This is an exciting update!

Active Pre-Orders Updates!

Let’s talk about the Warrior and Elven Lord series first! I’ve been working hard on the designs and patterns for the two new series in progress.  If you purchased a bundle you’ll already find the patterns for the helmet and breastplate in the Elven Bundle, and in the Warrior theme bundle, y0u’ll find the helmet pattern. You can download those right away and start planning your builds but I do generally advise waiting for the tutorials. Though if you took part in the Fantasy or Imperial Knight series, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to do for most of it.  The Elven series is an advanced course that will include many new techniques you’ll really want the tutorials for though, so do keep that in mind before diving in!  I’ve got the videos in progress now for the tutorials too!.

ETA Updates – All Primary Elven/Warrior Patterns in 6 to 8 Weeks?

When I first offered the pre-orders for the Warrior and Elven themes, I expected to get the first designs to start going up a few months earlier, but a lot of time was burned with having to buy a house and moving last year, and getting the home and shop set up, (not to mention ongoing efforts with tons of patterns, tutorials, lessons, website revisions, the general daily business grind, plus everything else in the world operating slower due to covid). As a result, I’ve been reluctant to provide an ETA on the Warrior and Elven themes.

New Warrior Helmet Pattern! Available now to those who have purchased the bundle!

But! Things have been in progress along the way on many fronts and these efforts are starting to bear fruit. At the moment, I think I’ve got enough progress on a little bit of everything to provide a revised ETA.  Both series are being developed at the same time and I think it is safe to say that most, if not all of the primary patterns (for the Warrior/Elven armor suit components) will be ready to go within about 6 to 8 weeks from now.  (Tutorials are also in progress, including lessons for the Dragon series too, btw.  And I also have an announcement coming soon regarding the first armor kits, but more on that in another post.) The video tutorials will start being released on a regular schedule (or at least I’ll be doing my best to do so) hopefully at least two complete tutorials a month from then on.  I’m working with a video editor and that has caused some delays but in the long run, I think it’s the right play.  Video editing takes more of my time than anyone probably realizes when my time really needs to be spent on design (patterns) and filming/crafting.

The latest Elven Lord Pattern! Available now to those who have purchased the bundle!

Imperial Knight Suit Is Complete!

The second topic is the Imperial Knight series!  The Female Breastplate was posted recently which was the final major piece in the IK series so technically the suit is done with only a few tutorials left to do which are in progress now, and bonus patterns which will be coming a little later (see below).  The full suit recap video is in progress too where I’ll provide some additional tips for the suit, along with various additional hand cutting tips and laser cutting tips too.  Possibly in a few different vids.  Also, have a vid about mannequins and more shop tour vids in the works.

New Imperial Knight Armored Corset Pattern!

Next Theme Announced: Berserker!

The third Topic is the announcement of the next theme which is actually a custom project in progress that the client has graciously permitted to become part of the academy! That means that this new theme will be available very soon in its entirety! This design will be my interpretation of the absolutely epic armor from the Manga/Anime Berserk.  The design itself is going to be challenging to get just right but the crafting process will probably be only a little more difficult than Fantasy series.

I’m expecting to only offer more advanced projects like this, and the Elven theme as a bundle/complete course only. As the Academy grows, it’s getting to be a lot to manage with all the individual components for each theme, and there is important supporting content for each theme that applies to all the components.  It makes more sense to me to offer the complete suit as part of a course instead of breaking it up into a ton of smaller sections. I’m not ruling out feedback on this though, anyone can weigh in on this on our Discord server too (link in footer).

If you’re not familiar with ‘Berserk’, this is the inspiration the series will pull from. More pics on the product page.
As always, I will offer an early bird discount for any new content slated for production in our active pipeline.  Head over to the product page to check it out now!

Bonus Content

The final topic is bonus content.  This is taking a back burner for the most part but I do have some pouch designs I’m working on. I don’t want to release just any old ‘a pouch’; they’re going to be really nice, along with the quivers and other bonus content promised.  Including the video content across the series.  My plan is to dive in and knock a bunch of them out back to back when the main suits for all the active series are ready.

Another Elven Lord addition! Available now to those who have purchased the bundle!

What’s Next?

So that’s mostly what’s in the works at the moment.  There are other custom projects in the works behind the scenes that I don’t update here at the academy, but I do want to mention that some other clients are also willing to generously offer their projects to be made into Academy content too so that’s exciting for everyone, I hope. This will also speed up the pace that new academy content is available too since custom projects are a big piece of my attention and focus at any given point.  That said, it’s still a whole lot of extra work to digitize a design and adapt it for mass consumption, not to mention filming, narrating, scripting, and editing the tutorials, but it is nice that I can double leverage some of my designs going forward.  If this Berserker series proves to be popular I will seek to continue this trend going forward.