Witcher Mastercrafted Bear

[Redanthalas]

Hi, My first post here, so hopefully I won´t screw it up, please excuse bad photo quality, I don´t have a very good camera and my spelling and grammar, English is a second language for me. Nevertheless, here we go.

This is a build I started working on pretty recently, like a month ago. I wan´t sure what version of the armor too pick. I liked the concept art more than the in game build, but since I had a large piece of mail, I wanted to utilize it. I also didn´t like the colors on the concept art all that much and the scarf on the in game version hides the medallion... Long story short, I decided to mash the two up.


So I took apart some old chainmail vest I had, and stock up on cardboard, sheets of steel, lot of leather and some linen cloth.

After that I had to decide with what to fill the gambeson with, since I was mostly out of woolen blankets, that are ideal for the job. There thankfully was a discount on cotton towels in a shop nearby, so I went with those for the sleeves. As for the torso and legs, I combined the towels with some military blanket. I used pattern I had left from time I was making a surcotte, and it seems to work pretty well, but I´ll see how it turns out in the end.

Then there were the plates. I used cardboard to get the patterns for those, than drew them on 1mm thick sheet of steel and cut them out. I shaped them using a mallet, a hammer and an anvil, then reinforced those armor pieces by folding the edges. I gave them just a rough polish (so don´t worry about the weird shine they have on the photos, it´s temporary), I´ll be threating them with acid, to get the right mattness they have in the game and maybe I´ll etch some text on the rims, in the font they use in the games.

It was time to create the most significant part of any witcher costume-his medallion. I was thinking about making a griffin or a bear, thus making an original character, but a friend of mine is about to cosplay Triss and was hoping for a mutual RP. So Geralt it was. I didn´t like the medallion design from the games, so i decided to play with it a little. What a horrible idea, as you´ll clearly see in a moment, I´m a lousy sculpturer, so the wolf turned out to be more of a fox. I made the model from bee wax, than made a mold from plaster, and casted the piece wit an alloy of tin (Sn), lead (Pb) and a little bit of silver (Ag), so I can truly claim it to be quite authentic (all those metals were available in the late middle ages Witcher is based on, and there is a good explanation why it wouldn´t be pure silver, just bit lengthy, so ask, if you´re interested). And that´s about where I´m now.

I´f anyone´s interested, I´ll keep you updated on how the work continues, if you have any advise, or suggestions, go ahead and voice them, but wait with critics until it´s complete, please.
By the way, thx for reading all that. Upcoming post are going to be a bit shorter.

 

[Gee2]

So I just started playing Witcher 3 last week and love the game at this point. Gotta say it's good to see some costume showing up, really great start on your rendition, look forward to more updates.

 

[Glaedr304]

definitely subscribing, I love the witcher franchise, I want to see more here.

 

[Redanthalas]

Fine, the basic gambeson is finished, pretty light, since it´s only for cosplay and LARPs. It is stuffed with cotton towels and military blanket. First I´ll show how I´ve made the stuffing on the example of a sleeve. Hopefully someone will find this little "tutorial" helpful.
So, cut the towels using a pattern, in the same size you´d use if you were sewing just a simple jacket with one layer of cloth. Then cut the same pattern, only bigger, from a nonstretching cloth. (Some durable cotton in this case)

Fold the larger piece of cloth over the rims of the stuffing and sew it together. This creates a plate of padding, which is easy to manipulate and work with. Put this plate on two layers of cloth that are going to be the coating of the gambeson, in this case brown on top and white on the inside. Draw an exact line around the plate, and than sew the coating together following the line, but leaving a small opening. This forms a sort of "pillow case" for the stuffing.

After that you turn the case inside out (although here I left the whole sides as the opening, since you can later use the unturned rim for easier sewing together of the final piece) and put the padding inside, making sure that it´s evenly spread (mind the corners, they can be tricky) than use pins to hold it in place. Close the opening you used to get the padding inside. (Here I sew directly at the edges of the plate). Than draw the pattern of stitching, here it´s simple lines, another popular design are squares, but you can use almost anything that comes to your mind- circles, vegetation, spirals... Go nuts. Just mind, that more complex pattern means more work stitching it. Than simply sew along the lines of your pattern and you have got yourself a piece of gambeson. Make the other parts, stitch them together, and you have yourself a functional armor, how much functional depends on the amount of layers of padding inside, but 2-3 of towels or heavier blankets for the sleeves, and 3-4 for torso, should be ideal for LARPing or cosplaying. Not too thin not to work and not to look reasonable, and not too thick, so it doesn´t make you look too fat. Also not all that warm.


Here´s the gambeson I made for this cosplay. Again, sorry for the photo quality... :/ I´ll play around with the color and patina to make it look more natural and worn. Same for the bracers. Than I´ll attach the mail armor, my next update will probably be about that. Than the little vest and the main parts are done, so I´ll go for all the accessories after that. Already got in mind a belt with bear head shaped rivets, and a Ursine silver sword, so stay tuned.

 

[Redanthalas]

A real quick update- unpolished, freshly casted ornaments for the belt, I did not went with flowers, that are on the original design, but instead decided on little bear heads, although, as i´ve said, I´m a crappy sculturer, so it´s doesn´t resemble a bear all that much. It´s tin, and about 4cm in diameter.

 

[Redanthalas]

I´ve decided to make a better looking amulet.

And attached the chainmail on the gambeson, and put leather on the rims as well. I still have to attach the shoulders properly and finish the vest to complete the main part..

 

[Redanthalas]

Basically, it´s coming together nicely, but there´s still a bunch of stuff to finish on this. The silver sword has a LARP blade and the temerian steel is legit.


I made the pommel for the silver sword shaped like Cthulhu, because who wouldn´t like a little witcher/Lovecraftian crossover. Here´s the model.

 

[Redanthalas]

So, it´s mostly finished now, in the end I decided to follow the game´s design more closely, so there´s only the cape, one scabbard, gloves and general color toning left to do.