Ieyasu Tokugawa - Sengoku Basara [SB3 default]

Pants

Made out of a bolt of vintage Japanes kimono silk, which I first dyed yellow, and then dip-dyed in black. The hexagon patterns were done in two layers of screenprinting, one for the darker background, and one for the lighter sayagata pattern on top. I had to touch a few spots up by hand, because the textured fabric made it really hard to screenprint.

Jacket

Dyed silk satin for the outside, some of the leftover kimono silk from the pants for the inside. I drafted the body of it from scratch, and used the hood pieces from a hooded sweatshirt pattern I had. The patterned trim was screenprinted and then airbrushed to give it a little bit of shine, and the piping is upholstry cord.

Lamellar Armor

The most time-consuming part of this costume by far, because I needed several hundred individual plates. I didn't have any tools to automate the cutting process at the time, so I ended up handmaking a handful of of the plates, and then making silicone molds of those so I could cast them repeatedly in two-part plastic resin. This still took a really long time, but less than cutting each one individually would have. Once they were all ready, I used some leather cord to lace them in rows, with heavy-duty cable ties forming a ridge of support on the back side. These rows were then covered with yellow deerskin, and then colored with gold Rub'n'Buff. They were laced together with many, many feet of golden-yellow athletic shoelace, which I airbrushed with some gold and black paint to make it look worn and blend the colors in a little better.

Wrist + Shin Armor

The armor plates are more leather layered over EVA foam panels. The joins are a mix of tiny decorative hinges and more lacing, to match the reference pictures as best as possible. They're designed to open up completely along one seam, so I can lay them flat for packing.

Gloves

The 'chainmail' is a metallic-look acrylic yarn, loosely knit in a reverse stockinette, because I don't hate myself enough to make and wear a whole sleeve of chainmail. It's backed with black spandex for integrity, and the fingers and palms of the gloves are black sheepskin. The hand portion of the armor is directly attached to the gloves.

Boots

Hair-on cow hide, because finding hair-on deer hide (which is what they're labeled as in refs) is too tricky. They're pretty simply patterned, and have plain leather soles, and upper cuffs made out of some leftover fabric from the pants and a grey brocade I had scraps of from another project. I can't really recommend trying to make your own shoes, these have basically no cushioning or support and as a result are not very comfortable.