Making the Depeeka Roman Italic D Helmet Right
Behold, the Roman Italic D helmet, my favourite! Now straight from Deepeeka (the most economical place to get it), the helmet is "okay" but... right off, if you're "anal" like I am, there are some problems. However, Deepeeka IS the best price and they Do seem to be trying to make stuff better...
- The eagles.. They look like drunken baby pterodactyls ;-( AND they're riveted on. Yuck! I have used CorelDraw and my clip art library to find some "close" eagles to work from.
- The rear "temples" are not engraved like the real thing;
- The cheek pieces have incorrect rivets;
- The handle on the back is "okay" but the brass pieces where they enter the helmet are WRONG and the handle is supposed to be brass;
- The little knobs that stick out at the temples are the wrong shape.
So, these are things to change! First, we need to look at photos of the items and also compare them w/ photos of the real helmet in Worms, Germany (these photos are from Romanhideout.com, a great site w/ tons of good info!)
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| Above, are the only photos I could find on the 'Net of the original Italic D. Alas, living in Northern California, is not conducive to me zipping over to the museum and taking my own shots of the helmet (wanna do that for me? I have some more detailed shots I need...). These pix came from that excellent website called RomanHideout.com! BTW, these are all thumbnails so click on them to get a bigger pix! | |||
Repro Italic D's
Below are some of the many listings on the 'Net for repro Italic D helmets. The VAST majority though, are Deepeeka's so I am only showing a few of them. To me, the BEST repros I have seen are from Lonely Mountain Forge and Brian Stobbs, but... yazow, the one from Lonely Mountain costs like $950.00 ?!? Ack, that's more than I make in a week! Alas, THAT ain't gonna happen ;-(
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Deepeeka Italic D, okay, if I get the motivation to climb behind my computer and hook up the cord to my digi-cam (yeah, it's that old -- it works though), I will shoot a bunch of detail shots of mine so we can look at wrong stuff. (never mind, tore it aprt to fix it before I took 'em... bad me!). Anyway, it's a good place to start at... and FAR cheaper than a custom Helmet!!!
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Lonely Mountain Forge Italic D, one of the best of the repros as far as I can see... not having seen a Michael Simkins work of art (the high-holy grail of armoring). Look at the eagle -- one of the ONLY ones I have seen that looks right to me. The rear temples have the proper engraving and the handle has the right bosses AND handle! Excellent!
Still, $950.00 Aaiiiiiiiiiiiiihhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeee |
Brian Stobbs, Italic D I found on www.sol-invictus.org.uk Don't know much about this guy, but I found it interesting that he blued the body. Eagles look good though and rear temples do have engraving. Also, looks like handle and bosses are good. From close-ups (below) Eagles are EXCELLENT!
Look at close-ups for some more shots of this Helm, sent to me by it's current owner! |
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Albion Armorers - Imperial Italic D... also a Deepeeka product. Nice, but still, it's a Deepeeka... icky rivets in the Eagle and in the rear temples.
Ack! Spit! #$^@%&*@#! Why can't they just copy the real thing? They spend more work and time doing it wrong than if they just did it correctly?!? |
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Some Detail Shots and the Eagle Art
I drew the eagle from a tracing by George Metz and the pix of Brian Stobb's work of art.
