Ambitions of cloud...

[oloriel]

... and fingers of clay, that's me.

Originally Andie and I had planned to go to the Medieval Christmas Market in Siegburg (= larger than the one in Cologne, and free of charge even when you show up after 2 pm), but she got ill. So I was home sooner than expected.

For some reason I don't remember I still have Drachenfest coins in my pencil case, and during the not overly exciting Gothic Shakespeare lecture I not only managed to draft most of my presentation for next week but also chanced to look at those coins, and thought that I could make a nice and easy Christmas present for my brother from one of them.

My brother is also a LARPee. His character's a baronet from a Renaissance-ish fantasy realm that features in the unfinished fantasy blockbuster he is currently writing (like half the people I know, I suppose), and this Drachenfest he also became embassador for the Grey Camp (which is what we're playing, working and fighting for - shut up, Grey's totally in style).

So I figured it'd be cool if he had a Grey Camp pendant thingy for his chain of office. You know, them heavy necklace thingies that all the important people in The Tudors are wearing. That kind of thing.
There's a coin-cutting jeweller at the big Medieval Markets in summer, whose services of course I cannot really afford, but hey. All he does is take an existing coin, drill some holes in, and then with a goldsmith's saw takes all the stuff between the rim and the image out.
I do not have a goldsmith's saw, but I have a jigsaw, which is totally the same thing except perhaps more clumsy, right? And I don't really have experience with metalwork, but you get experience by trying, right?

So I spent the evening hours making a pendant for the brotherthing. I used a "copper" coin because I don't have many silvers and no golds and the copper's the most dispensable anyway. I should gild (or pseudo-gild, at any rate) it - the rest of the chain is gold, so copper would look kinda silly - but not today. I will also have to do some more fiddling with the wings and tail, but I was getting fed up with it, so I figured it would be better to put it aside before I ruined it completely in my impatience.


(The real coin's there so you can judge the size, because otherwise it'll look huge which it isn't.)

I did another pendant (not for the brotherthing) from a copper sheet we still have lying around from trying to make LARP coins ourselves. Wouldn't have used copper if I had a choice, really, but you try to get silver or gold sheets without being a jeweller and without paying a hand and a foot for it. (Oh, it's easy enough to get silver or gold-coloured metal sheets, which will in fact be aluminium and brass. At least the copper is real copper.) Because a coin is really just a round metal plate with an image on it, right? So you can as well use a blank metal plate and draw something on it and then cut it out, right?



Well, technically yes (though it was of course presumptuous to make a Feanorian pendant of all things with my poor skills). I tried this before once, years ago, and this one is at least slightly better (at least it is presentable from both sides: The one from 2007 only has one good side). \o/.

Obsessed? Me? Nevah. :p

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I like what you've done with the coin. Here in Atenveldt, when we're making fealty chains, we most often put a pendant on a mail chain. Are you proficient with 4-in-1 chain? I'm told if you make it six rings wide, and as long as you want, you can then roll that into a chain, attaching right side to left, and coming out with a nice looking necklace. Or, of course, you can do Byzantine or what have you....

I have links if you want more info.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

The links would be interesting for later (I don't think I should take the time to fiddle around with mail chain at the moment)!

I won't have to make a chain for my brother though - he already has one, so all we have to do is fix the pendant to it.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

http://artofchainmail.com/patterns/ has some stuff, which is certainly a place to start. And these guys have some fancy weaves. (http://cgmaille.com/) But the one I find myself going to more often is the Maille Artisans International League (http://mailleartisans.org/weaves/).

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

The thing about 4-in-1 is that it's dead easy. Easier than knitting. You could take a basket of links and a couple pairs of pliers to class with you, and work on a shirt for your next LARP event while you listened to lecture. You could do it while you watched television, if you watch television. It's time consuming to do a large project, but it's not mind-consuming.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*snorts* My professors really do not care whether chainmail knitting does or doesn't keep me from listening (it certainly would keep me from taking notes). Neither in this nor any other world would it be acceptable to take a basket of links with me.
And, well, I have a dozen other projects that I'm dealing with while watching tv. I'm not going to start yet another one in a hurry! ;)

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess you're probably beyond the sort of cattle call class where I've seen people knitting, doodling, or even playing video games.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Yeah - doodling may just work out, perhaps even reading non-class related books, but anything beyond that - especially anything crafty - is totally out. Alas.