Visual references for armor?
February 13, 2013 1:57 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for visual references for medieval / faux-medieval armor. Bonus points for something lightweight / leather and I'm really looking for rear views but anything would be useful. I've tried a bit of googling but haven't really found what I want.
posted by fearfulsymmetry to Media & Arts (8 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Maybe Pinterest can help you? Here is a search for medieval armor.
posted by rawrberry at 2:10 AM on February 13, 2013


Bibliodyssey is your friend here. I don't even dare to look there myself, because I will spend the afternoon clicking away. Highly addictive, well informed and tons of links.
posted by ouke at 2:55 AM on February 13, 2013


Try the forums at The Armour Archive. There are some fantasy-related discussions there sometimes, and I can almost guarantee that someone there can answer any questions you have, and/or point you in the right direction.
posted by Shohn at 6:57 AM on February 13, 2013


The Cleveland Museum of Art has an extensive armor collection. Try searching their online collections database here.
posted by PussKillian at 8:50 AM on February 13, 2013


Here is a link to the google image archive for Byzantine Cataphract Armor. Which could be either leather or metal plate. It is a style fairly popular in SCA and a very practical kind of armor that is fairly easy to build.
posted by bartonlong at 9:47 AM on February 13, 2013


How realistic are we talking? Here's a list of all the armor in Dark Souls, with the lightest listed first.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:54 PM on February 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Starting with books:

Do a search for Osprey and you'll find a great deal of reference for different historical periods. They make a wide variety of visual reference books for arms and armor of the medieval period (as well as many other historical periods.)

Angus McBride is one of their better artists and the link is a collection of his work. I don't own it so I can't tell you how helpful it would be.

The Medieval Soldier is a great reference, but again, might not suit what you're looking for. John Howe is one of the authors and an artist in his own right, (concept artist on the LOTR movies, among other things.) Other publications by the same group are similarly helpful. Mostly photo references here.

Web sites:

A search for Medieval Reenactment will turn up some costume and armor sites. Firestryker has a forum on Arms and Armor, as does myArmoury.com, (mostly about arms, but still.)

Some terms that might help your search: gambeson, padded jak, cuirboulli, coat of plates, brigandine.

Those are forms of light medieval armor (read: not plate, not mail) that might suit your purposes.

Software:

Have you considered using a video game? Using something like Skyrim, for example, you could create a character and use the console commands to equip your character with any armor in the game, or any armor from the mod community. The Thieves Guild Armor is probably their most atypical leather armor.

Another option would be to use Poser and find armor on their Marketplace site.
posted by zueod at 6:18 PM on February 13, 2013


Response by poster: Thanks for all of those... it's a for a project I've got coming up in a couple of weeks, so I'll be back to check them out then (and do like faves and that, may be)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:53 AM on February 18, 2013


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