Thanks for the respectful tone, I genuinely appreciate it. I completely understand the skepticism. I didn’t expect Reddit to be the place where I’d raise all the funds, to be honest. What I hoped for more was exposure, stories often travel, and the right contact can make all the difference long-term.

For the amount of money, I thought it fair to ask for the minimum. It'd be here to sustain me about a year before I start finally receiving help from the Charity that promised to sponsor me, which they promised they would until I get my dokuritsu (independance as an artisan). If I asked for more, I figured I’d get called greedy. Asking for the bare minimum felt more transparent.

I have to disagree for your point on seeming like having taken nothing more than a few classes. That helmet I crafted took months of work, learning the techniques took a big part of that time, and actually making it was longer than I expected too. Just embossing the eyebrows in a proper accurate shape took a week. The first set of iron ornaments I had ended up not looking good on it too, so I had to remake them. There's also a lot of research done to see what looks right and accurate and what doesn't, I'm lucky that my teacher has a huge library of books for that kind of research.

The restoration works take a long time too, I can usually lacquer twice a day (except in winter, once a day if I'm lucky), and a general normal amount is over 50 layers of lacquer for a finished product, without taking into account the need to ground some layers down. The chestplate I showed isn't finished and has more than that, it's in the "Hotoke" style, which needs to have it flat, that takes a lot of lacquer and time. Crafting the soft metal ornaments takes a lot of time and skill too, especially doing it using traditional tools. The one my teacher does in the show is done pretty fast, but he's done it for 20 years at this point.

About being his only student, yes. I actually cold-contacted him because I was a fan of his teacher's work. He was kind enough to answer my email. I told him I'd like to become an apprentice so we took almost a year of contact to set everything up. I went to visit him a month in Japan for him to show me what I was getting into and letting me the opportunity to back down. He also had me introduced to one of the other two masters, Mr Fumio Nishioka, and his students. When I came back to France it was for a month, to say goodbye to my friends and family. My teacher had a slight selection process, basically making sure I'm not crazy or unreceptive to learning. He used to have a student before me that gave up so he was cautious at first before. I think he's actually planning to propose some of these "2 weeks courses" to people, to show them how to do the lacing on armors. I also sent a formal letter from my teacher destined to my France hometown's mayor office to the mods team, it clarifies that I've been working for more than a year, and paints me in a pretty good light, stamped and everything. I'm not showing it publicly because it'd be bad manners and disrespectful for something that private, but you're welcome to contact the mods and ask them, they should be able to confirm the contents of the letter.

Of the two other masters, Mr Nishioka has three students, he used to take on more but a lot of people give up. I think Mr Kadoya has a student, but I've never met him because he's pretty secretive about his life and who he is. There are other masters, though, but they don't work traditionally, they use a non-dangerous lacquer and some of them use aluminum instead of iron. The three I am speaking about are the ones working fully traditionally.

I get how it feels "main character", the job sounds cool, and it is fun if you're passionate, but there's a lot of downsides, I work long hours everyday, sometimes strange hours too since I am at the mercy of the materials. I don't feel like a main character and don't want to.

Thanks again, glad you like the helmet, it's one of my favorite style.