Mrs Barry Hicks

I personally like Golden Acrylics and cut it with Golden's Airbrush medium. They put so much dye in the paints themselves that it stains the leather pretty well when painting it (and your clothes too, so be careful). The colors are amazing in my opinion. I just seal with EcoFlo sealer. Just my 2 cents.

as for sealing the mugs and bottles, you want the lining to be flexible. It will crack otherwise and leak over time. Leather is flexible and so is brewers pitch. I mix mine around 2parts brewers to 1part bees wax. Now to harden the actual mug it might work really well. I'd say give it a try and see what happens.

Hey keep this thread going! I'd love to see how you're coming along. Being a fellow female I'm always supportive of seeing women succeed! Good luck and remember to smile when you curse like a trucker! That way your doing it with grace!

2-3oz weight. There are 5 different peices - 2 ears, top outer snout (eyes and nose), under snout (which is also the gums and teeth, I do multiple folds to get the layers), and the back mane. Thank you all. I've had fun working on these. I plan on making another Dragon Mask with a different pattern. But I probably wont get to it any time soon because of other leather work in the pipeline... but I promise to post as soon as I have something in the mask division!

So I finished the two Dragon Masks and the next wolf mask. Sharing for sharing sake and I always love crits! and please suggestions are always welcome. So are compliments... but I get a lot more mileage with constructive crits! And thank you all for your compliments on the prototype mask! Oh and can I post a link to where they are for sale? I don't know if it's Kosher on this site. If I can I will, if not I won't. and you can see more images of each in my gallery... Wolf Dragon (multi-colored) Dragon Blue

Awesome tat! Good line work and I really like the design. I too am doing a barter for a tattoo... well reworking a tattoo on my back. I love barter when you need it!

Hey all. I made a wolf mask (can be found in my gallery) around 8months ago and I am finally getting back to making more masks. This is my latest mask, my first Dragon Mask. I air brushed it with dyes. The holes are where the horns actually go. This is a prototype. No mask will be painted exactly the same but I am trying to keep them all very close to the original in shape (there are some variations due to the complexity of the shaping). I have two masks right now drying and I'm hoping to start painting them today. I'll probably use a combo of dye and paint for them. I'll post more pictures when they are painted. but for now here's a picture of my prototype dragon. Oh and I'm in the works for making another kind of dragon soon! Enjoy! and crits and questions are welcome! Mrs. Barry Hicks

hmmmm.... I have been through this topic on many boards more than once. There is not one company that will stand behind a "food safe resin" for hot liquids. You won't find them. Leather workers won't tell you their secret because of legal issues (read first part of my blurb here). I personally have been looking into food safe silicone for lining mugs. But keep in mind, whatever you use on the inside... the heat from the liquid will affect what is on the outside too. So you can't harden your mugs with bee's wax cause it will start to melt the wax in the leather. And make sure that the sealant you use can handle heat changes. Along with the colorants you might use.... stains may hold up, but does acrylic paint.... just sayin. There's a lot be thought about when it comes to making a "heat friendly" leather mug. You could just make ceramic mugs that look like leather ones... but that sort of kills the fun of working with leather doesn't it? If I find out something that works I'll be posting it. Good luck to everyones endeavors!

awe thanks! I love your work so it's great to hear your feed back. I'm not a master leather worker, but I am learning. I'm already in the mode for making a leather bottle but a notch up from the regular ones (though the ones I have seen here are gorgeous, I'm just different from that). And I have a new sword I bought and have been working on making a scabbard for it as well! (which I noticed one you had done one?) Looking forward to seeing more of your work too.