Eric

An individual contraction/expansion will create a 5-1 ring and a 3-1 ring. A vertical line of consecutive contractions/expansions in every row will create a 5-1 on one end of the line and a 3-1 on the other end. It sounds like you're doing it right. If you want to get fancy, you can use a ~10% larger diameter ring for the 5-1 and a ~10% smaller ring for the 3-1. It makes them slightly less noticeable.

Galvanized steel has a lot of problems. The low price is the only upside.

Yeah, 3/8 12g will be a tighter weave than 7/16 12g. The term is "Aspect Ratio" or AR. It's the ratio between the ring diameter and the wire diameter, and it tells you how tight or loose a particular weave will appear, regardless of ring size. On the TRL shopping site, you'll see the AR value listed with the other ring specs. The rings in your source image look to have an AR somewhere between 4 and 5. If the lowermost belt is 1.25" to 1.5" wide, then the rings are about 3/8" to 7/16", and an AR of 4-5 puts you in the 14g - 12g range. This is just guessing based on personal experience. I'd recommend ordering a couple different sizes first and make a few test patches before putting in a large bulk order. If you want to skip that step, I'd vote for 12g 7/16". How much coverage are you looking for? Are you going to overlap the maille in the front like the picture implies, or skip rings that would be covered? Are you continuing the rings up underneath the leather harness up top? Skipping the hidden rings will shave a few thousand off the count. Getting the maille to hang like that is going to be a challenge. You'll need a trapezoidal panel to get the 12"-14" overlap up top and the 6"-8" gap at the bottom, and you're going to need to hide in a bunch of expansion to match the artists lines (the artist cheated :-) ). Also, if you use steel, the weight is going to make the skirt portion hug your legs. Aluminum or plastic rings have a better chance of flaring out with the jupon. How are you making the jupon?

When you attach the straps, make the distance between the shoulder straps in the back about 4" wider than the distance between them in the front. And before you zip up the body tube, would you be willing to post X/Y measurements and row/column ring counts of your giant rectangle? I'm not sure the TRL number on rings/sqft for 16g 7/32" is accurate. Last time I plotted all the rings/sqft data, that data point looked out of place.

I also spent more time retailoring my first scale piece than I spent initially constructing it. Panels of scales just don't shape to the body like E4-1 does.

Paladin, what size scales and rings are in your images of closed-hand E4-1 to scales tests?

Zedzknight is making this for cosplay. Replicating the artist's vision *is* the goal. I'd try E4-1 12g 3/8 or 12g 7/16, based on Zlosk's measurements and erring on the side of bigger, chunkier rings.

With scales, rolling a sheet into a narrow tube and stitching up the seam is awkward. I'd start at the wrist with a completed circle and work upwards adding more rows and expansions as needed. I'd also either leave the armpit open or switch from scales to maille for that part.

http://www.mailleartisans.org/articles/articledisplay.php?oldkey=263

This is the armpit seam with the sleeve lifted up. The red lines are the continuous circumferential rows around the torso. The blue lines are the the front of the torso and front of the sleeve. The green lines are the back of the torso and back of the sleeve

It's been done. http://www.theringlord.org/forum/index.php?/profile/17067-dimise-yokai/content/&type=gallery_image I think a couple other people here have done 6-1 shirts. Dr T. and Brighton off the top of my head.

I prefer split rings because they let me build sheets entirely by feel and not require a work surface. It took about ~3K scales to get to that point.

Flat, I guess? I haven't made a sheet of large scales yet, so I don't really have a good reference point to answer your question. They aren't sticking up like scales do under horizontal tension or with undersized rings.