#leaf armor

Just a Tabaxi Druid and her 6 closest friends!

Weslen Variu, nicknamed “Wes”, was born in Tamran, the marshy, ramshackle capital of the nation of Nirmathas, a struggling country that just recently freed itself from the grasp of the imperialistic Molthune to the south.

Weslen’s father, a human, and his mother, a half-elf, run a small restaurant in the Tamran city marketplace. They grew up very poor, but always had enough to eat. Wes was taught by his father how to fish and trap crawdads from a young age. When not at school, he spent a majority of his childhood swimming, fishing, trapping crawdads, climbing trees, and jumping between the piers and pilings that make up Tamran. After finishing school at age thirteen, Wes decided that he wanted to help his family by going to work with his uncle as logger upriver in the Fangwood.

Wes spent ages thirteen through eighteen working at various logging camps up and down the Marideth river. His skills at leaping between slippery logs as they whirled down the river to market, along with his upbringing balancing between piers, and his elf-like dexterity inherited from his mom’s side, made him an asset to his uncle’s logging operation. He was also able to earn a decent living and send a small amount of money back to his parents. He encountered a wide variety of people on the river as well - when further upriver, they would often trade, talk, and drink with dwarves from the Mindspin Mountains. While Wes learned a wealth of real-world knowledge and acrobatic skills on the river, he also spent the majority of his time around foul-mouthed, poorly-mannered sailors. As a result, Wes is boastful and crude - but also funny, wholesome, and positive. It was also during his time here that he received his leaf armor as a gift from a mysterious woman whom he saved from drowning.

During his eighteenth year, the Molthuni army ramped up its attacks on logging camps in the Fangwood in an attempt to disrupt Nirmathian trade. Wes pleaded with his uncle to let him join a band of loggers, foresters, and fishermen to fight the Molthuni - he said that Wes must return to Tamran and discuss it with his parents. Upon reaching Tamran, Wes learned that a week prior, Molthuni rebels had snuck into the capital at night and set fire to a section of the city including his parents’ restaurant - all but destroying their livelihood. Fueled by revenge, Wes pleaded with his parents to allow him to join the band of fighters, who hesitantly agreed. His mother gifted him the elven blade heirloom which had been passed down for generations through their family.

I have a druid costume that I have been adding and upgrading elements to for years, and I recently acquired the materials to craft one of the most challenging pieces. These are the steps I have taken so far.

Draft sketch

Duct tape body form.

design traced onto body form to get proper pattern shapes.

Pattern traced off of design draft.

Pattern pieces cut out.

Leather cut to the pattern (Front)

(back)

Rivet holes punched and temporarily put together with brads to test the fit of the sections.

Next step will be tooling the leather to give each leaf a vein texture. After that, saturating the leather in water to make it malleable enough to form around the duct tape form. Once that has fully dried, each leaf will be airbrushed with dye. Once that is fully dry, the leather will be conditioned and sealed with an all natural beeswax and oil polish that I cooked up.