The chainmaille coif

5/16" ID, 16-gauge galvanized steel rings



A selfie while wearing a chainmaille coif.
Several months after having made the shirt (and several smaller items after said shirt... such as the scale dicebag and bracelet), I decided that I wanted a full chainmaille suit. So what was next on the list, but the chainmaille coif. That being... the headpiece. There's several different designs one could go with for this, such as a completely open-faced (ie: disconnected under the chin), or with an aventail (additional flap to cover mouth/face/neck moreso), or yeah... a million different configurations for the face-hole. The coif laying flat on the ground, on a light brown carpet.
I actually played around it for a long time to get it to fit my face the way I wanted. Again, going with the theory of the shirt, I doubled the rings around the face-hole. This wasn't so much for strength, as I didn't anticipate there being all that much force being put on those rings, but to follow the look of the neckline of the shirt. Kabutroid wearing the coif, with a white shirt underneath. IT covers the head, but leaves the face open and extends to below the chin.
Speaking of the neckline... THAT part was probably the most difficult (yes, more difficult than the expanding circle at the top of the head). I wanted it to cover the V-neck completely, but NOT cover the scale shoulders as much as possible. I first tried repeatedly adding expansions into the front and back, but that ended up looking hideous. I ripped that all apart, and just went with continuing more rows along the bottom of the front and back until it was as round and long as I wanted, then added several rows of rings all the way around it to make it all look uniform. It's probably the best-looking way I could have come up with, given I wanted to essentially make the bottom of it an oval. A closeup of the neck portion of the coif, showing the expansions and contractions in the weave.
And as you can safely assume... as more of the suit is made, I'll be showing a picture of the entire suit-to-date. Given all I've made at this point is the shirt and coif, that's all you get. But despite it only being these two, I still wear it out for halloween (I actually also wear the shirt shopping on occasion... you get some interesting looks from people). Next up... gloves, sleeves, half-plate leggings, and yeah... you get the idea. A pic of Kabutroid wearing the chainmaille shirt and coif together, standing in the livingroom.


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