glittery threads that devour everything in their path (those who got the reference, high five yo, that's a great series!), this thread will hopefully be informative and helpful as I walk you through the creation of various pieces of gear from Ezio's outfit (AC:II), made from genuine calfskin vegetable-tanned leather. Most of the steps you should be able to do at home with some leatherworking tools, but there are a couple things you need an industrial sewing machine for. If you don't have an industrial sewing machine capable of handling ridiculously thick leather, FEAR NOT!, cause I don't either. I just go to a bag maker I know down town who does it for me for like a couple bucks.

Alright enough with the intro chit-chat let's get down to brass tacks. Or, I guess rivets, more accurately. Since we'll be using rivets, not brass tacks. Brass tacks are probably useless when working with leather. MADNESS I TELL YOU.

Anyway we're going to be making the following:

1) Ezio's Cape + Pauldron

2) Ezio's Belt + Pouches

3) Ezio's Vambrace

4) Ezio's Boot Tops

I'm still in the process of building these various pieces. So far I've finished the belt, pouches, and vambrace, and I'm almost done with the boot tops. The pauldron still needs some work but I need to machine-stitch a section of it and I'm waiting for the shops to open. They're closed until around the end of august.

Today I'll upload the progress on the belt and pouches, and maybe also the vambrace. Tomorrow I should be finished with the boot tops so I'll upload my progress there as well. And at some point I'll start uploading my progress on the pauldron and when I've finished I'll upload the rest.

Okay so let's take a look at what we'll be making.

Here's the belt:




And the vambrace:




I'll post the other pieces when they're completely finished. Obviously feel free to click on any of the images to expand them.


We'll start with the vambrace in the next post.

 

[Athanasios]

Ok so let's start with the vambrace. You'll have to bear with me here because in the heat of the moment I often forget to take pictures of some of the steps. So occasionally the pictures may jump from one step to another but I'll try to explain away the gaps.

First off, you have to measure your arm. The important measurements are the circumference of your wrist and the thickest part of your arm, and the length of the vambrace. NOT the length of your arm, although you can use that as a reference. A comfortable vambrace is short enough so that when you bend you elbow about 90-110 degrees, it's comfortable and the vambrace doesn't dig into the skin of your upper arm. If you want a long vambrace, then there will be a difference in measurement between the inner length and the outer length (the inner length is when you bend you arm 90 degrees with your palm up, from the wrist to the edge of the bicep/upper arm, and the outer length is from your wrist (on the opposite side, in other words the side facing the floor) to the edge of your elbow OR wherever you want the vambrace to end. In any case you've taken your measurements and decided how long the vambrace will be.

Next it's time to draft the pattern. The widest part of the vambrace in this particular case is about 6-8 cm shorter than the length of the thickest circumference of your arm. And the thinnest part of the vambrace will be about 3-5 cm shorter than the circumference of your wrist. That way there's some room in between the edges of the vambrace in case you want to add a hidden blade or in case you want to tighten it more/use it on someone smaller. Also it serves as a "safety" in case you accidentally make it too big. Better for it to be smaller around your arm than bigger, as with a smaller vambrace you can add longer straps, but a vambrace that's too big you'll have to make again from the beginning. Anyway these vary considerably depending on who you're making it for and how you want to make it overall.

In any case once you have the pattern, you cut out the pieces and carve some of the background details for the vambrace. The vambrace consists of two layers, one on top of the other. The outer later is thicker and smaller, and it's on this I carved the background details.

In the first picture I'm punching holes around the edge of the piece as I intend to stitch around the edge. The stitch is purely decorative and was in fact inspired by the decorative stitches on the vambraces Ezio wears in AC:Brotherhood. They serve no functional purpose whatsoever. The inner holes, the big ones, are for the rivets that will join this piece to the bottom piece.




When I had prepared the upper layer I moved on to the decorative pieces. I cut them out using patterns I took from the texture image of a 3D model of ezio I found. I sized them according to my needs, cut them out, tooled and carved them, and then dyed them brown. Once they were dyed brown I finger-brushed silver paint on top. It was essentially dry-brushing with my fingers. This was so that the paint didn't enter the creases and crevices and cracks in the leather as a result of the tooling I had done. The overall result is nice because it isn't solid silver, which gives each piece some depth and character, and makes them overall a little bit more interesting.





I prepared the next piece in much the same way, with a couple exceptions. Firstly I layered the back half. So the first picture shows the bottom piece, and then in the next photo you can see that there is also a small piece on top. Again I felt it made things more interesting and also allowed me to stitch on the decorative lace, which you can see in the 5th and 6th pictures. The second different is that I molded the "A" logo by soaking it in water and folding it down the middle so that it had a more convex shape. I tested the fit to see roughly where I would place each piece.





Before I began assembling it I prepared a second vambrace to attach below the "actual" vambrace. It's a very simple laced vambrace but I felt it would look much nicer and help to fill the dead space between the edges of the outer vambrace. I munched holes along the edges for the lace and added some eyelets. In the last picture I've pressed some of the rivets because when the decorative pieces were riveted to the outer layer they would cover/partially cover those holes and I wouldn't be able to press the rivets after that. So I pressed them before. The rest was simply a matter of positioning the decorative pieces where they belonged, punching holes in the decorative pieces and then in the upper layer of the outer vambrace, and pressing them with rivets. Once that was all ready I cut out and made the belt buckles, and sandwiched those pieces between the outer and inner layers of the outer vambrace. The inner vambrace was riveted beforehand to the bottom layer of the outer vambrace. A bit confusing, and I wish I had some pictures to illustrate what I'm trying to say, but unfortunately I forgot to take them as I was rather absorbed in this process and my concentration was focused on trying to put everything together.






The next post will showcase the finished piece. (Can't fit any more pictures here).

 

[Athanasios]

The finished piece:




SIDE NOTE: YES I KNOW I FORGOT TO PRESS ONE RIVET THERE IS A MISSING RIVET. But a kind friend immediately upon seeing it pointed it out to me, and it has since then been, er... fixed.

 

[Athanasios]

Alright so I know I haven't posted anything in ages but I figured it was probably about time I posted an update. So let's talk about the belt.



BELT


The belt itself was relatively easy. It consists of a central belt piece, which I made adjustable in the back, and a series of connected secondary belt pieces which create the unique design and from which I can hang the pouches.

Here are some pictures of the various pieces and cutting/dying them.






So looking at the picture below you can see essentially all the pieces. From left to right:

> Central Belt Pieces 1 and 2
> Secondary Belt Pieces (The pouches will hang from these pieces)
> Secondary Belt Connector Pieces. (bottom) These piece have buckles on both sides and run from the upper buckle of the insignia in the front and attach on the other side to the end of the piece I mentioned immediately above, the Secondary Belt Pieces.
> The two small strips above are half of the two Mini-Belts I use to attach the two Central Belt Pieces.
> Again the two small strips below are the other half of the Mini-Belts.
> The four rectangle pieces are used to secure the Secondary Connector Pieces to the Central Belt Pieces.
> All the various buckles.






Putting it all together:




Here you can see the final configuration. The first picture shows me attaching the Secondary Connector Belt Pieces to the Central Belt Pieces via the rectangular fasteners. The second picture shows the completed belt, prior to the insignia. The pouches are at this point ready to be threaded through the Secondary Belt Pieces. All the pouches have two loops in the back, but each Secondary Belt Piece is threaded through ONE of the loops at the back of the middle pouch, so it sits right in the middle of the back of the belt.





INSIGNIA


The insignia is a bit more complicated.



I started out with a pattern I found online, which I then modified by essentially cropping the unnecessary bits and re-scaling it (it was originally a brotherhood insignia pattern).





I traced the pattern out on the leather and cut out the base piece, upon which I will stitch all the other pieces, i.e. the leaves, central "A" insignia and the upper "crown".





I beveled the edges and then cut out all the other pieces.

I cut out and prepared the insignia piece by tooling it an then molding it so it had a more rounded structure. I cut out about 16 leaf pieces, but only ended up using 14. I tooled them to give them a more leafy appearance, and once I had cut out and tooled the crown, I dyed everything brown and put the pieces on top of each other to test what the overall look would be.




Once all the pieces were dyed brown and ready, I dry-brushed them silver. I say "dry-brushing" but really I mean finger painting. I would put a tiny amount of paint on the tip of my finger and I would quickly rub the paint on the leather. This way the paint remained mostly on the surface, and wasn't able to sink into the recesses, cuts, etc. of the leather pieces, giving each piece a very nice overall appearance and really accentuating the details and carved designs. I also punched the holes in preparation for stitching.





Thus begins the stitching process. Simply put, I began with the leaves on the edges and stitched each one to the base piece, moving up and in, layering the leaves on top of each other. Once all the leaves were stitched I stitched the insignia piece and ten attached the crown with rivets.

 

[Athanasios]

The completed Belt:

 

[Cameron1138]

That's beautiful work. Great job on making the leather insignias look like metal.

 

[Athanasios]

That's beautiful work. Great job on making the leather insignias look like metal.

Thank you sir!

 

[kialna]

I wished I could leathercraft... it looks so amazing!

 

[Athanasios]

I wished I could leathercraft... it looks so amazing!

Thank you! I'm sure you'd be able to if you tried.

 

[Mintod]

Wow...Just wow...
That is absolutely amazing!!!!
Great leather-working skills!

 

[novacat17]

Stunning work! love it!

 

[Athanasios]

Thank you very much guys!