How To Dye A Logo? It's Giving Me Grief...

[Leela Valley Leather]

OK, making a bag for a mate (dont you just love these jobs!?).

He wants the logo below on the front flap (satchel style bag) and the bag should be black...

So, the carving I can do, no problem there. Where I KNOW I will run into trouble is with the dyeing of the leather to replicate the logo...

Any and all suggestions welcome (I've already considered telling him he'll owe more than a carton of beer for the labour...)

[Leela Valley Leather]

ok... lots of views and no suggestions, guess I've pissed off the establishment some how. Nothing new there, I'll just find my own methods thanks folks.

[Tzalabak]

Ok, I have real input as to your problem, but:

Why does everyone seem to instantly assume that they rubbed people the wrong way or something when their problem isn't solved in the fastest way possible?

Remember, there are a lot of people that use this site. A lot of them are newer than you, or as confused to your problem as you are.

Just because you've had 48 people look at your question doesn't mean that any of those are a person that has an answer to your problem.

It's possible that most of the views are from people that are curious about the same thing, and were hoping to find that someone had posted the answer in here.

[Northmount]

Maybe a description of the specific problem you are having might help.

Is it the gradient in the text that is bothering you? For it, I would suggest masking it off and using an airbrush.

Tom

[TwinOaks]

There's also the strong possibility that for those of us who can and will make suggestions on how to dye the logo are also holding "day jobs" and haven't had a lot of time lately to spend on LW.net.

An alternative to masking off and using an airbrush would be to carve it inverted (the style of tooling, not upside down), heavily resist the inverted sections, and block dye it.

What kind of dyes/resists will you be working on, and what kind of tools do you have available?

[Art]

Hi (would love to put name here),

These forums are not instantaenous. As moderators, we look at everything, and because of the volume of that task, we don't reply a lot. The ambassadors take care of nurturing the masses. Nevertheless, here we go. It is a little hard to understand what you want to know, but I'll try.

I use primarily drum dyed leather for things that I want black or dark brown. I pay to have my leather struck through. That way, if I go some carving, it won't show undyed center. So, if I want color (or is it colour), I use acrylic paint. I use the Liquitex brand and I brush or airbrush. The nice thing about acrylic is that it covers up what is there now, something dye can't do. The colors can be very bright (even metallic) and really pop on dark backgrounds. This is one of many solutions, and another tool to add to your bag.

It is also difficult for me to carve black leather, it requires a lot of concentration as the perspective is quite different for me, I am more of a left side, or analytical artist, watch one, do one, teach one. When I am carving on something non contrasting it is easy to lose the perspective or relationships of some of the beveling. Colors don't have these problems and can correct areas of the carving that may have run amuck.

Art

[cmantz]

Art...I am curious if you have any tips on how to achieve very bright colors with acrylics on dark leathers. I am VERY new and have played with the Angelus silver on veg. tanned leather (not even a dark color) and really wasn't happy with coverage...but then again, maybe I am doing something wrong. I have seen some pretty intense designs painted leather. I can not image the artist putting multiple coats of paint on it to achieve good opacity.

[Art]

I assume you are using Angelus Paint not Angelus Dye. Angelus paints are great as far as coverage goes. but as with anything in the paint world, when going from dark to light, a light color base coat is always better. It's like Painting 101. Use 3m blue or that green "froggy" tape to mask off the area, they work good on leather. Prep the leather with a "deglazer" to get good adhesion of the base. To tell if you need a base coat, practice on scrap. Depending on the original color of the leather, the color you want might be ok to apply without a base coat. If you are brushing on some of the heavier body paints (Liquitex Heavy body in tubes) a base may not be required, a little sienna in titanium white gives a pretty good flesh tone that covers without a base coat. But when spraying the thinned medium body acrylics and especially the inks, a base coat is usually necessary, like I said, you have to try it. The reason I use Liquitex acrylics is I have been for a long time and I know how they work; you can develop the same knowledge with Angelus paint.

Angelus Paints have a good website (much better than Liquitex).

Art

[cmantz]

Which of the Liquitex paints do you use? Professional Colors (soft body or heavy body) or the Basics Value Colors?

I am only painting areas of the leather (I am first laser engraving and the following up by painting a name or some scrolls for example) so I can't really mask it to apply a base coat. Since I have to hand paint with a small brush, I would like a product that will give good coverage with only one coat of paint.

Thanks!

Chris

[Art]

Hi Chris,

I use the Soft body and the hard body professional. I also use the Ink! product in the airbrush; don't try and paint with it, it is thin. The basics are kind of less expensive in the pigment area and you might have to base coat them on dark backgrounds. The hard Body tubes and soft body in jars are opaque which is what you want if you can't base coat. I am surprised that the Angelus paints are giving you problems as I have had others tell me they are very good, especially for leather.

Please test everything on scrap until you get the desired result. Just a little titanium white will brighten some colors up dramatically.

I have had some tell me that they use the basics to "extend" the professional line. The basics are considerably cheaper.

Art