Here are some Photo's of my armor from the early days in 1987 to today.   I have had alot of variation but here are some of the major changes.

Click on thumbnail images or text to see the larger version of the below pictures.

Ok this was my first suit of armor I made to fight in the SCA.  Stop laughing.  It was my first armor and first try. I had the generous help of Kuji when I made this set.  It was all metal and as you see black. I left it out in August in the sun and the black metal got so hot I burned my fingers picking it up to put it on.  That was when I decided to go with red. I am bad with remembering years and dates but I think this was about 1987?

This was my second set of armor. With me here is pictured here is Sato Ieyasu AKA Sato Dark -my evil twin brother. We decided to both wear identical red armor and have the same name. We thought this would allow us to confuse opponents on the battle field and allow us to share each others glory like true brothers. It worked.  Sato dark was a powerful fast striker and a natural athlete.  I have not had nearly as many intense practices as the days before he retired from fighting. He is missed.  You can also see the 3 plate kabuto helmet I wore for about 7 years.  It had a demon tengu bird face for a  nimpo mask. This helmet was created by me with alot of help and generosity of time on Kuji's part. These 2 pictures were taken at inter-kingdom peace I think around 1992?

This is a picture of me in front of the Pennsic WAR lake and me posing with my SCA father and teacher Kuji. I believe this was about 1994? I owe Kuji alot of things. He was the first to teach me to fight and to make armor when noone else would.   He put me on the path of The Way.   He is a close friend, teacher, father, confidant, someone  to get in trouble with, and someone to bail me out of trouble. But most of all he is a very good honorable person and a hell of warrior and a shining example of The Way.

This picture shows my armor and new fighting clothes my Lady Tsuru made me for a Standing stones Pas D Armes.  You can see the new coat she made me with my device on back. You can also see my new weapons I made which include a naginata and war fan. Plus I am back to wearing my old first helmet with some new decorations. The 3 plate helmet had to be retired due to metal fatigue from years of shots.

This was a fun project Tsuru and I worked on. She sewed all the garb for a jesters outfit to fit over my special   hidden armor.  I made special puppet shaped weapons to fight with. A mace and a spear and a dragon shaped greatsword. This outfit was designed for the Three Rivers Pa D Armes event but has been used at numerous events and demos because the fighting jester is so popular and fun. This was my venture into a fun European persona named Otas(sato backwards)

Here is a picture from 2000 with me and my fighting Lady Tsuru standing in our armor before battle at pennsic. She actually is wearing a set of my old armor which she now fights in. I wore nothing for body armor except a kidney belt for some years, so I let her have my old set when she started fighting. Seeing her and others wearing the full Japanese body armor has made me want to go back to wearing it.  Not for protection but for the look.   She sews all of our fighting cloths and you can get a close up look at the pavilion and banners in this photo. Also the white balls across our chest are recreations of the harnesses Japanese Bushi would wear into battle on long sieges or campaigns. They were cloth tubes with balls of cooked rice and fish wrapped and strung in a harness that could be eaten in the field. We saw these in a period picture and thought they would be fun to wear and recreate. this also shows my new body armor.

This is my most recent armor.  You can see I am still wearing my old helmet. I hope to replace this soon.   But you can also see my new body armor and new gauntlets.  And my nodachi which is a Japanese great sword. The Gauntlets I now wear are a special made set by Maxmillian of 3 Rivers. He made ame a awesome set of gauntlets that look Japanese but still meet SCA armor requirements.