Paladin Body Armor Update

My plans are evolving since my last post about body armor. I now have 3 potential options,

Modify

I recently picked up this leather jerkin from Kult of Athena.

It is a nice, light leather. I'm toying with riveting leather plates underneath to create a brigandine.

I'm not sure I want to risk ruining it, though.

Make

I'm still considering making a brigandine from scratch.

I gave up on the Simplicity vest pattern, which I mentioned in my previous post. While I like the overall look, the pattern was too complicated for me.

Instead, I used a tabard to create a mock-up in canvas.

For the real thing, I'm considering dureasuede. It comes in 58" widths and sold by the yard. One yard should suffice for a brigandine shell.

Fake

Another option I mentioned before was to create a leather cuirass and then add rivets to make it look like a brigandine. That might be the easiest to do. 

I can use the pattern from my faux lamellar.

I will modify the cut a bit and fasten the pieces together with rivets instead of cord.

Which One?

Right now, I still lean on modifying the jerkin from KoA. But at some point, I may try all 3 methods, looking for the easiest and cheapest.

Paladin Leg Armor

A bit late with this, but let me finish out my paladin series with leg armor.

I have a set of greaves from Red Dragon Armoury (also available from Medieval Collectibles)

They are serviceable, but I would also like knee protection.

Wyrmwick has a nice pair.

The Huscarl greaves from MC could also work. I would likely repaint them in silver.

Anyway, no need for a change anytime soon. As I said, my current greaves are serviceable.

Paladin Arm Armor

Let's talk about arms.

If you look at my model image, he has full plate arms.

I could do that, in either leather or plastic. In fact, Wyrmwick has some really nice (albeit pricey) ones.

But, I don't really want vambraces (lower arms). I have gloves that I like and I want to keep them. If I wear vambraces, I need to either

• wear them under the glove cuffs, in which case they are not visible and kind of useless, or
• wear them over the glove, but then I have to remove them to remove the gloves.

I'm toying with the idea of making some upper arm armor out of leather. The pauldrons and upper arms don't look too complicated. I already made a nice prototype out of cardboard. Elbows are another story - very complicated.

After some thought, I'm just going to wear my Red Dragon pauldrons.

Paladin Body Armor

Next, I turn to body armor.

The ideal armor for a crusader look would be chainmail. I just don't want to wear chain because of the weight and it messes up any clothes underneath. Sure, I could wear a gambeson, but I want to reduce layers.

Another option is a cuirass. I actually have a plastic one - the Red Dragon knight errant cuirass.

I just find it a bit bulky.

I then started thinking about an armored surcoat, like this. If you look closely, you can see that the surcoat body has squares. These are plates (presumably sewn in).

I could take a surcoat or tabard and rivet plates to the inside. That may not be very versatile, though.

Instead, I thought about a generic, leather, front-opening brigandine. I could always toss a tabard over it.

One issue I've always had with a brigandine is the outer shell. I like the look of cloth brigs, but I don't sew. That drastically limits me. So I finally decided to make the brig entirely from leather. I would use 2-3 oz leather for the outer shell and 8-9 oz leather for the plates. I started pricing it out and had a shock - the 2-3 oz and the 8-9 oz were pricier than 9-10 oz! And I'd have to buy double the amount.

So then I decided to make a faux brigandine using 9-10 oz leather. There would be no plates. I would just make a cuirass and then put a bunch of rivets in it so it looked like brig. Basically, I'm making studded leather.

Now, I need a pattern. There are brig patterns online, like Armour Archive, but they are mostly for the plates. I need one for the outer layer. The outer layer is basically a vest, so I started researching vest patterns.

I found one from Simplicity, The bottom right one seems like it could work.

I ordered the pattern and am waiting for it to arrive.

A Paladin Helmet

As I mentioned, I want an open-faced helmet. There are a few reasons:

• It's easier to see
• It's easier to breathe
• It's easier to wear glasses.

Unfortunately, my Red Dragon sallet does not fit. Otherwise, it would work fine.

I missed out on a nice conical helmet from Norton. I posted this back in 2019. It would be perfect, but Norton no longer sells to the general public.

Wyrmwick has a nut helmet that would also be perfect. But it is large and it ships from England. I'm not sure that I want to shell out the money for something that may not fit.

I thought about the Nordic helmet from Medieval Collectibles/Dark Knight Armory. But it looks more Dark Ages.

Now I’m thinking I could modify this barbarian helmet. I could remove the cheek pieces, sand down the sides so they look less rough, and then repaint it. It is out of stock now

I'm still pondering. Feel free to chime in.

Paladin Kit 2026

 I’ve been down this road before. Once again, I find myself looking into a paladin kit.

Why?

I started ruminating about it after I played the villainous Ser Guy during an event. I kind of like the look. Also, I think the tabard over a shirt is actually cooler than my Legion tunic.

Inspiration

My immediate inspiration for a LARP paladin is a crusader. But this can cover a lot of ground. Let’s look into specifics.

• I’d like an open-faced helmet
• I’d rather not wear metal armor – either chainmail of plate. Plastic or leather is fine.

I used AI to concoct a basic model.

This model wears chainmail, but I’ll discuss substitutes.

I am going to create separate posts to evaluate each component.

• Helmet
• Body Armor
• Arms
• Legs

New Shoes!

I finally picked up some shoes that look better for LARP.

They are chukka boots from Amazon.

They're not authentic but they'll look good enough from several feet away. And they were on sale for $26!