ElVaqueroMuerto

Tom, Fine work buddy. Now that I see them, I understand more of what you were talking about doing with them. You can also get a mottled look with the white if you apply a very water coat of dark gray acrylic after the white dries, then wipe it off a little. This is called a "wash". Then, to pull the white out a bit more, get some white on your brush and brush it onto your skin until the paint on the brush is a bit dry and does not go on evenly. Then lightly brush it across the tops of your texture. This is called "dry brushing". These are just extra tips to make things easier for you. This piece looks good, man. Keep it up! El Vaquero Muerto

gotcha. I haven't done any seat work, so I am a bit unfamiliar with how color holds up under weather and butt. I will keep that in mind...

Why thank you. I really enjoy the community here and want to give back a bit. I am going to start providing more technical information in my postings so that others can weigh in and learn from my techniques and processes and so hopefully I can develop them even more. VM

I seal everything with Fiebing's Leather Sheen, a spray leather finish. "Tanner" and "1983" are carved to be raised from the leather. The rest of the lettering is simply cut into the leather and filled with Gel Antique Medium Brown.

The thistle leaves were actually relatively simple. First I dyed them Feibing's Green. Then I put Eco Flow Gel Antique Med Brown into the depressed areas. Then I brushed a light green acrylic onto the highlight areas. Then I go and paint all the "cliffs" with the Eco Flow Gel Antique Med Brown. Done.

This is really amazing work. I have not yet tried the photo-realistic carving, but when I do I hope to work up to your skill level. Wonderful work. VM

Very nice carving work! Keep it up. I look foreword to seeing more.

Very nicely done. Incredibly fluid design and great color scheme. Love it! May I humbly suggest, however, going in with an Gel Antique Med Brown and painting the "cliffs" in your design? (I do not know the official name for it, but what I call "cliffs" are as follows: when you cut your line, then compress one side, if you follow the compressed side down to the line, then you hit a cliff face, which goes up, then levels off into the untooled side. So the "cliff is the edge of the cut line that shows after you have tooled one side down) It has been my experience that Gel Antique Med Brown plays very well with oranges and yellows and it would add more distinction to your cut and tooled lines, giving them more contrast. Very nice work again. I look foreword to seeing more of your work. VM

Thank you all for your comments. My color work is a combination of leather stains and dyes and acrylic paints. Rather than use Cova Color or something like that, I use artist acrylic paints. Golden is my favorite brand. The flames, for instance, were dyed with Eco-Flow Cranberry first (I always put a dye or stain down first, never acrylic on raw veg-tan). Then I added thin coats of Light Magenta. Then I went in with Quinacrodone Magenta and did a watery, light random pattern. Then, within that pattern, I went a bit heavier, again in a random pattern. Finally, I went with un-watered dabs of paint, which gives the intense magenta. Then I went in with Eco Flow Antique Black and blended the black into the magenta. I also put a few black dabs inside the magenta flames, to darken them up a bit and intensify the color effect. And that is how I did the flames. If you want to get into using more acrylic to intensify your color work, I recommend taking a few scrap pieces of leather and dyeing each one with a different stain or dye. Then take your acrylic paints and put a light coat on a small area of the dyed/stained leather. The dyes and stains will soak into the acrylic, changing and modifying its color. So these "color chips" are so you can figure out what the final result will be when you mix certain dyes/stains with different paints. I also recommend spraying each chip with leather sheen, as this can sometimes cause the dyes to create different colors in the acrylic from when they were first put down. For instance, when you put white acrylic down over Feibing's Black, it generally stays white. But add Leather Sheen and, for whatever reason, the white becomes blotchy with pinks and purples. It is really very odd. Only experimentation will show you what the final product will look like. Also, might I add, brush-on finishes are no good for intense color jobs with lots of variation in dyes/stains/colors. At least in my experience, I have found that, especially when stains are employed, the brush-ons tend to pick up color and transfer it to other color sections, resulting in color contamination. That is why I use the spray. For those of you in California who, like me, cannot purchase the spray because of rediculous environmental laws that did nothing to curb pollution by big companies but screwed the little guy royally, contact me. I am going to Arizona to see family in October and will happily bring you back a can or two. Hope this helps! VM

Very nice work. You have a strong sense of design and a good color palette. Best of luck! VM

This is a leather flask cover I created for a commission. It is a bit more traditional than I usually do, which presented a pleasant challenge. The whole concept was to create a personal scotch label for the guy. He is part Scottish, so the Irish thistles were a must. He was born in 1983, which explains the Est. Year. The color scheme is partially derived from a bottle of Cairnluish. The red is Golden's artist acrylic Quinacrodone Crimson, a color I highly recommend adding to your color palette. The fine lettering was drawn on, then carefully cut in with a thin, Exacto-style fixed blade. I really enjoyed producing this piece (I love scotch! Scotch, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, into my belly! Yum, yum, yum!). The woman who commissioned it was very happy, as was the boy she gave it to. He has since broken up with her and I've half a mind to re-aquire the piece for her, courtesy of a Louisville Slugger. We shall see... Also, may I add, I highly encourage critique of anything I post. I am all about improving my skill, both construction and design wise. So please, critique away!

I promise to post a tutorial on bricks as well as my tutorial for my leather carving and coloring class sometime within the next few weeks. I am just so swamped right now trying to get ready for the class. But I promise that patience will pay off! Also, thank you all for your kind words. You guys rock something fierce. VM

Tooled and Colored Leather 2008 I made this bracelet for Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls fame. I went to her solo debut at the Troubadour in Los Angeles and gave it to her. She asked me to put it on her wrist, a request I was more than happy to oblige. This is a real deviation from my normal style and subject matter. It was a challenge to break out and create something in Amanda's style, while still keeping my own creative voice. I agonized over the design and spent hours researching images on the internet and listening to her new album on her Myspace page (the album will be released in September). I finally settled on an old dress form and gave it a cracked background with dark spiral-y things. The banner is "WKAP" or "Who Killed Amanda Palmer", the name of her solo album. The brick background was inspired by her Myspace background of a crumbling brick wall. The brick seemed to give the design grounding among the ruined and also gave it a feel that I associate with the older parts of Boston (though I have never been there and just seen it in pictures). I hope to be doing more work through the Dresden Doll's new online phenomenon Post War Trade, a web site where independent artists create Dresden Dolls merch that is sold, with a good amount of the proceeds going to the artist. Check it out if you have not already. Ps - sorry about the blurry and off-color pictures. I was apparently too delusional from lack of sleep to get a decent picture. Some photography student, no?

It was great to meet you and see your work at your show. I hope to get together again sometime. I still have the dream of us Los Angeles area leather workers doing shows and such together. Also, I wanted to talk to you about cutting and dies and such because I would really like to be able to cut out my bracelets from the raw leather easier so I can focus more on the carving and color work. My number is 602.796.3995. Call any time.Just a note for everyone else, feel free to give me a call if you want to get together with another leather worker or have questions or tips or anything! I did slick the edges, though I should have sanded the underside. Good suggestion! Thank you. Thank you everyone for your kind words and support. It is awesome to be among others who share my passion for leather. I hope I get the chance to share my work with you and see your work for a long time to come. Once more, any Southern California leather artists who want to get together, let me know. I am serious about us all coming together here and really creating something good.

Why thank you. Right now I am trying to establish myself as a leather artist and really get known for my style of art and leather carving, so I am not currently putting out patterns. But sometime in the future, once I am established, I hope to do a whole book of patterns and projects!

Thank you for the warm welcome Clay. I am so happy to be a part of this forum. I will try to find the calendar and post the class. I'll let you know if I need help finding it. I definitely look foreword to sharing more and seeing what everyone else is doing. It is very inspiring to see everyone's work.

Why thank you. I really try to make my work as high-contrast as possible. I come from a miniature painting and illustrator background, so that is why I think it all comes out the way it does.

I love skeletons, I love boobs. I thought it only proper to blend my passions. Thank you. I hope to have much more up soon. Why thank you. I have quite a bit more work up on my Deviant Art account, at www.elvaqueromuerto.deviantart.com. I hope to have more up here soon! Why thank you. I want to develop it even further and do more large-area projects.

I recently finished a commission on two bracers for the fire dancer, Unity. They were her birthday present from her boyfriend and they should keep her forearms from getting burned when she dances. I welcome and strongly encourage critique, comments and suggestions. I want to grow in my leather work and especially lack experience in the construction aspect of leather, so anything I can learn or grow in would be invaluable to me. Thank you. El Vaquero Muerto

Greetings, everyone! I am El Vaquero Muerto. I am a leather artist, painter and illustrator. I would first like to thank Leatheroo for inviting me to join leatherworker.net. For a few years now I have been looking for a leather community to share with and learn from and I must say that this seems like the place! I found leather carving while I was taking fashion design classes in Arizona. I had gone to Tandy Leather Company because I wanted to make leather clothing and when I realized that you could carve things into leather, well - I was hooked. I bought some leather, some tools and a leather carving kit. I opened the instruction book, took a quick look, then closed it and never opened it again. I did not like the swivel knife so I used an exacto knife instead. Through trial and error (with a huge emphasis on error), I taught myself how to carve leather. I gravitated toward high-contrast, really graphic designs. I had a background in miniatures painting, so I viewed the dye and paint job as a slightly more flattened miniature, painting the edges of my cuts and adding distinct highlights and shadows. That was four years ago. These days I use an Al Stohlman blade set into a stationary handle. The tool I do 99.9% of my non-background carving with is Craftool F890, a figure carving tool that looks like half of a small circle. For color work I use a combinations of dyes, stains and acrylic paints. My influences stem from the deserts of Arizona where I grew up and the icons I associate with them. The lonely cowboy under the desert moon, whiskey in one hand and six shooter in the other. The tattooed rockabilly girl in her '47 Ford, switchblade on the seat next to her. The devil with his fixed gambles and stolen goods, appearing from the shadows behind a motel with a neon cactus sign. The medicine man or desert preacher and the mescaline path to the spirit world where scorpions feed on dreams and armadillos give warnings to lost souls. Mi abuela and her tortillas. This is the world I am exploring in my leather carvings. I have made many bracelets, a few purses, some leather-covered flasks, two guitar straps, a few belts, some bondage equipment, a leather "painting", a carrying case for two bottles of E&J brandy (don't ask, sometimes I really just need the money) and most recently a set of bracers for a fire dancer so that she would not burn her forearms when she dances. I really want to get into more complex construction techniques. I am also working on a promotional guitar strap for the band Tiger Army and some carved leather merchandise for the band The Dresden Dolls. I moved to Hollywood to chase my dream of doing artwork for a living and I hope that these projects will bring me that much closer to my goal. I would love to meet any other leather workers in the Los Angeles area, as well as any leather worker anywhere else. I want to learn from others and I would love to teach anything I know to anyone looking to do any work that I know how to do (that was rather longwinded). Speaking of, I am teaching a leather carving and coloring workshop August 15th and 16th for the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts. If any other leather workers are in the area, I would love to meet you and maybe have a few drinks and exchange tips and stories and such. My contact info is listed below, please feel free to contact me for any reason, be it questions or comments or supportive criticism (I highly encourage this as I want to grow and become a better leather worker). I am also including some of the projects I have done. Hope you all enjoy! El Vaquero Muerto elvaqueromuerto@gmail.com Online Gallery El Vaquero Muerto Myspace The bracers I made for the fire dancer. My "Muertos" leather painting. My leather-covered flask. Bottom photo courtesy of Gabriel Sotomayor.