The above armour is designed to be in three major parts, the breastplate which is totally separate from the rest of the armour, the plackart which acts as a sort of corset, and the faulds which lace onto the plackart.
As this is a "work in progress", I didn't bother lacing it all together. Note the "picadills" which will keep the breasplate from scratching the plackart.
I used commercial belts for this job since the metal was nice and light (only nice light 18 gauge, parade grade) and besides, only the top portion was carried by these "over the shoulder" belts rather than the more usual full front. These belts are a little lighter than usual, a little more delicate, without being feminine. I mean this IS armour after all!
The backplate was hammered and rolled. You can see it up above, ready to have its leather straps installed on the inside. You can see the strong Maltese influence on my backplate design. Again, this design is for the client, rather than being for a museum. As long as it fits her, and she can ride in the parade with it, and it looks good, and as long as it satisfies my aesthetic of it being honest to gosh "armour", I'll be happy with it. And I presume she will be happy with it as well.
Above is the plackart in closeup. I have installed leather straps in behind so that it hangs right. In this pic, you can see how much it closes up, compared to the pic above....I think there is a good hand span overlap here. The armour has been rolled at the top to protect the client, and a little bit of sculpting has been done to anthromorphize the effect. Its hard to see, but supposedly, the bottom of her rib cage is sculpted into the top part of this plackart. The straps on the back are placed to keep the top part loose so she can breathe, and the bottom part should act as a corset to give shape to waist as she is riding.
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