What is the Shiny?

The Shiny was born several years ago, as a project for a LARP-character. At that time, it was the most arduous task I had taken upon myself. 3000 scales interwoven by 6000 tiny spiral rings, each scale attached to 4 rings, and each ring to four scales. Just the pure connecting required 40'000-something flicks of my wrists, and that's disregarding all the silly mistakes I did before I understood the craftmanship. Alas, about a year later (which was at least 4 months off target...) I finally managed to finish it: A scalemail vest, among the first of it's kind, and quite possibly one of the two only scalemail vests in Sweden at the time.
On the very first larp we drew some attention, mainly because of the good weather. The sun makes the armor look like cheap tinfoil-armor from a distance, but once you're up close enough to make out the scales... It's a sight to be seen. I've even had someone walk up to me, stare at my shiny chest and proclaim "You're stupid. Just... stupid." and then walk off. :3

As I said earlier, this was many years ago. I have since bought a new batch of scales (the second print, which is softer and not plated on both sides... let's hope it doesn't rust), and also a small batch of brass scales to line the edges with.

Inspired by Kaz (http://of-bronze-and-bone.blogspot.com/) and her astonishing piece of work, I decided to finally put the new scales to use.

The plan is:

• Expand the vest for my slightly larger chest. (Yes, I have grown... how inconvenient :/ )
  
• Build downwards to make it longer, less vest-like and more armor-like.
  
• Add a collar (in Kaz's fashion, because it just looks awesome)
  
• Possibly redo the shoulders, after seeing Kaz's solution.
  
• Add a few rows of brass scales to every "border" (bottom, arms and neck).
  

I have a deadline of May 10th. It might prove quite impossible, so I'll attempt one thing at a time...

First comes expansion of the chest area.