3 days later and a LOT of nicotine, I have finally got this cuirass to a point where I can work with it(Much Thanks to those who helped me get this far). There is still a lot of work to be done involving the shoulder straps and leather straps at the waist and I plan on making a seperate male "skirt" to fit underneath. just thought I would share the "SLOW" progress. BTW the shield is one of 3 that will be available the other 2 are close to being done. Sprout :O)

That looks great so far, any new male armor is a blessing...the women get all the best stuff. ;) Keep up the fine work. SnowS Hoping his pictures are worth 1001 words.

THe armor is a good start. I like the shield, but the standard (from what I've read) Roman shield was a square framework -- wooden for the poorer soldiers, brass, bronze, or iron for the wealthier ones -- with a wooden or metal center piece containing some sort of sigil on one side (unit designations and such -- the origin of European heraldry I THINK). A piece of boiled leather was stretched across the framwork then boiled to shrink and tighten. THen the centerpiece was bolted to it, with the handle on the back and the raised symbol on the front. Or something like that.

Not all Roman soldiers carried the square shield. Light-infantry units and auxiliaries carried the much lighter oval shield.

CEBrown, 1 of the shields is like that i just didn't know how to explain it :O) and I have the basic round shield. I will present them in my next update post. They will have no texture(at this time) but I will make it so someone can texture them with wood or metal :O) Thanks for the comments. Sprout :O)

Looking good Sprout ...

Sprout it's coming along great! This is some awesome work that I can't wait to see. My wife though is starting on Bodicea to go after our Romans!

Great work, can't wait to see the final

a really worn out leather texture and a good bump map and you've got a ready to go footman there! I have seen real arour like this in the ROM in Toronto.. The archives there are full of cool stuff, including one of 8 surviving leather cuirasses in the world. Bravo!

Also look at this one (wheres that link?) Here: http://www.cacheforce.com/newlarge/miles.htm This is one from the "imperial" era with proper segmented armour etc.

Sprout, you're right about the round shields; I'd forgotten. Also, the INCREDIBLY rare Roman Cavalry used a smaller shield of some sort too, unless the research used in a series of books I read last year(A Dream of Eagles; The Skystone, The Singing Sword and two others) was wrong... According to that, the main reason the Roman armies were defeated (aside from laziness and complacency) was their refusal to use good mounted tactics. As an aside, a friend of mine once pointed out that the Romans actually had the technology to create automatic weapons, but didn't have gunpowder and never really saw a use for it... (Oh, geez - Now I'm expecting to see images of Romans in authentic armor wielding Tommy Guns...)

LOL CEBrown yeah what a vision Like I said I have the small round shield, The curved square"with bullet ornament", and the one you see here, they will all be posted when this all comes together. Thanx for the link matlock, I assure you this will be quite different but will be somewhat correct historically. Ikyoto: The textures are no longer in my "unskilled texturing hands" Jon has taken over and is doing a "FANTASTIC" job, there may possibly be 2 textures with this, one leather and the other of a metal variety. Thanx all for the comments.. gotta get back to work on this :O) Sprout