Getting it right
(Special thanks to the Companie of Saint George) | Text
Milanese plate
The armour is for real, and it was a wonderful fit, though pretty tight in the waist. Except for the legs; I could almost put two of mine in one cuisse.
I’m only allowed in these things ’cause I am so skinny the wasp waists usually fit. There is always loads of room in the shoulders, but that doesn’t show…
The Medieval Soldier
Gerry Embleton
Windrow & Green
1994
Photo: Ian Ashdown
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Armour
Medieval armour was without a doubt kept as clean and bright as circumstances allowed. Not only have soldiers through history spent most of their spare time polishing, sewing, patching and otherwise maintaining their equipment, since upon it their life depended, but rusty metal is a sure sign of neglect.
We’re so accustomed to seeing dark, rusted and otherwise corroded bits of metal in museums that it’s easy to forget that iron and steel can be mirror-bright.
It also makes them pretty complicated to draw realistically…
Hot Afternoon
This photo shoot was a toughie, we spent ages posing with sharp swords as if we were actually fighting, which is terribly tiring, trying our best not to stick each other. At one point I slipped ever so slightly and the other sword went right through my sleeve and out the other side… pretty scary.
The Medieval Soldier
Windrow & Greene
1994
Photo: Philip Krauer/L’Illustré
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Wild Boar
Bringing home the goods… No, we did NOT kill the boar, we just took him out of a freezer, carted him about, took some pictures, and put him back. For nothing on earth would I get near a live one with just a spear…
The Medieval Soldier
Windrow & Greene
1994
Photo: Philip Krauer
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Huntsman
As if that diddly little crossbar I tied on there would actually stop a boar… it was only for the photo.
Otherwise, that ferocious look I have is ’cause I can’t see without my glasses, and kept running into trees and branches.
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Fourteenth century archer.
No, I wasn’t really stringing that bow, just pretending. Couldn’t have pulled it anyway,even if I had managed to get it strung…
Medieval Military Costume
Gerry Embleton
The Crowood Press
2000
Photo: Gerry Embleton
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Swordsman from Uri
None of this is really mine – not even the nice shoulders…
Photo: Gerry Embleton
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Lamps and glasses
Objects play a vital role in re-enactment.
Getting the right equipment is not only primordial to maintaining the illusion, but occasionally nearly impossible to do…
 Saint George
Linseed oil and pigment on brocade.
Totally unsure of how to make it dry faster, I used no siccatives or drying agents, just the oil and pigments. It took months to dry, and the rather wide tail on George’s mount was to cover an inexorably spreading oil slick, but in the end, it did eventually dry, and is well nigh indestructible.
Mythago Wood… Celtic diety
Rule number one: Dressing up is fun! (Especially if it’s with a picture in mind…)
A good friend of mine and I threw this together from the hipbone of a deer and the burlap cover of an old spring mattress, years and years ago. I’ve yet to have the opportunuty to really use it in an illustration, although there is a quick study of it on the cover of Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood.
I’ve always loved these incredible processions in southern Europe with enormous effigies of saints and such that tower yards above the compact crowds of celebrants. Imagine if those towering figures were alive.
Then imagine something like this: a huge Celtic army, passing through Ryhope Wood, with this huge figure towering above rank on rank of warriors, with the Wood itself unfolding before them and swallowing up all trace of their passage…
One day…
(In case you’d not noticed, I think Robert’s book is one of the utmost best pieces of 20th century fantasy. Read it. Now.)
Or check out Robert’s official website: http://www.mythago.tuatha.org
Taken from “Myth & Magic“, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001