This is scale armor. It's a bit tricky, but once you get the trick of it, it's easy, addictive, and very, very shiny. I used small anodized aluminum scales from The Ringlord, and used one of the Ringlord's training videos to help me figure it out. What the video does not make explicitly clear is that there is only one correct way to join two scales together. The ring needs to go behind the top scale, in front of the bottom scale (the one you are attaching), and be on the correct side of the bottom scale.
This piece contains about one hundred scales. It's just bigger than my palm.
I decided to use two colors because I thought they would be pretty, but this idea is actually a really good way to help learn how to do it. Each row is either blue or green, and since the rows overlap, the different colors make it easier to tell which row you're working on, and which scales to be putting rings through.
(this picture should be landscape, not portrait, but I cannot figure out how to convince Blogger of this.)
The scale fabric is wonderfully fun to play with. It's a tactile thing: the feel of the scale fabric, and the way it moves and drapes and just looks awesome. This is not just my opinion. I showed my scale armor to several friends, and each one had to play with it for several minutes before they would let the next person look at it.
This is my second piece. I worked on this for about forty minutes. (I know because I watched Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour while I made this. I figure the times I paused because I was figuring out a tricky bit cancel out the times I was just watching).
I think I need more scales now. Off to the Ringlord ...
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