Another Rapier frog

[MHolzer]

Ok, here's the second frog I made (finished last night). This time I actually managed to cut almost all of the parts correctly. I used Satin Sheen as a resist and Cherry Chocolate all-in-one. I then used the spray neatlac to finish it.

Modifications from original pattern:

• The rear support strap was cut down from ~1" to 3/4" to accomadate the 3/4 chap snap which is the largest anyone currently offers.
  
• The main support billet was modified so that the rear half inch or so of the billet could fit the 3/4" chap snap.
  

I'd appreciate any comments, suggestions, tips etc

- Mike

Edited April 25, 2008 by MHolzer

[Pip]

Nice work, lovely colour and great tooling.

[TomSwede]

Nicely tooled and very good looking classical crossbone skull and nice clean colour choice fits really well. I'd liked a border for this design, it'll lift it real good. Maybe some edgebraiding? I keep nagging 'bout borders, lol. I think of the leather as a canvas that we put our best into and just like a good piece of painting requires a matching frame and fore more complex motifs a frame or border is a good way to keep a composition together and sometime's border can be toyed with to let the design pop out in more funny ways. I attach a sample from my metal diva bootstrap.

All in all, very nice frog!

Tom

[MHolzer]

oh wow, that's a neat border. How do you make something like that? I'm impressed!

[TomSwede]

oh wow, that's a neat border. How do you make something like that? I'm impressed!

Thank you Mholzer!

That one is simple to make though you have got to have time to sit down for a while with it. I was just thinking about heavy shit, like horror movies and saw tooth blades and it struck me (I think) how similar to oceanwaves those are so I just drew up a sawtoothblade border but it's actually representing waves. Transferred it to leather and carved it. Next up I tooled with checker backgrounder craftool8802 where it could reach and finished of all of backgrounding with backgrounder A104 from craftool. That was also a lot of time,lol.

About backgrounding, when doing extensive backgrounding you do with very few exceptions have to use them, in some way. I've said this before, look up my Motörhead bracer to look at one of those border exceptions. It just felt so done without border.

So gimme some more stuff to look at, I like the frog, really!

Tom

Edited April 26, 2008 by TomSwede

[MHolzer]

And here's the last frog I'm doing for a while!

I used Mahogany All-in-one with super sheen as a resist for the eyes and teeth.

For backgrounding, I used an F 900 for the first round and E294-03 on top for a little more texture.

I'm not as happy with the color as I was with the chocolate cherry (although they are very similar colors).

Edited May 7, 2008 by MHolzer