Hacking patterns
On the last set of greaves I did I started out with Chuck Davis' (CAD) paterns which are available on the armour archive. Since then I came across Doug Strong's version, which has a lot in common with Chuck's. I think they're both in the Valerius school, so they may well have shared info. Chuck's pattern uses a weld which I don't want to do, and Doug's doesn't, so I figured I'd play with Doug's as the base this time. Below are an image of a greave Doug made with his pattern (I stole it from the instructions in his pattern book, which is well worth the money, but it is a pay publication, so I'll gladly take down the image if it bugs him.) faced with an image of the Chartres greave it's trying to mimic. 
I'm pretty sure Doug made adjustments to make the basic design fit his calf, and he's not built like the boy the Chartres greave was designed to fit. Mr. Strong is aptly named, and has a great bulging calf muscle. I'm somewhere in between, and I'm also quite conscious of the line where the halves of the greaves meet being quite close to straight. So to create the swell in the shin part of Doug's greave his pattern has a lot of extra metal near the top. It flares with a nice curve. The Chartres greave swells there a bit too, but more it's more subtle. Likewise the calf in Doug's rendition is substantially larger in proportion to the ankle than the Chartres version.
I want to make it very clear- I have a lot of respect for Doug's work and he's a swell guy. Creating the shapes he's done in steel is a pain, and teaching others to do it is tough. I'm not intending to knock his work- his goal wasn't to make an exact replica since it wouldn't have fit him, and what he did is informed by other pieces not pictured here. But I'm going to try to make something that fits me well, cleave closely to the originals, both the Chartres leg, which is the best surviving greave of this era, the St. George statue I'm trying to emulate, and the other images I've assembled. In doing so I have to hack the crap out of his pattern, reducing the flare at the top substantially, and reworking the ankle a bit. I want that straight edge, and I want to capture the elongated lines seen in the statuary and illuminations commissioned by the Valios dukes of Burgundy.
Besides I'm shaped more like this guy:
and fortunately, I'm also shaped like this guy:
I'm pretty sure Doug made adjustments to make the basic design fit his calf, and he's not built like the boy the Chartres greave was designed to fit. Mr. Strong is aptly named, and has a great bulging calf muscle. I'm somewhere in between, and I'm also quite conscious of the line where the halves of the greaves meet being quite close to straight. So to create the swell in the shin part of Doug's greave his pattern has a lot of extra metal near the top. It flares with a nice curve. The Chartres greave swells there a bit too, but more it's more subtle. Likewise the calf in Doug's rendition is substantially larger in proportion to the ankle than the Chartres version.
I want to make it very clear- I have a lot of respect for Doug's work and he's a swell guy. Creating the shapes he's done in steel is a pain, and teaching others to do it is tough. I'm not intending to knock his work- his goal wasn't to make an exact replica since it wouldn't have fit him, and what he did is informed by other pieces not pictured here. But I'm going to try to make something that fits me well, cleave closely to the originals, both the Chartres leg, which is the best surviving greave of this era, the St. George statue I'm trying to emulate, and the other images I've assembled. In doing so I have to hack the crap out of his pattern, reducing the flare at the top substantially, and reworking the ankle a bit. I want that straight edge, and I want to capture the elongated lines seen in the statuary and illuminations commissioned by the Valios dukes of Burgundy.
Besides I'm shaped more like this guy:
and fortunately, I'm also shaped like this guy:
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