dragon1.jpg

assuming gilding is as gold leafing....so cool, fixing to do some helmets with pinstripes and gold leaf....will try this on leather too...if you feel like, make us a short tutorial and let us know how this :gilding: works!!

Thanks for sharing your work...!!

James

I've seen various methods posted, but the one I worked out is as follows:

1. Carve leather

2. Oil

3. Dye background and paint with gold leaf paint - Done in case any tears develop, it won't be as noticable, but I think the paint alone looks cheesy (opinion)

4. Put on at least one coat of Neat-Lac to seal (lacquer)

5. Apply size to area you want the gold, avoiding puddles. (gilding glue available at Hobby Lobby)

6. Apply gold leaf (used imitation here. Available at Hobby Lobby as well).

7. Top coat with Neat-Lac

I found that using a camel hair brush to blot down the leaf worked well and allowed me to remove excess in the process. Did a good job getting in tooling.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Normally you'd burnish the gold, but I only went around the edges and didn't use much pressure on the carving. My concern was leather being soft and the potential to damage the leaf. Thought it looked pretty good without it and seems to be holding up well.