TomSwede

Hi and welcome Rhona!!!! I liked reading your intro, I could recognize my own situation before leatherworker!!! Beautiful work!!! I love the last knifesheath, very nice and unique in design!! Tom

That looks just great!! ME to wanna know if you have it mounted on a wooden backing and particularily how the rope is attached. I really like rope framing and for inlays too so might wanna do that someday. Tom

Tattoo flashart is my fav for finding good pratice with easy to spot lines to carve. I usually google for pics using desired kind of art as prefix and tattoo flash as suffixes, example: eagle tattoo flash renders this page: GOOGLE Sorry about the Swedish google page. Don't know how to get it in English form. Ooooohhhh looooove this one, EAGLES HEAD ,saved to HD for future possibilitys.....I shouldn't be doing google now....have others jobs to carve ha ha Tom

Very beautiful wallhangers!!! I love the those little old school tattoo flash Swallows and the coloring looks great. Eyecatchers and jewelry for the best wall of the home!! Tom

I love black/yellow too. I'm not very much into sports but my fav team in Swedish icehockey use black/yellow so it's close to my heart!! Tom

Still looks very cool Brother Freak!!! I just love the yellow but can't tell for sure if it is acrylic but that's my guess and if so how did you apply it. If diluted it must have taken ages. Tom

Great looking tooling David!! Thanks for sharing, particularily fun since I've worked some with feathers lately. Tideous but still very fun to work with. Tom

I totally agree with the others, color is so rich and beautiful. A good reminder of a useful but neglected tool in my shop..the tri-weave...might just be the missing piece to the guitarstrap I'm designing. Like Schno said, the fingercuts is a great touch!! Love theese two pieces!!! Tom

Very good looking panel Busted!!! I like the background structure, made me think of crocodile but not sure, they're not that common in Sweden ;-) Iron crosses are fun to carve and work with...lettering...not so fun but jolly good work with it!! Tom

The Lone Star Longhorn on your avatar looks really cool!!! I'm not gunna make any suggestions and just let you go ahead and be creative, looking good so far!!! Look forward to see the rest of it!! Happy tooling!! Tom

Thanks bigsis!! One has to try and improve so glad it shows!!! Förstår att ni haft mycket att syssla med, jag också!!! Thanks Clay!! Yeah I bet Kathy want me to do yaks!!! I'd like to do a longer trip and hook up with some people so I'm at least considering waypoints and coordinates. I have something exciting going on at the moment so I might end up visiting US sooner than I've planned but prolly wont have time to travel around if it works out. We'll see, it's just in initial phase at the moment and has to with leatherwork. Tom

It is amazing...so many beautiful details!!! Tom

I like it!! Good looking little fox!!! Tom

Thanks Michael!! It is great to know that people get inspired from my work, I keep getting inspired too and it's great for the creativity!!! I can't see your pattern but PM me when you have something posted, I like to see it!! Tom

HA ha thanks Roo!!! White takes longer than red for sure but I really enjoyed working with this one. NO letters...a relief!!! NExt one should be black and red, I agree ha ha!!!! Tom

Thank you very much all!!!! Very glad to hear this Luke, I have at least passed 49 bracers a long time ago ha ha ;-) Nah Storm I don't think we have to worry so much about my head becoming all that blown up and if it does I expect you to be on the job, get a ladder, climb up and pull me back down again ;-) I agree that the blending of wings and head worked out great. It was just one of those times when you get an idea and it falls together byitself. I'm glad the Ecoflo antique worked so great. This one was all about pushin my skills furhter and explore and learn more about figure carving. I hope that someday I'll be landing in N.Dakota and Kathy and ClayB will force me to carve a pregnant yak so better start practicing on me animals. Cheated with a statuetype here ha ha 48 more and I'll make a furry Lion too ;-) Thanks!! Without this board it would have been hard to take in the knowledge gathered the past two years. Owe it all to the members, Johanna and the Team!!! Tom

Absolutely gorgeous!!!! a true !!! Is that place in your entrance hallway??? If so I know why your guest never comes further into your house Thanks for sharing, inspiration in high dozes and yet another thing added to my wishlist!!! Tom

Beautiful and professional looking quiver!!! Do you round punches to creat the bear paw cutouts?? I relly like those, adds a great touch to your work!!! Tom

Sometimes it is necessary to create something new and try to pushthe limits of what you do. I constantly do this but this time I feltlike figurecarving and more realistic art should happen. I spottedtheese wings when I looked for designs for thee previous bracer LochVostok and thought it’d look nice to have them on a bracer withoutborders. The lionshead comes from a drawing of a lionstatue so Ididn’t aim for a realistic lion. The wings are handpainted with brushes and white diluted covacoloracrylic paint and I used a sharpie to paint the decorative feathers.Then I sealed them with Fiebings leather sheen wich I painted oncarefully because the white dissolves easily wich makes the black colorto run so very light touches with applying the sheen. Once dry Iapplied Tandys new eco-flo gel antique black to create shadows andtexture to the wings. The Lionshead is handpainted with brushes and very diluted blackspirit dye. I tried to keep it as even as possible wich is very veryhard but I wanted to give that statue look. I used no antiques oranything else on it. Tom

Make sure you test the laquer spray for cracking when flexing. I've never tried with regular laquer so just a thought. Tom

Oh my...thank you very much Daniel!!! Not only do I get to spend some time on my favourite board today but seeing this is very nice!!! As I often say in my postings (I hope) I owe it all to the members and people behind this board and the gathered skill here that has has taught me alot and I think I'm gunna continue to pick up more skills from here. Like blockdyeing..citizenKate inspiration and there is a bunch of people that I have looked too and picked up more and more carving/tooling skills. I too have done alot of copying and borrowing ideas but allways try to incorprate some sort of own twist to it. It's a natural way of learning so thanky you and all the good people here at the board, you are great!!!! Keep at it!!! Tom

Really really good looking bracers!! Love the rattlesnake, but the Stingray is top notch too. Tom

Hey hey hey!!! those look very cool!!! You're gunna find your way with the tools and carving soon enough so keep it up and I'll do the same, there's allways room for improvement and I'm gunna show off a bracer that is a little bit above my usual stuff as soon as I have taken pics on it. Another thing I do is to wetshape and dry them stringed to my arm, I feel that I get a bit more hardening in this process but more important is that they will really become much more comfortable to wear after this. I wet the leather a little from the inside just to the point where I can shape and string around my arm. To much moisture in the leather can caust the tooling to flat out a bit so be careful with it if you try. Look closely to the bottom of my bracers and you can aslo notice that I form the edge a little there to allow movement for the hand. Looks neat and improves comfortability even more. Dunno nuttin bout color coordination, I just follow my own head and ideas and so far I havent dome much variation on it byt hey red and black is in high demand among my customers. I think that pretty much any color go with black but when you have multiple colors you might wanna avoid some combinations. Awsome!! Tom

Good looking rod case!!! I've made two based on the same idea with folding around a tube. Yua can see them at my website or by browsing through my topics. Tom

Thanks Rusty and Brad!! Tom