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The Rag and Bolt Man, Liverpool (2024)

01/01/2024

Happy New Year meatbags!

03/12/2023

How do you wear 4 pairs of trousers at once? By making a WAR SKIRT of course!!

I’m here with an update on my wasteland knight ensemble, where, as you might guess, I’ve been working on the lower half of the kit and making an armoured war skirt.

I like war skirts. I think they can really look the part and make the post apocalypse that bit more believable, in a Mad Max sort of way.

My design is made up of a very sturdy leather belt, which comes from an ex prison guard. Two full pairs of leather trousers create the main outer layer, but forming the under layer are 4 normal material trouser legs, leftovers from previous war skirts made for Humanity Ascendant LARP.

But I was not content, and decided it needed some flexible armour over the top, to keep up the heavily armoured theme. Thankfully I had precisely what I needed.

I made several armour pieces made from tough but flexible plastic, provided by the ever resourceful Ian (who’s provided me with so much interesting gear for kit making). They’ve been liked together via chain mail links, and armoured with a “max speed 20” road sign which was cut into appropriate size pieces and attached to the plastic. (I’ve seen numerous American crafters use their metal road signs in their builds and I wanted to do something similar). So now the sign has an “expl*ded” look to it, which I like.

Still plenty of work to do on this section of the build. The belt needs weathering and more decoration, the armour plates need attaching and the trouser legs of the skirt need “dirt” applying. To say nothing of cutting bolts and “rusting” them up.

Comments and criticism welcome. And let me know how any of your winter projects are going please!

Take care

The Rag and Bolt Man
Or Chris, if you’d prefer

17/10/2023

So, nw that the winter is here, and planning for the next Humanity Ascendant LARP event is something for the future, I have the time to get on with a project I’ve wanted to do for some time but simply not had the capacity to undertake; a wasteland knight.

So this last week I’ve finally started this long imagined costume, and it’s been great! It’s also meant I’ve had an excuse to break out a new tool, an angle grinder. I’ve had it in its box for a couple of months, but at last I got it out to cut some metal pieces, of which there will be a great many for this wasteland knight costume.

I also intend to upcycle a metal traffic sign that was discarded and rescued, so that I can incorporate some colour into the build, and that’s mostly what I was cutting with my new angle grinder.

Anyway, I’ve been working on the sword arm armour, as that’s what inspiration struck me. It’s taken me a bit over a week of plodding along with the project to complete the whole arm, putting about 2 ish hours a day into it.

So here is my progress so far. Let me know what you think! I intend to give regular updates on my progress for the whole build over the winter, so you’ll get to see the project evolve with me.

Do any of you have any burning kit projects you want to start but just don’t have the time you’d like to share?

The Rag and Bolt Man
Or Chris, if you’d prefer.

19/09/2023

Wow, what a fantastic weekend I had at Humanity Ascendant LARP Event 13, helping to run what was hopefully a successful and enjoyable LARP event for the attendees.

So, I hinted at some costume I was making earlier in the year but could not reveal it due to it being a secret revelation at Event 12, and I forgot to post about it in the mean time (d’oh!). Well, a new enemy revealed to the players has been Super Mutants, inspired by Fallout, and I got to create a whole wardrobe for them, from muscle tops and t-shirts to armour harnesses and even war skirts (using a load of the previously covered safety harnesses that were kindly donated by Ian). This meant that from the get go the Super Mutants had a much more coherent look as a group, which helps with LARPing.

I also got to develop a costume for a recurring NPC called the Hybrid, a super soldier infected with rogue nanites, turning him into something…… new. Unlike other npc costume I make, like the previous Super Mutants, this is one I will continually get to tinker with and adapt, whereas normally I get it to a decent standard and then leave it in the group kit storage (I’ve made so much costume for Humanity Ascendant I couldn’t possibly store it all myself).

So, here are a few pics of some of my costumes from over the weekend, as well as a few environmental props that were thrown out to be interactive. I will post more pics as they are discovered.

If you were at the event, let me know what you thought of the costumes up close and personal. Anyone else, please also comment on what you think of what I’ve made and where I can take it, maybe any future projects.

Thank you

The Rag and Bone Man (otherwise known as Chris the GM)

20/05/2023

Well, today was a very productive day all round, especially with regards to kit making. Now, as I will always continue to mention I help to run Humanity Ascendant LARP, and with our next event just 34 days away, I needed to make a push on some kit that we will be needing for the next event for ….. reasons. (As an aside if anyone is interested in Humanity Ascendant Larp then come along and crew for the weekend, or even just a day, and see what we’re about)

So, today I made a push on some armour harnesses for…. reasons, with gear provided very kindly in the past by Ian Waz Wyatt, who may come to regret his generosity at Humanity Ascendant Event 12 - Salvo.

So, below are some progress pics of grunging up the harnesses, using techniques learnt from, in this instance, Nuclear Snail Studios, an absolute legend for learning a vast variety of weathering techniques and kit making theory. I literally wouldn’t be able to do what I have done without his tutorials.

Although retreading old ground for some, I will go over the technique I used. The base harness, in this case a safety harness, had already been distressed, using the ever useful shredder (any questions do let me know). I then used some concrete coloured waterproof paint and smeared it onto the harness in sections, then ground some sand into the paint, going over it several times until the sand was really smushed in there. I then took some matt spray varnish and gave the area a good coat, before taking some ash, acquired from a nice fire previously, and applied that as a contrast, before a giving the whole thing a second coat of varnish to seal the whole thing. Again, not my technique, just a very effective one.

So, my progress pics are below, detailing everything I’ve done with with the 5 harnesses I was working on, with a pic of a near final product.

If anyone has any questions about the techniques used, or any questions about Humanity Ascendant or Larp in general, do please get in touch.

Thanks for looking!

06/05/2023

So it’s been a while. I took some time off over the winter period but I’ve been back at the crafting table for a while, and already this year been to 3 larp events, 2 The Zone - A Near Future Larp and helped run Humanity Ascendant LARP, all of which were great for various reasons I’ll go into in other posts.

So, with another Humanity Ascendant event not far away I’m busy at work creating the appropriate kit for something the refs have planned.

Here’s some pics of what I’ve done so far today.

03/10/2022

So, after a week of rest after running the last Humanity Ascendant event, I’ve had a great chance to catch up with myself and reflect on things.

One thing that came to light for me was that by having a number of crew done up in kit that is made over the years, ranging from my earliest efforts to later ones.

As the pictures below progress, we go through later versions of the crew kit I’ve made for the Humanity Ascendant system. My earliest efforts were on a bunch of old 1970’s nbc smocks, before I moved onto distressing normal coats and jackets. The next stage for me was to start adding accoutrements to the jackets, before I started to more fully plan out the designs of my works.

Towards the end of the photos we get to the stage where I’m able to create a piece of costume without a specific base and up cycle spare bits of metal and other bits into an armour set.

These are some of the base layers that Ive created for Larp. Next I’ll start to show some of the whole costumes I’ve moved into designing.

So, do any of you have examples of early crafting works compared to some of your later crafts? Let me know!

26/09/2022

Good morning everyone!

I’m back from an amazing weekend at Humanity Ascendant Larp, which was the 10th event for the system.

Having been involved in it since the start, it was great to reach this milestone, and has been the reason for my silence recently.

My body is slowly recovering from it and I will gather my thoughts into a more meaningful post perhaps tomorrow, but expect more and more posts over the coming days and months!

Have a picture of the camp to get your appetite going!

Where you guys and gals up to anything exciting this weekend? Do share!

04/08/2022

So, I’m finally doing what I originally created this page for, keeping track of the progress of my costume builds.

So, with the next event for Humanity Ascendant LARP looming at the end of September, I’m getting started on some of the kit I’ll need for the missions I’ll be running. This rig is the start of a wasteland priest style kit. How will it evolve? I haven’t a clue!

Hopefully I’ll get more work done on it today! Has anyone else out these recently started and new kit making projects?

Currently it’s made from an, I think, Swedish army “yoke” style thing, and the severed chest cover from safety harnesses I’ve previously harvested.

30/07/2022

Well, that’s 2 armour stands done now. Taking on advice from Lee Long, the leg supports now have metal braces to help hold them in place and make sure they don’t come apart unexpectedly.

One for my character and another for my buddy’s at The Zone LARP, and potentially Humanity Ascendant LARP, shouldrge need arise.

Also named for our characters in Cyrillic, Sergei and Alexander!

What has everyone else done with their day? Any cool projects people would like to share?

19/07/2022

Well, it’s a tad warm isn’t it? If this continues for much longer I don’t rate my chances of surviving to the apocalypse.

But, before the great burning ball of vengeance in the sky drove us all for cover, I made myself an armour stand out of pallet wood and reclaimed decking at the weekend. I found the design online and threw it together, and I think it looks alright! It’s going to be used for my character in The Zone LARP to keep my armour rig on when I’m not out on a mission, as myself and a friend camp in character and run a makeshift bar, so it’ll work out to be a great bit of set dressing if nothing else.

Now I just need to decide if I’m going to paint it at all, any suggestions?

Did any of you clever people out there get up to any post apocalyptic or adjacent crafting projects over the weekend?

14/07/2022

Wastelander styled leg armour, using police riot armour as a base. The greaves each have a few nice details and have multiple overlapping layers to portray the story they have been maintained over a long time. The armour has been distressed and has had other weathering techniques applied to cool vey wear and tear.

£50 plus postage.

27/06/2022

So, as I’ve mentioned before I help to run Humanity Ascendant LARP, and our last event was just over a week ago. It went really well, I think, and I got to unveil a new piece of kit for a specific new enemy the players had to deal with.

So I made a cybernetic arm! Nothing too grandiose but hefty and chunky enough to make the appropriate statement. It has detailing on it to convey pneumatic gubbins and cabling to covey a need for power.

Show me your techno gubbins! What cool futuristic or sci do stuff have you crafted?

21/06/2022

So, how was your weekend?

Mine? Well I was helping to run Event 9 of Humanity Ascendant LARP. Loads of running around, loads of planning and prep coming to fruition. It was amazing! The post apocalyptic larp weekend’s highly recommended for a good time. Oh, and there were laser tag guns as well. Check out the group for more info.

I will post some pics shortly of the costume and kit I made specifically for the event.

For those of you that were there, please share your best moments! For the people that weren’t, what did you do with your weekend?

14/06/2022

So this was the first full costume I’d put together, as opposed to just individual pieces. It was for, as near everything is, Humanity Ascendant LARP. It was for the big chieftain Raze that the players were having to negotiate with. Though I need to revisit it and update it, the costume is still used now.

12/06/2022

So, with the next Humanity Ascendant LARP event running next weekend I find myself in the standard last week rush to make sure everything if finished and ready for the event.

As I look at what over prepared for this event, I look back to the first lot of costume I made for the crew of the events, the people who play all the box roles and baddies over the weekend.

So I thought I’d share an example of the first bits of kit I ever made! Eventually you’ll see how much my skills have come on, as this was about 5 year ago now! In total I weathered and distressed 14 1970’s NBC smocks, and actually started to creep Beto d simply distressing what was there with a couple of other pieces I threw together.

Let me know what you guys think, and share some of your earlier works!

06/06/2022

So, slightly later than planned, but here is the modified safety harness. All I’ve done at this stage is extend the straps in several places so that it fits my heroic proportions.

I extended the straps on the shoulders, as the whole rig was too small to fit over my shoulders. I extended the waist by using some extra length of webbing harvested from parts that were not kept whole. Lastly I also had to extend both leg straps, so that the whole thing would sit at the right level.

Now on to distressing it and then modifying it up to suit a tribal survivor type costume idea.

31/05/2022

So recently a good friend of mine managed to rescue a bunch of used safety equipment from his work. Amazingly all this was just thrown out in a bin! Heresy I say!

So having gone through it all, I decided to keep the less damaged climbing rigs intact, for potential future projects whereas the ones that had been fully cut apart I decided to harvest for parts, as there were many delightful metal clips to use.

I’ve started work on modifying one of the rigs to fit in with a survivalist kit build I’m slowly working on. I’ll get some pics together of my progress so far.

So, have any of you ever had a sudden dump of kit to sort through like a kid in a sweet shop?

27/05/2022

So what are your plans for the weekend?

Me, I’m off for a weekend of lasertag Larp The Zone LARP. Not quite post apocalyptic but very gritty and inspired by the Stalker games. It’s good fun, and uses the same lasertag equipment as Humanity Ascendant LARP.

I get to use some of my raggedy under layers, with some of my more militaristic ”bunker” style armour and gear, so a fun mix.

I may do a bit of summary of the weekend if anyone would be interested?

Enjoy your weekends! Let me know how you’re getting your nerd/craft on over the next couple of days!

25/05/2022

So, where to start with everything? I’ve got loads of past projects to cover, and plenty of ongoing ones as well.

So, while I make a decision on that I thought I’d briefly touch on the tools I use in creating the costume I do.

Allow me introduce you to a couple of friends of mine, a tool lovingly titled the ”shedder” and a hammer & metal. These 2 methods are what I most commonly use in distressing kit appropriately, and both methods I learned from the Nuclear Snail.

The shredder is made from a hole drill set with all of the attachments glued in place, it makes a mess of any material you give a young over to. The hammer and metal give a different weathering effect, more precise and less ragged, but still delightfully weathered.

I have also used other bits to distress kit, including a grindstone drill attachment, files and even rough flag stones when necessary.

As mentioned, these ideas I picked up from the Nuclear Snail, and he has videos covering the methods for these and much more.

If anyone has any other weathering methods (more distressing than dirt weathering, I’ll cover this some other time!) let me know in the comments down below. I’d love to learn something new from this!

In the meantime, enjoy the apocalypse!

The Rag and Bolt Man