Scale Mail - Tumblr Posts

This dragon tail is made of white painted aluminum, a material I hadn't had much chance to experiment with before. It claims to be a sturdy automotive paint, and it definitely has a storm trooper sort of feel to it. Personally, I'd been a bit hesitant to make much with it, because I don't really trust paint on metal, but it seems durable enough, and I sent some sample scales to the commissioner and she was cool with them.

The tail is a pretty short one, at only 24 inches long. It's also got a line of spikes down the spine.

If you're curious about these tails I make, check out this page with information about them: http://armoreddragon.tumblr.com/tails

Here's how I make my chainmail dragon tails. You can see it starting as just a few scales linked together, and growing to be a full piece. Along the way there are some shots of the interior tension supports I put into them to keep the tail from folding flat, and also some detail shots of the belt loop attachment. I use the large sized scales from The Ring Lord, linked together with 16 gauge 5/16" inner diameter rings.

I fairly regularly get people asking for pointers or instructions for these tails, and I give what advice I can, but I've avoided doing something too specific. I prefer to leave the messy details as a learning exercise for the reader. After all, I sure learned a lot about chainmail construction from figuring these out.

But there's a consistent point of confusion for people, which I'll try to clear up. Most people seem to start out thinking of it like a sewing project: they make a big flat triangle of all the scales in the project, then they try to connect it up the back. This is Hard, for a variety of reasons:

Because of the diagonal nature of the scale weave, you can't just join up two symmetric edges--either you have to make the piece asymmetric, or you have to add in the center-most column of scales in between the mirrored edges.

Joining it up like that means the expansions happen along the same seam as you're joining together. Keeping track of all these things is hard, especially because the naked edge of the scale weave is floppy and messy.

It's difficult to get your pliers in there to close up the tip.

You can't really get in to the center of the tube to do anything useful like building the tension supports that I do.

Instead, think of it like a knitting or crocheting project. If you've ever seen someone knit in the round, this may make sense. Basically, I start out with a (tiny) ring of scales, and build rows above that one. So it's a tube the whole time, and I only ever have one edge active. But people tend to stall out on how to build a tube.

Oh, and I guess my weave direction for scales may be different from other people's. All the instructions I've ever seen for weaving scales weave from the top to the bottom, with you looking at the underside of the weave the whole time. This is fine for learning, but I found that I greatly increased my speed by instead weaving from the bottom to the top. I look at and interact with the top edge of the weave, and link each scale down to two below it. After all, it doesn't matter if it's hard to see the rings from previous rows, because they're already there, and I don't need to touch them anymore. Anyway, I could go on about the advantages of weaving in this direction, but it'll just get preachier than I'm already being.

I hope this helps anyone who's thinking of trying their hand at making a scale tail! And for non-maillers, I hope the pictures were fun to scroll past on your feed!

Oh, and here is this tail finished. I made this one a while ago, but kind of forgot about posting the progress shots.

This heat-colored titanium scale bracelet came out particularly well. I color these by heating them over a flame until they start to glow just a little bit, and the titanium oxidizes to these wonderful colors. It’s always a bit of an irregular process of course. This one was really nice I thought because basically every scale had a gradation from amber through rose to blue. Often times the blue color ends up dominating a bit more.

Anyway, this one is already off to the person who ordered it. If you like the idea of wearing a beautiful result of an unpredictable process, you can check these out over on my Etsy shop!

This dragon tail uses “frost” anodized aluminum scales, plus blue on the underbelly. The frost is a really fun very bright and lustrous silver color. It doesn’t reflect like a mirror, but instead shines with a bright diffuse light. 

It also has 8 big “ghost claw” spikes. They’re more expensive than the normal spikes I use, but they’re a lot of fun. I wish they came in a smaller size as well, but you can’t have everything.

(And excuse the lens cap in my pocket.)

Here are two flame-colored titanium scale bracelets I’ve made relatively recently. I usually don’t think to post the small things I make, because they often don’t feel exciting to me. I do always love making these, though. Seeing what colors I get out of the hot metal is always fun. A bit nerve-wracking, because I’ve definitely had a couple times when I got too much oil from my fingers on the scales and the fingerprints showed up on the final piece. Whoops. I always like when I get a good mix of colors through rose and blue. The hotter the metal gets, the closer it goes to a clear faint blue. So I have to heat it evenly in the flame and try not to overdo it.

As always, these are available over on my Etsy store.

Finally decided to list anodized titanium as available. It’s probably the metal I find most beautiful out of everything I’ve worked with. The color comes from an oxide layer on the surface, where the layer’s thickness determines the wavelength of light that can get through it. Similar to how the colors of a soap bubble or oil film come about.

Currently this green is the only color I have stock of. (My last material order, I got green and a bag of mixed scales.) Next time I’m ordering more materials I’ll definitely get another couple of colors.

You can get one over on my Etsy page!

A trio of scale bracelets for someone. It took an embarrassingly long time for us to hash out the details and then for me to get around to making them, so my apologies to that person.

Left to right we have pink and yellow/gold anodized aluminum, then heat-colored titanium.

I finally worked out a tail floof that I’m happy with! It took some experimenting with how much hair to include in each tassel, how many to use and where to put them. Then I gave it a haircut and trimmed it to shape.

I was working this out for a commission that I’ll start on shortly. Afterwards I may finish this tail and sell it, though it may be more useful to me to keep this one on hand for reference.

First completed tail with a floof on the tip! I really like how it turned out. I’ll add this as an option on my info page once I work out the details a bit more.

This one came in at 33 inches long from the top of the belt loops to the tip of the floof, and weighs 2 lbs 12 oz. The tail is in pink anodized aluminum.

Dragon tail commissions open!

After a very long period of being super busy with lots of things, I am finally able to open for tail commissions! I will be taking requests for commissions through Thursday April 5. Commissions I accept at this time will be completed by the end of April. Read up on the details here, and then fill out this form! Note that I do expect to get more requests than I will be able to complete at this time. I don't like taking commissions on a first-come-first-serve basis, since that just seems to privilege people who're online all the time. I try to be fair when I pick which commissions to take, and people who request one now but who don't make it will have priority in the future.

Just a couple scale bracelets someone bought recently. One in rainbow anodized aluminum, the other in flame-colored titanium.

Scale dragon tail in orange with green stripes. This one is the medium length, measures in at 30 inches from tip to top, and weighs 2 pounds 9 ounces.

I’ve been having a patch of time that’s felt a bit overwhelming with things to do and deal with in many different directions, but it was nice to have this commission on my queue to just zone out and not have to think about things while doing something productive.

Next up: 2 more weeks of being scatter-brained, then I decide between taking a wave of commissions or making a Halloween costume.

A pair of scale mail bracelets that I shipped out today. The one on top is bronze, the one below is stainless steel. Both are woven with stainless steel rings.

Available on my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/listing/76309439/base-metal-scale-maille-bracelet

This vest was originally made by another chainmail crafter (I don't actually know who), to match a tail that I made for a commissioner some 4 years ago. The vest had some issues, especially at the side closures, and the commissioner asked me to work out a solution to those, and expand the vest further towards the waist. I may also need to reinforce some spots up in the shoulders, since it was woven with aluminum rings, where I myself mostly only trust steel in high-load spots.

This is still in progress, but I figured I'd show the photos that I've got so far. The final will be a bit longer than this, and the edges will be tidied up.

Here’s two posts of the original tail his was made to match.

Bronze scale mail bracelets. The thick one is fresh and shiny, and just shipped out. The thinner one I made for the last convention I was selling at, and it's starting to show some oxidation. I think bronze is fun largely because of how it patinas over time.

Gonna re-work the etsy listings for these bracelets to make the options more clear. Here’s the revised one for bronze, next I’ll do steel.

Lesbian Dragon Dice Bag

A scale mail pouch made for a friend of mine, in the closest approximation I could reasonably do to the Lesbian Pride Flag colors. (All those subtle pastel shades are real hard to match when you're not mixing paints yourself.)

I like running the scales along the circumference of these bags. Pointing them vertically down from the opening is more common, but I find this orientation means it cinches open and closed much more comfortably.

Anodized aluminum scales, woven together with stainless steel rings, closed with nylon cord and a stopper. For size comparison, when opened this one fit 3 fingers side by side through the mouth.

I don't currently have these dice bags up as a standard option on my Etsy store, but if you'd like something like this, feel free to drop me a note!           

Two more bracelets of different Pride flags! The trans flag one is going to an Etsy customer, the nonbinary flag one is a gift for my lovely ex. Available here on my Etsy shop. (Since Etsy only gives you 2 slots for variations I can't include a drop-down menu for flag choice, but there's a write-in spot to specify.)

New dragon tail commission! This one has a complex custom pattern--red mottled striped and brown speckles on a purple background, with an underbelly of yellow with brown stripes. It’s got clusters of spikes down the spine, and a custom 3D shaped spade tip.

As per usual, it’s made of anodized aluminum scales linked with stainless steel rings. The spade tip is leather, and attaches via 3 lobster clasps. The tail measures 34 inches long, 38 inches with the spade tip, and weighs 3 pounds 14 ounces.

Was sort of burned out this month after finishing up the big armor project, but had a bunch of small orders to work through. Here’s a bunch of scale chainmail pieces that I shipped out over the last couple weeks. A pair of randomized anodized titanium bracelets, bronze and stainless steel, trans pride bracelet and black choker, and a bi pride for good measure (but bad lighting).

A pair of heat-colored titanium dragon scale bracelets that I finished up last night. Doing the colors on these is always a joy--you heat them up over a flame until they glow orange, and the oxidation makes a beautiful spectrum of blues and purples.

Also, it turned out I hadn't made one of these in the wide style for a long time, so I updated the Etsy listing to include that option.