TomSwede

Very cool! Yeah, those eye brows looks so good! Tom

Thanks Francesca! Do you like metal?? Yes, theese are for the guitarrists of an hopefully upcoming extreme metal band. The members have good validation in this world so I keep my thumbs for them. Actually a bit nervous about how they like them. They were picked up today (mailorder) but haven't heard anything yet wich I normally do via myspace. The logo I think was a bit tricky for leather so it's a bit of compromises in the design to keep those thin lines and the logo straight. I did a first one that I cut and beveled deeper but I couldn't avoid getting the lines to crooked or straying away. They wanted it true to the image they sent me so had to do my best with that. I'd like to rework it a bit and toss around some of the foreground/background elements or widening the borders. I use 1/10 to 1/8 inch, 2,5 to 3mm vegetabilic tanned leather. I like the thinner best because it feels better on the wrist and gives a slicker look but the thicker one is easier to tool but if you check my posts here for the pogskull bracer you can see that the thinner can take tooling great aswell. I think the motif/design is an important factor aswell to make a more relief look, it's alot about fooling the eye. Like playing with the borders and put elements in smart ways so that the stuff in the background still appear in relief. That was hard to do with this since the lines are to thin to bevel/tool properly. Tom

That is a great looking strap! Really lot of small details like that line between the basketweave that shows proof of a thought through design! Sure wish I had your skill! Tom

Hi and welcome Dragonfly! Sure wish we were allowed to bowhunt here in Sweden! So I do leaherwork the more instead;-) Seems like you understand allready that this is an addicitive hobby so be prepared to a new adiction, the leatherworker forum. Tom

That is one gorgeous design Bob!! I love it!! Think I'm gonna try it myself some time soon, I have some wood carving gouges laying around wich I bought because "they looked useful" but never thought of them being good for scales so thank you for the great tip. Tom

Vikinghails from Svithiod!! and welcome to the board! Good looking bracers there, plz post pix of the helm when it is done. You should check out this member: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showuser=6001 and his site: http://www.tombanwell.com If you need any question answered don't hesitate to ask, this board is friendly as few! Tom

Hey and welcome Don! You've found the right place and you seem to be getting serious with carving wich is very much in focus here. There are some really nice carvers here so you'll pick up lots of info on that and tooling + much much more. Tom

Thanx Bree! Any locomotive is heavy so it'll do just fine, after all, not many people are lucky enough to operate a steamer! Tom

Here's something that might be useful for you: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...0&hl=scales Enjoy! Tom

Thanks alot VM! I'm sure gonna cut n paste this snippet into my tip folder!! There's plenty of room for improvement so I'm gonna get some grey or maybe some black and dilute it. I won't be doing this stonetexture for the next bracer but I have 4 rifleslings to make and free hands on design too. Time to fix me some vinegaroon aswell. Tom

Absolutely great!! Good thinking with that good looking border and the mexican braid is soo nice to top things with. I've been thinking about doing a pencilholder myself after finishing my cigbox but no time left over so good to see one for inspiration. I was going to buy that border tool yesterday but forgot it, bummer. Tom

Thanks Bree! The shape is very nice and comfy! Oh the next one is just a variation of this one layed out to be similar to a runestone but the design is not set really yet so it might come out quite close to this one. The guys I work for is a bunch of friends so they see each others and want similar ones. So have you seen him operate the locomotive with it?? I love old steampoered locomotives, you can't find anything more heavy metal than that on land;-) Thanks Roo! I have quite expensive camera gear and that doesn't help either. What you would really wanna to do is to control the lighting, the absolute biggest factor in all photography, in this case soft boxes and some good flashes would be nice and perhaps even after that lots of photoshop. Next time I go at it before sheen then add some contrast via unsharp mask (Amount 25% 10-15 usually best for black leather, Radius 250 px, Threshold 0, try it you'll be amazed what you can do with it. New life to flat pictures guaranteed) Tom

Thank you so much all! CollinsMS: I used the Craftool E294 stamp on very dry leather to just get a bumpy structure that did not sink in too much. It is used both under the white behind REV and to the black background to the sides. I had to be very careful when I used it to the the white area as REV is inverted and not beveled deep too avoid colappsing it to much and loose the inverted feel. It was difficult to paint the white in such a way that I'd get a stonelike surface with shifting white/gray/black texture like a real stone piece since that require some swift brushing and that couldn not be done in this small area. Anyone ever tried to do a stone surface?? Thanks Art! Thanks rdb! Yeah I have hit it off with the right people lately. Next bracer is for the president of a viking (??) mc club and possibly I'm making more of that one for the club during winter. He thought 10-15 perhaps:-) Thanks Darryl! That'd be nice I'm invited to their show on Sunday but money, time and blah blah prioritys says I stay home. Too bad I have the photoequipment to do it. Gunna ask them if they have photos laterz, they are really a bunch of great guys so prolly not impossible. Tom

Theese were made from their logotype. The white/grey behind the REV letters was an attempt from me to simulate the stone background they have. The logotype was very hard to carve beacuse of the demand for long straight and accurate lines and keeping it symmetrical. I carved it pretty dried out and didn't go to deep either just to keep it symmetrical. The REV letters is inverted in order to make the thin white lines to pop out a bit more from the leather. They are just to narrow on the horisontal plan to bevel in a good way. They had high demand in keeping the logo as intact and true to the original paper version as possible. They will be fitted on the guitarists and I think they will rock on stage. Their singer has the black/red Kaos bracer shown a couple of weeks ago. It's impossible to get true pictures with the lighting situation after they are sheened and normally I do the photos before the sheen wich actually produces quite a true image. I buffed them thoroughly but not to the point of the black/red one wich is extremely cool with it's high gloss. Any criticism welcome, this was my first attempt with acrylic so any point will be valuable. I used the cova colour. Tom

Nice flasks! Love them all but they're a tad to small for my whiskneeds a night out;-) Tom

Very nice! Having a custom makers stamp makes you feel good. Don't ask me why, it's just the way it is! Tom

Congratulations, you've found the No1 place to learn about the craft. We got from novice to very advanced members and best of all, we are happy to share and learn from each other! I wonder how your tack look like in detail because I wanna suggest to go from where you are instead of going in another direction and then connect the ends. One thing you may need to learn is doing edges or perhaps you allready know this. Using an edge beveler to nicely round off edges and then wetting them and slick with a bonefolder or just a piece of cloth to a high gloss (with or without the substance at Tandys known as gum-tragacanth) and then one can apply edge coatings to make a nice black edge to a regular tanned leather. Makes it look really professional. Some threads that came up when I searched for: gum-trag http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...amp;hl=gum-trag http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...amp;hl=gum-trag Mikeymoto gives some good examples here http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...amp;hl=gum-trag Other than that I recommend to study threads with what you'd like to do, suck in all info in following replies and just ask questions to the maker in the forum thread, just pump 'em for info! We are all here to learn in one way or another and remember, coffe=good donuts=bad Tom

Oh yeah! That is one nice hubby otherwise he'd been selling himself short with that gift..eh don't you think As a fisherman I'm raised to never wish good luck with the fishing to someone going out to fish because it'll turn on him/her. Does this rule apply in US aswell?? Tom

Hilly!! Hope you have a fine one with lotsa leathertools!! Tom

Tom

Looking good so far. I'm with Tracy about the colouring, better try out that cova colour a bit first. I was just forced to try some white cova and think it was hard to get it on evenly. Tom

Hi and welcome Jeli! Good to hear you're cocked and loaded and coming back into the craft! This board is very friendly and if you have any questions to ask just fire away. Studying replies in threads is a god way to pick up info aswell and we love pics. Tom

Hey Eb! Your gonna get your boots full of information. There is tons of it here. There's been a few saddles going on lately wich was very beautiful so there is some advanced people here. Friendly atmosphere too so if you got questions just ask away! Tom

Wow, that is a cool looking machine! Is it steampowered Tom

Hi and Welcome Stitch! The other guys covered most i think so I just add that we love pics here! Tom