Grey Drakkon

So today I gathered up some black walnuts. Holy crap, do NOT pick up the fallen ones, they're 90% grubs and 10% hull. Apparently there's a really bad huskfly infestation in this area, because even the mostly green hulls that are on trees had at least a few of the grubs in them. Anyway, I gathered up some nuts, ripped off the hulls and dumped them all in an enamelware pot with some water. I pulled out the actual walnuts before bringing it to a boil, then reduced it to low and left it alone for over an hour. I filtered the liquid through a cotton cloth, and applied a bunch of coats to a bird ring I made. The picture of it laying flat shows the original leather color behind it.

I didn't get the chance to collect more berries this year, crows discovered the berries as well as squirrels and were eating up all the good ones that were high up, and then their season ended. I'm going to try walnut hulls next though, since I have a Black Walnut tree in the yard that's starting to drop nuts.

Super clean looking, nobody will notice that lacing with that awesome pattern on it! (although I think your lacing looks good on it too)

Yep, as your form falls apart that's when you get hurt. Glad you found your dog!

Hah well that's how it works, we're all our own worst critics and 90% of anyone looking at your stuff wouldn't see anything wrong with it. Ahhh, a wheelbow. Ah well, we can't all be perfect. ;D But yes, you'll find out you had muscles in areas you didn't know could hurt. I take a weekly TRX workout class and I found that after starting archery my planks and side planks really improved which told me that there's a LOT of core work that goes into archery. Broken/lost arrows are par for the course, aggravating as it is. Funny thing with armguards, I usually have the same thing happen. Wear it, no slaps. Forget to put it on, WHACK. I figure it's a reminder on how to hold my arm, plus it looks neat.

That's a different way of doing it, really nice!

Nice basketweave on the guard! What kind of bow did you get?

Nice! Should look even better on leather.

There's definitely things you can fiddle with, like thickness of the thread, but your cuts are very good, and you are consistent throughout the entire piece. Very nice job!

Aw man, you let that Khajiit get that close to you? You KNOW you're missing gold now. ;D

::cough:: suede ::cough:: Seriously though, super slick! While the color intensity is a bit bright, hopefully it'll tone down with age and sunlight. The problem with fresh Orc armor is that it's not nearly banged up enough. That much lacing is amazing, I think I would have started gnawing on it halfway through out of frustration.

Typically you can only stamp on vegetable tanned leather, other types are too soft/bounce back from the impression stamped onto them. Bracelets are really easy to make, I have a thread of mystery braid bracelets I've made and you can do all sorts of things like paint the leather or string beads in with it. You can make pouches out of soft thin leather, moccasins, slippers, key fobs, quivers, all of that comes to mind of the top of my head. Most importantly, look around in the forums because you'll find all sorts of things you've never thought to try, and who knows, you might come up with something new too.

Oh no, Nightwing too?! I'm never showing my guy your stuff! I'll have to drop everything I'm doing to make him a set! Super nice job on those bracers!

Lucky! That's like a treasure hunt in the comfort of your own home.

17th, 18th, and 19th century images from books have been made public domain. I found a whole bunch of wonderful patterns that could be stamped, as well as some illustrations of boxes and such that could be puzzled out. Check it out! http://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/126860337041

Beautiful job on that armor! The only thing that bothered me was in the first picture, you can see inside and it's just fuzzy raw stuff. I know that's not going to be seen when worn, but I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to seal it just so sweat won't break down the inside of the armor?

Read through this thread too, I got some great advice: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=59711

I fear to show this to my guy, he's going to want me to make it for him! Great job!

Now that you mention it, you stole my idea! Was totally going to make sandals out of the Horween, you must have been spying on my secret plans...

The sheathes are beautiful, especially the stitching pattern! The bridle looks very solid...A wee bit too much so, especially the throatlatch, which would look better if it was narrowed down at least a bit. The ears are being pinched a bit as already stated (hence the displeased look with the ears laid back). Also, you might want to add a strap keeper to the cheek strap so it doesn't flop around while the horse is being ridden. (can you tell I'm a bit familiar with horse tack? ) The gun belt looks wonderful, gorgeous stitching...Which is rudely interrupted by your maker's mark. I'm probably in the minority on this one, but I prefer maker's marks to be inconspicuous, like on the inside of the belt, at least when it has such strong geometry to it that clashes with the pattern on your belt. Like I said though, that's a personal call. The blueprint carrier is gorgeous as well, I love the contrasting colors you used, and the stitching is superb. If I have to pick on it, I'd say that I'm not sure I like how some of the edges are left raw and light colored when the rest of it is so smooth and dark. I'd be tempted to paint the edges with a dark brown if they won't burnish.

Awesomesauce.

How I'm doing these is: 1.Tape the back of the leather, which is somewhere around 3 oz for the most part. The "floppy" bit of it has more to do with the consistency of the leather rather than the thickness of it in this case, because some of my 2oz stuff is fairly stiff while some of the thicker is from the belly and softer. 2.Cut the straps and slots with a blade/rotary cutter. Like NstarLeather says though, it's time consuming and leaves a lot of room for screwups. 3. Airbrush the dye onto the leather, then hand paint acrylic heat setting paint onto the edges (I'm using Lumiere Acrylics). This leather is so thin it would be more aggravating than anything to try and burnish it, but I don't like frizzy edges so using a super sharp blade combined with the paint cleans them up pretty well, plus I can use any color that I want. In theory you should be able to keep the tape on the back, but I end up making a huge mess every time I do that so it's around this point I pull the tape off. 4. Hit it up with the hairdryer to "set" the acrylic, then spray a coat of diluted resolene on it. 5. Add snaps. For the brown Horween, skip steps 3 and 4.

Bead lay is definitely an issue, and was the reason why the braided bracelets work so well. On the one with just seed beads that I sent you, I used a strand of waxed thread and while maybe years down the road it might break, I don't think that is too big an issue. On the one I posted above, I used jewelry wire which is a lot stiffer than waxed thread, but still has enough flex that it pretty much blended in with the feel of the thick leather. I concealed the ends by putting a crimp bead next to one of the flat beads, looping the seed beaded strand around a loop and pulling the thread through the crimp bead and into the flat bead. Once crimped it's going nowhere, and I just use a nailclipper to snip the wire close to the bead which gets concealed by the seed beads. I'll take a pic of that tomorrow since that explanation was probably as clear as mud. The word you're probably looking for is "brow band", that's the strap that goes over the forehead just in front of the ears and is on a bridle. Although I suppose a halter could be made the same way, but that would be a lot of beading! I was thinking of making some Arabian style beaded halters for my friend's Pintabians, but I think those are mostly wire and beads instead of leather and beads. JLS, Aw man, you're going to flood my market! I'm in Iowa too ya know!

Playing around with adding elements to the mystery braids. Just finished this one where I wove a strand of jewelry wire strung with beads through a 5 strand Horween mystery braid. Had to use crimp beads to tidy up the ends and that sucker is going NOWHERE.

The fee to get in is you have to tell a dirty joke once you're in, no lurking.