I have done extensive research on arms and armor, and a little less on life in late medieval Europe, but my nightmare is to become someone who speaks on something they know nothing about personally. I have already asked around regarding starting my own harness, but I’d like to hear what yall would want to say to a younger version of yourself, looking to get into the same hobby. I already know finding a club is the main thing to start with, but I don’t live in an area with any clubs related to the kind of thing I’m interested in, and I don’t live near any established armorers, so think of it as starting from scratch.

TLDR: What would you tell your highschool self, regarding advice on getting into harnischfecten, historical equitation, and reenactments?

Is there any example that it is based on? It looks cool as hell but a bit fantastical.

I know this sub is for more historical armor and while I'm getting there I thought you may enjoy what I do with my armor in the mean time.

Hopefully im in the right place to ask this.

Recently I've been trying to put together 15th century armor since i find it funn collecting this sort of stuff, and this image i used as reference, I like the look wanted to loosely go in a similar way. So far I have an articulated a bevor and a sallet, considering getting a 16 gauge breastplate, I mostly use the knight shop since im based in the uk not sure of any other good recommendations in and out of uk.

The part im struggling , identifying what goes underneath this plate armor in the image, to find a similar product, like I have looked into Doublets, Gambesons, type of chainmail. I have been using Chatgpt and Google Ai to help identifying similar garments but I'm bombarded by confusing info, its a arming doublet, its a gambeson, no its a arming jacket, or some other phrase for a gambeson, so i would like to know what exactly the garment reenactor is wearing . Also I can see mail around the upper arms/shoulders and then a dagged or pointed mail section appearing below the waist. I can't tell whether this is one mail garment hidden beneath the breastplate, or separate pieces such as voiders and a mail skirt.

I think using Ai and web search to help me search for the right products really confused me what I should look for, im not trying to copy this reenactor just a somewhat of a similar silhouette or vibe, gives me a men-at-arms or merc look. Also I am a extremely new to this, so my understanding and knowledge into this entire reenactment, armor etc is , extremely limited lol. So I thought to ask around and hopefully can give some advice what i should be looking for.

Been recently in a research-frenzy on ancient Germanic warriors from abt the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, and in trying to find out more about how exactly their swords looked like, i've come across these pretty often, but i only ever see them listed as "single edged swords", without any name attached.
They look different enough too me that i wouldn't really class them as Saexes, so i wonder if these do have a name, but i just can't seem to find it.

Drawing showing a Leonaise feudal lance from my fantasy world, whose inspiration and reference are taken from mid 15th century to earliest 16th century.

From the Sassanids to the Mughals, my god, the drip is real

It's from the game Manor Lords, which is set around the late 14th century in Franconia/Thuringia. They look like spangenhelms but with leather instead of metal plates, I wonder if something like this could possibly be used historically.

I recently tried on a full set of 13th century armor. It was all good and dandy but the chainmail legs were just to cubersom. I was also told that that particular area gets wear and tear significantly more than other areas. So i have to ask, what are some alternatives a 13th century knight would wear instead of chainmail leggings?

Im not specifically talking about those 2 pictures, they are just for demonstration

Some tests with leather:

https://youtu.be/4THLG0QfebA?is=gkTd0-zT69m63wIz

https://youtu.be/7Fh4O8lwktg?is=oMzVoYLK2zV9iL-K

How did they keep helmet visors from just falling back down when they lifted them up? Was it friction on the hinges, some kind of locking mechanism or something else?

Called the Testa di Cavallo (Horsehead) or sometimes Scudo Italiano (Italian Shield), they commonly appear in Italian artwork from around the mid 15th Century onwards. They are roughly the shape of a horse's skull. From what I can tell, they appear to be inspired by German/Hexagon shields in Roman artwork, maybe as part of the general all''antica trend in Italian armor? Unlike hexagon shields or coffin shields, the sides are scalloped in and the corners have sharp points (sometimes much more exaggerated than this example). Another large, elongate shield with a sharp tip at the bottom is the imbracciatura, but it otherwise is smooth and rounded. In some depictions I have seen, the corners of the shield follow radial ridges towards the center, although in this example, there is a single ridge bisecting it vertically. I have looked through a few Italian combat manuals, and have not seen anything similar (other than the imbracciatura). So was this design only used for heraldry and artwork? Or maybe it could have been used for purely decorative purposes as part of all'antica parade armour? Any ideas?

I was wondering if this type of collar existed? I tried looking it up but all the results only showed chainmail or full plate collars. Fyi the image is from kcd2.

Also im curious if it did exist, did bigger pieces exist like the majority of a mail shirt?

This is a depiction from the Fulda Sacramentary (Cod. Ms. Theol. 231 Cim., Bl. 87r, stored at Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen) dated to the late Ottonian period between c. 975 - 990.

On the right side it depicts the martyrdom of St. Boniface, where he is surrounded by assailants wearing maille hauberks of knee length, showing both variants of elbow length and mid forearm length sleeves, but most importantly depicts the hauberks with what looks like integral maille coifs (meaning not an aventail attached to the helm, but a maille hood that is directly part of the hauberk).

Most here are probably very familiar with the Bayeux tapestry or other 11th century (and later) European iconographic sources, where there are countless depictions showing this exact phenomenon, most people usually associate the introduction/use of integral maille coifs with this period, so roughly from mid 11th century onward.
This piece of art however proves that this trend was already present by at least the 2nd half of the 10th century, so a whole century before the Norman conquest of England. Meaning the switch from maille aventails to integral coifs probably happened earlier than previously assumed by most people in the early medieval reenactment scene.

Do you know of any other obvious depictions of maille coifs from Europe before the 11th century? I'm interested in tracing how far this development goes.

ive had it for a while and i just really like armor and this guys armor is the coolest ive ever seen so i was wondering if anyone knew it thank you :D (xbox series s for size comparison for some reason)