Building a Traveler's Shield Backpack from Breath of the Wild

My son is a huge Breath of the Wild fan. I wanted to make him a leather shield, but with a hidden function: a backpack.

https://youtu.be/Lt80VR0Rdvo

He already had the Master Sword and we had put together Link's outfit. A shield was the obvious next piece. What was less obvious is that a shield spends most of its life being carried around rather than used, so it might as well hold something while it does.

That is the whole idea behind this build. From the front it is the Traveler's Shield. Turn it around and it opens up, with straps, a zip and enough room for the rest of the costume.

Here is how it was made.

From the Zelda wiki to a paper pattern

I found a clean reference image of the Traveler's Shield on the Zelda wiki and rescaled it in Illustrator to a 50 cm diameter. Big enough to read as a real shield, small enough for a child to wear on his back.

The design looks busy, but it is symmetrical. So I traced one half only, in red so it stayed visible on top of the reference image, then mirrored it, put everything back to black, and printed the pattern in sections to tape together.

From there it is paper work. Pattern taped to the bench, leather tracing paper on top, and a slow pass over every line. This is the stage where mistakes are cheap, so it is the stage where I take my time.

I drew a second pattern for the back panel too. It ends up hidden once the straps are on, but it completes the design and I wanted it there.

Embossing a 50 cm design

I used 2 mm vegetable-tanned cowhide. Thick enough to hold a shape and survive a child, light enough to carry all day.

I cased the whole panel with warm water and a sponge before touching it, then embossed the entire design with a tracing stylus, front panel first, then the back.

The shield in the game is not a machined object. It looks handmade and a bit worn, so I did not chase perfect lines. The two circles do not need to be geometrically perfect, they need to be the same size as each other. That is a different problem, and an easier one.

The boss, wet formed over a printed mold

The boss is the domed centre of the shield, and it was the part I expected to fight with. Leather has no interest in becoming a hemisphere.

I printed a simple mold on my 3D printer, wet formed the leather over it, and squeezed the whole thing with half a dozen trigger clamps until it dried. It is a crude setup and it looks it, but pressure is pressure.

It came out right on the first attempt, which almost never happens.

Once dry, I gave the inside two coats of leather hardener. The boss sits at the centre of the shield, so it has to look good and take knocks. The hardener dries fast and turns a soft leather cap into something that genuinely holds its shape.

Dyeing with no room for error

Everything is water based dye, brown for the body, black for the rim.

This is the most delicate part of the whole build. Cross a line and there is no undo. I worked under a lot of light, with size 0 and size 1 brushes, filling the small glyphs one at a time across a 50 cm disc. The back panel and the loose parts are all one colour, which goes much faster.

Two coats of neatsfoot oil once the dye was dry, and the leather went from flat brown to something with depth. The boss and the rim were painted separately, in gold and silver, with a water based airbrush paint.

The hidden function

The bag side needed two shoulder straps, two shoulder pads, two horizontal straps to hold the back panel straight, and two small tabs for D-rings.

The gusset is a single long strip of leather running around the edge. I sewed a zip onto it with my old Pfaff, which is the one machine seam in this entire build. Then I carved a groove along the flesh side of the strip so it would bend into a circle without fighting me, shaped it by hand, cut it to length and glued the ends together.

The decision I am happiest with is the straps. They are held by four rivets and by the horizontal straps, and I deliberately did not stitch them flat. That leaves enough slack for my son to slide his arm behind them and carry the whole thing as a shield instead of a bag. One object, two uses, and no extra hardware.

More than 1500 stitches, and one exception

I glued the gusset to each face, clamped it with paper clips and scraps of leather under the jaws so nothing left a dent, and let it dry.

Then I punched every hole by hand with a 4 mm four-tooth diamond chisel. 371 holes per face, plus the gusset and all the smaller parts. More than 1500 stitches in total, all saddle stitched by hand.

The only thing that went through a machine was the zip. Everything else is hand work, which is why the last stretch of this build took longer than everything before it put together.

A touch more dye around the edge, two coats of Super Shene, and it was done.

The pattern is coming

If you want it, get in touch. Knowing how many people are waiting helps me decide what to finish first, and I will let you know the moment it is ready.

And if you would rather have a shield backpack built for you, or anything else from a world that does not have a shop, commissions are open.

In the meantime, my printable leather patterns already on sale come with the full build video.