Making a leather covered quilted linen cuirass

[Quintilianus]

I have been walking around with the idea for some months now, collecting information. There are some nice articles on the topic in several issues of Ancient Warfare Magazine and a lot of information in the book 'Arms And Armour Of The Imperial Soldier' of Graham Sumner and Raffaele d'Amato.
After reading about the biophysics of weapon impact, especially in relation to linen armour, there is no reason to doubt the protective nature of such an armour, soft (quilted) or hard (linothorax). The leather covering appears to be thin and flexible, but wil also ad to the protectiveness of the armour and keep the linen dry.
On the part of evidence, there are some pieces of leather found, related to armour, but most is in the form of art and is sometimes debatable, but comes in quantity.
The quilted linen cuirass however (in fact a thick subarmalis)is mostly covered by the leather and rendered invisible on artwork I have seen. So all I have to go on are a few examples not covered by leather (see Ancient Warfare Vol 4, issue 1)
Before I begin to reconstruct this kind of armour based on artwork evidence, I need a lot more of it and I am kind of stuck there.
I am counting on obtaining information trough this forum, so, ideas, information, links, etc. are very welcome.