It all started with designs.. Nope, it didn’t. It all started with all of us procrastinating at an event, making/learning how to make chainmail with Armchair Armoury because we all just wanted to get stuck in! Whilst making chainmail we laughed and giggled at all the potential character ideas we could do and really wanted our group to gel. It was here we all discovered our love of making chainmail and for Hack and Slash, a hundred other personal projects to adorn our house with much to our families delight. – Thank you Armchair Armoury.  
This article is about Hack and Slash’s journey to making all the kit required for our own personal part in the project.
Firstly, this was not a selfish project. We all shared our resources and all worked together to achieve our goal. It was a fantastic opportunity to show off what we could do in the timeframe required, that being about 6 weeks. With other orders to make, stock to build as well as taking on this project, every minute we had spare had to go on making this kit as well as planning to build further kit when we all met at GC4.

The idea here was to make random bits of chain to dangle as a type of skirt. It’s typical thinking of a Mascen that groin armour could be quite important, not only that but it was an important part of the aesthetic we were trying to achieve.
We needed everything to look crudely put together, dirty, rusty and substantial. Ish. I believe this was achieved.

Every self-respecting Mascen adorns themselves with trinkets and stuff. The more stuff you’ve got, the better. So things needed to be made. Part of our job for the team was to come up with metal panels which could be placed on any part of our kits or eventually the battle wagon as well.   

How we achieved the look of the plates involved etching the metal and using paints smudged and wiped off rusty colours. The colours would take to the areas we heavily scored the most and lightly to areas we only quickly sanded. The paints were also quickly cured with a heatgun to get a more mottled texture. You can see one of these plates on the chain skirt.

Mascens are quite a tribal race and although they are just as tech advanced as most other races, they also embellish themselves with native trinkets. So one fateful night after a roast chicken dinner, I decided to make some. After the very nice meal, I scraped off what I could of the meat and boiled them up, following instructions I found online. I then scraped off the remaining and soaked them in bleach overnight. However, I didn’t exactly have the right bleach, so the blue stuff had to do, which is why they have a small tinge in the second pic. No matter though! Paint fixes all and spending time adding the leather bits meant I could have a summertime outdoor film night.

The war skirt was an addition to the chain skirt, with the war skirt going underneath. I believe war skirts help bulk a character out and therefore my advice is if you ever want to play a character with some muscle or prescience behind them visually, then give your character one.
This one was made using leather as the base. Holes were punched and normal string was used to give it the appearance of large stitching (although it was also glued together anyway). Paint was splashed and rubbed into it in multiple layers, leather was added for the belt loops and an extra patch, and other bits were added for the sake of it such as fake barbed wire, metal plates and buttons. The aim was to make it look busy and like it had been ‘loved’ by that character.

Clothing is obviously essential and I’d already decided hero pants was the way to go for the lower half, but I wanted to do something a little different for the top half as that’s where the majority of peoples’ focus is when they interact with your character. So I wanted to make a crude shirt.

I used an old, thick curtain and used one of my T-shirts as a template for the shape. After it was cut out I sewed it inside out using normal string. The reason for doing this is so that when the fabric relaxes it will show the stitching underneath which only adds to detail. Once made and the collar was added, it had dye sponged onto it and sprayed over and over again to build up the grottiness. Each time a layer was added it was left in the elements to dry.
I was actually asked by a very well-known LARPer if it was actually mouldy (for real) when I was on site. This equals a massive win for me! The truth is it’s totally clean and machine washable.

The armour needed to be big and chunky. Whilst a bit of a stocky guy, I’m not quite as plump as the character I wanted, so I needed to give him some belly armour.
Building the structure was simply stick foam together and cut. After the shape was right a layer of ld45 was heatformed over it and stuck to give it a smooth surface which is more ridged. Then the details could be added and it could be latexed.
The leather back piece was also crucial to holding the thing together once on the person. I wanted again to make it ‘loved’ so it was made from several pieces and sewn together. If you look closely, different coloured thread was also used to add that very small detail.  

The armour needed to be big and chunky. Whilst a bit of a stocky guy, I’m not quite as plump as the character I wanted, so I needed to give him some belly armour.
Building the structure was simply stick foam together and cut. After the shape was right a layer of ld45 was heatformed over it and stuck to give it a smooth surface which is more ridged. Then the details could be added and it could be latexed.
The leather back piece was also crucial to holding the thing together once on the person. I wanted again to make it ‘loved’ so it was made from several pieces and sewn together. If you look closely, different coloured thread was also used to add that very small detail.  

H&S had the privilege of making two weapons. One for Kev at UK Nerf War and one for myself.
Shooty Kev wanted an engineering weapon item. He wanted an exhaust that had basically been weaponised and was ‘jank’. I am always mega picky when it comes to weapons and actually have very few weapons of my own as I rarely hold onto anything I make.
I wanted something different. As I was the weapon man among us I knew anything I made would be looked at, and looked at, and looked at. So I went with ‘a handmade stick of rusty death’.

The Wagon was our way of getting our stock about, so it had to be practical as well as looking the part. We worked together (mostly) on site to put bits and bobs together to make it look right. A detachable wooden frame was made to hold the weapons and the base had baskets in it to carry items in a ‘sort of’ organised fashion. It was awesome to see people’s faces when we rolled up and thankfully the large wheels on it made it possible to go into all the nooks and crannies of the regiment bases.

This project has been all kinds of awesome; learning new skills; working with other really artistically and technically talented people; a speedy group project with a fantastic end result AND so, so much fun! We didn’t manage to get to see everyone as players were sometimes on missions and/or monstering, but next year we’re going to make it a mission to get round to see everyone. See you in a field!