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The Hammered Wombat's... ...temporary site of fun and frivolity...well, it was supposed to be temporary...looking more and more permanent, eh? 8/29/01- Esme Hedera was born on the 16th of this month, a whopping eleven pounds and 21.5" in length. Beautiful and wonderful of course, but quite alone - no twin in sight - passing strange, considering that we had very good reason to expect her to be accompanied by a baby boy. We're still not sure what happened, but we're delighted with our little girl. During the month leading up to the birth, and for the last couple of weeks, I didn't get much work done - well, that's not true - I've gotten lots done in the way of taking care of my family and "nesting" and all, but precious little done in the shop. That's changing, and I'll have pics of new armour work shortly. In the meantime, here's a few pics of Esme taken when she was just a couple hours old - she's bigger now :) A couple more things: I dropped the unendingly awkward forum that I was using and am back to server.com - not sexy, but it works really well and there's never any trouble getting to it. Also, I'm experimenting with server.com's mailing list app - sign up and I'll send you a newsletter every now and then. To sign up for the newletter, fill in the box with your email address and click "Subscribe" - To get out of having to read mass mailed drivel from your favorite marsupial armourer, do the same thing here (except you'll want to click on "Unsubscribe", this time) - Some of the buttons below actually go somewhere!  Click on them to find out which ones!

7/25/01-

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7/14/01 - These pictures are actually from 7/10, but I'm just now posting them here.  Or rather, they've been here for several days, but I'm just now getting around to moving the rest of the site here - temporarily.  Pardon the annoying ad banners and pop-up windows - at least they're tasteful ads :)   6/27/01 - Quick update with some pics of proposed fixes and such.  More later... This is what I've come up with so far - we'll see what I think when I get out to the shop and actually start working on it.  The image below has been tweaked in Photoshop 4.0 to remove the outer pupil bar and color the construction paper nasal to (sort of) look like blackened steel.  Construction paper is being held on with magnets.  My wife and kids came up with a bunch of ideas also - I'll scan those in and post them later. Another nasal possibility Face studies - embossed with Photoshop 4.0 and/or ACDsee 3.0.  I like the embossing feature in these imaging programs,  as it allows me to see lines and shapes that I might otherwise miss, and it's kind of  a preview of what the finished product could look like. Adam at White Mountain Armoury will be making a helm based on a figure from the Oseberg cart - not sure if this is what he's talking about, but here's a sketch I made of one of figures from the cart as research for the helm I'm working on right now.. Gunnar in the snake pit from Oseberg cart   6/26/01 - It was pointed out on the Armour Archive that the eyes are reminiscent of the late, lamented, comedic actor Marty Feldman.    That wasn't quite what I had in mind, but maybe this could be the first of a retrospective series of helms honoring dead comedians... My wife proposed that it be the "Pleased to meet'ya - Now I'll eat'ya!" helm, and we've been busy filking the Kim Carnes tune, "She's got Bette Davis eyes" into "He's got Marty Feldman eyes". 6/25/01 - Work is being accomplished in slow motion, but at least it's getting done.  A lot of folks have offered to help me with my website problems - many thanks to all of you - and I've decided to accept the assistance of my brother Dave who (though he uses a Mac and is therefore anathema and consigned to eternal longing for real computer) is better at this stuff than I am and has some neato ideas (and more time than I've got to spare doing cool things with html). I'm not sure as I'm all that thrilled with how the eyes turned out.  I'll see what Bob thinks, but they look cartoonish to me, and not intimidating or warlike at all.  Disappointing to say the least.   Here's the original sketch.  The face is composed of elements from a church door in Iceland ca. 1200   The nasal is still taped on and needs to be cut down to fit the cutout for the eyes.  The face has yet to be riveted in place, but other than those two things - and a second blackening session (and probably rebuilding the eyes), it be done.  My son loves this part.  So do I ;)     He really enjoys feeding the fire, and wishes I would quit supervising and just let him get on with it.  Yeah, that'll happen soon... The process I used this time (I like to try it different ways) was to heat the helm in the barbecue over a wood fire and then roll it around in used motor oil when it got sufficiently hot.  Sometimes it catches on fire in the oil which is lots of fun.  My daughter was unprepared the first time it happened and ran shrieking from the area - she can scream really loud. Note the nearby fire extinguisher :) As I wanted the face to have a dark blue but shiny bright finish (doesn't show well in the above pictures), I heated it up separately and rubbed it with a light coating of olive oil and deer tallow.   I could set things on fire all day long and never get tired of it - and I get to do it for a living!     6/20/01 - My how time does fly.  Tomorrow is Solstice already - probably doesn't mean much to folks in more southerly climes, but up here it's a big deal.  We'll get about 20 hours of daylight - and after that we start losing light until equinox (Dec 21) at which time we'll get about 4 hours of daylight.  Keeps it interesting :) Nasal free - and no, it's not done yet   Nasal attached with tape.  Not list legal in most localities - check with your knight marshal before ordering :) Eyebars will be mounted today, and the whole thing will be blackened and generally finished - check back later for more pics! Nasal on      Nasal off   Nasal on...

Steve Belden (Etienne l'Armurier in the SCA) The Hammered Wombat Quality Medieval Armour and Sport Combat Artwork tm Since 1989 3705 Arctic Blvd #2882 Anchorage, Alaska, USA 99503 (907) 274-3690 armourer@hammeredwombat.com

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This next one has nothing to do with Medieval history - it's devoted to the American Civil War - but it's hilarious and there are universal re-enactment truths contained therein.