Where did you first learn chainmail?

For me it all started with the Jean Claude VanDamme movie Cyborg, then a poster on "The Ancient Art of Mail Forging", then a tome called The Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: In All Places and All Times by George Cameron Stone. Then it was a photocopied guide from an SCA event called S.T.A.G. Method and an eventual desire to pay back all the mentors I had learned from that led to my first website and subsequent self-published title The Art of Chainmail.

When I started such resources were scarce, especially living on the Island, but today Chain, Chainmail, Chaimaille, Maille, Mail or whatever you call it has literally experienced a renaissance of popularity and like a cog spawned many niche interests.

Facebook Groups like Chain Maille also keep the art vital in an environment where solutions to the issues all maillers face - such as aspect ratio, confusion over gauge standards, spring back, etc... can all be crowdsourced.

Below is my chain reading list - be sure to comment below with your favourite chain and mail learning resources and let me know if you'd be interested in Chainman reviews of specific titles or if you art interested in submitting your titled for review.

Advanced Chain Maille

AntiCraft

Beaded Chain Mail Jewlery

Beadmaille

Chain and Bead Jewelry

Chain and Bead Jewelry Creative Connections

Chain and Bead Jewelry Geometric Connections

Chain Mail Jewlery

Chain Maille Jewelry Workshop

Chain Mail & Wire Reimagined

Chained

Chainmail - Novel

Chainmail Made Easy

Chainmail RPG

Classic Chain Mail Jewelry with a Twist

Creative Chain Mail Jewelry

Chicks in Chainmail

Chicks 'N Chained Males

Classic Chain Mail Jewelry

Elven Chain Maille

Handcrafting Chain and Bead Jewelry

Introduction to Chain Mail

Introduction to Chain Mail

Kumihimo Wire Jewelry

Linked: Innovative Chain Mail Jewelry Designs

Make Chain Maille Jewelry 1

Make Chain Maille Jewelry 2

Making Chain Mail Jewelry

Manly Crafts

Practical Chainmail in the Current Middle Ages

Silver Soldering Simplified

Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction

The Art of Chainmail

The Art Of Mail Armor

The Art of Wire

The Missing Link

Unconventional Chain Mail Jewelry

Woven Wire Jewelry

Squire, Protect Me?

Something I do to entertain myself is cast random people I meet in movies I will probably never make. (Read an interview with other people who do this as well!)

It's an internal kind of improvisation game I play with myself to pass the time when I have nothing better to do. Such as pursue my current passion which is storytelling. The two things are really the same, except that in one arena I express stories to myself internally as the sole audience and in the other I express them externally on digital paper with mostly the same result.

At what point does contemplation becomes pontification?

I don't know, but in the pretend movie of my life I would cast my mate Shayne as the Joker character.

A combination sidekick of sorts with healthy doses of Wing Commander's Maniac, Top Gun's Jester and Starfox's Falco, Joker is one crazy mofo.