new doodle project

[DonnieBlaze]

please critique the tooling i know the border is messed up

Edited January 5, 2010 by bikerd69

[leatherman1457]

wheeeeee where to begin LOL First off you need to make your picture smaller. you can go to the computer chapter part of the services and it will tell you how to shrink your pictures so the load faster and don't take up the whole screen ( And I have a big screen.Had to step back ten feet to see it lol)

you need to work on your background . you need to blend it in better so that it fade to the background instead of just stopping. . the barb wire is a nice touch but you need to make sure that the wires connect together. barb wire is a bitch to do but once you master it it can be very nice. The vince could have used a couple of decortive cuts in it .your cutting of the cross was off just a little on the right lower side .you need to practice with you finish a little more. I see spots that have been wiped to muck and you can not see the barb wire as good.

Crosses are one of my favorites. if you get a chance click on gallery and go to Leather Creations By Gary and you will see a few of my crosses. I love to do 3-D work. but I also have done a ton of tooling.

The two words of advice ,Do not get diescouraged and practice,practice,practice. and when you can do it in your sleep practice some more. I am sorry if I am little brutal on my critque but that was how I learned and it made me so much better because of it.My leather master use to beat me up with his critque and It really made me work to the point to where when I walked in with one of my 3-D crosses he was perplexed because he had not taught me how to do it and from that time on it was just learning as much as he could cram in my head till it hurt. Please let me know if It helped you out any.PM me anytime. Gary

[Peter Ellis]

please critique the tooling i know the border is messed up

You know you needed to be more careful about lining up the barbed wire stamps. It takes a ton of practice with some of these stamps that need to match up just right to get the desired effect. When you work with some of the meander stamps you'll find they make the barbed wire look easy Just take some scrap leather bits and spend some time working on getting the feel for lining them up so they match. Practice is really the only solution there.

To see your picture on a smaller scale I just opened it from the paperclip symbol on the forum contents page, so don't worry too much about that.

As far as the rest of the piece: What were you trying to do ?

It's pretty straightforward to critique a style when you know what it's supposed to look like, but not so simple when you have no clue what the person was trying to achieve

Some pieces you really need to work with your bevelers and backgrounders to produce smooth shading effects, to get the sense of depth and easy transition. Others, that smooth progression will give the wrong effect, you want something more dramatic, with some tension to it.

You don't have that smooth transition here - but did you want that effect, or were you trying to get a background that was rough, jumbled, broken up ? If that was your intent, then you succeeded.

We really can't critique what you've done without some idea of what it was you were trying to do.

[DonnieBlaze]

wheeeeee where to begin LOL First off you need to make your picture smaller. you can go to the computer chapter part of the services and it will tell you how to shrink your pictures so the load faster and don't take up the whole screen ( And I have a big screen.Had to step back ten feet to see it lol)

you need to work on your background . you need to blend it in better so that it fade to the background instead of just stopping. . the barb wire is a nice touch but you need to make sure that the wires connect together. barb wire is a bitch to do but once you master it it can be very nice. The vince could have used a couple of decortive cuts in it .your cutting of the cross was off just a little on the right lower side .you need to practice with you finish a little more. I see spots that have been wiped to muck and you can not see the barb wire as good.

Crosses are one of my favorites. if you get a chance click on gallery and go to Leather Creations By Gary and you will see a few of my crosses. I love to do 3-D work. but I also have done a ton of tooling.

The two words of advice ,Do not get diescouraged and practice,practice,practice. and when you can do it in your sleep practice some more. I am sorry if I am little brutal on my critque but that was how I learned and it made me so much better because of it.My leather master use to beat me up with his critque and It really made me work to the point to where when I walked in with one of my 3-D crosses he was perplexed because he had not taught me how to do it and from that time on it was just learning as much as he could cram in my head till it hurt. Please let me know if It helped you out any.PM me anytime. Gary

Thanks for your critique and no it was not to brutal that is wy iam posting my stuff here. i am self tought there are no leather masters here in Baltimore that i know of to learn from so all the help i can get is apreciated. i know the border sucks it was a rush job and i should have taken mor time with it my backgrounding? doing my best one problem i am having is moving the tools smothley any help here would be great.

[DonnieBlaze]

You know you needed to be more careful about lining up the barbed wire stamps. It takes a ton of practice with some of these stamps that need to match up just right to get the desired effect. When you work with some of the meander stamps you'll find they make the barbed wire look easy Just take some scrap leather bits and spend some time working on getting the feel for lining them up so they match. Practice is really the only solution there.

To see your picture on a smaller scale I just opened it from the paperclip symbol on the forum contents page, so don't worry too much about that.

As far as the rest of the piece: What were you trying to do ?

It's pretty straightforward to critique a style when you know what it's supposed to look like, but not so simple when you have no clue what the person was trying to achieve

Some pieces you really need to work with your bevelers and backgrounders to produce smooth shading effects, to get the sense of depth and easy transition. Others, that smooth progression will give the wrong effect, you want something more dramatic, with some tension to it.

You don't have that smooth transition here - but did you want that effect, or were you trying to get a background that was rough, jumbled, broken up ? If that was your intent, then you succeeded.

We really can't critique what you've done without some idea of what it was you were trying to do.

I am self tought so i don't know what to tell you about what i was goung for i am trying to learn how to do this carving stuff. the desighn is a tandy craft aid and i gues i just tryed to do what i thought i was suposed to do. thanks for your critique ass all the help i can get would be great. i have not found any one here in baltimore that could teach me the tandy store employees are realy not much help and i do not like the hole group lesson thing becouse you realy don't get any help.

[leatherman1457]

Biker69 here is one I did this morning. soory i was a little rushed . I have doctor app. and have togo to work so i only had about 45 min. but here is a small sample of work that might help. it is not my best because I have not carved or stamped in almost a year because of rotor cuff problems that is what the surgery will be about in about a week and a half and then no leather work for about 6 months. Gary

Edited January 6, 2010 by leatherman1457

[TimDreamer]

Tandy Leather online has some good videos by George Hurst on how to start out. Those might be very useful to you.

Tandy Videos

I see you've also read the Paul Burnett lessons online here.

One way to gain experience with your tools is to take a scrap piece of leather and practice your stamping by concentrating on one stamp at a time. Also, you don't have to hit the tool so hard that it buries itself in the leather and you have to pry it out to move it. (Can you tell that I have gotten my leather too wet and tried to tool like I was trying to hammer a nail?)

I've never tried the border tools like you have, they look like fun, although I would probably have the same kind of problem lining them up as you did.

One secret to the backgrounders is to just move the tool partially, covering where you just hit with the head with at least half of the tool again. It is tedious, but very effective when making an even background. One way around this is to use the larger matting background tools for the larger areas (such as the pebble tools) and the smaller pointed tools for the corners and small places. Even still, your tool should still cover your last impression.

Keep pounding!!

[DonnieBlaze]

Thanks every one your critiques are helping me out a lot. gary that is realy nice i am saving those pics for futer referance and i know about rc problems i blew mine out a few years ago. (just for referance i was a custom flooring installer for 15 years so i know practice makes perfect)