Trying Something New

[aguilerag]

I have a friend who wanted his coat of arms on a wallet! I told him a book cover or tablet cover would be better due to the detail. He insisted on a wallet. Here is the finished art. I used acrylics I bought from tandys. I was going to use my airbrush but still hesitant about doing that.

As usual, please critique and any tips, hints etc are welcome!

Thanks

Gabriel

[Greystone]

Still learning,,, er,,,,, always learning,, love to see something new thanks db

looks great..imho..db

[aguilerag]

Thanks. Db? What does that mean?

[Ferg]

Well, you did ask for a critique. You need to do a lot of practicing with your Paint/Stain before attacking an image such as a Coat of Arms. The dark stain in the background is totally out of whack. The painting simply isn't very good.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your work that practice won't improve.

ferg

[aguilerag]

I appreciate every critique I get. This is not a finished product just something I'm working on. Considering I have only been doing this for a month I know I need a lot of work on every aspect. As for the painting, how would you make the painting of something like this better? Critique is fine but improvement tips along with it would help! Thanks

Gabriel

By finished art I meant finished all the cutting I am doing to it.

[electrathon]

There are phalic images on the top. I am guessing it is not by design, but could be.

[aguilerag]

When the design shrunk down to that size I pointed out the same thing and he said go with it lol. The whole time I'm doing it I was thinking the same thing!

[benlilly1]

Doing something that small is hard even if you're experienced. Maybe it would look better if you just antiqued and not painted. It's a learning experience.

[aguilerag]

Benlilly, thanks for the advice. I think I may try that instead.

[Ferg]

Please remember my critique is meant to be constructive.

You need to plan your design before diving into a complicated Coat of Arms.

When you do Coats of Arms you will eventually get hammered by someone that believes all of them should be perfect, as in original, with no little "asides". Doesn't matter if the person you are doing it for has little or no requirement for same.

Use a more subtle backgrounding stamp, the image is your focal point don't obscure that with deep colored dye plus a deep impression.

Your swivel knife cuts aren't even. I know, you have only been doing this work for a short while, doesn't mean you should ignore this.

You should do your swivel knife cuts, modeling and shading stamps, apply a resist, a paste dye, wipe off, then do your painting with a better paint than available at Tandy. All of these processes should be allowed to dry thoroughly before proceeding to next.

Buy some good quality artist's brushes. The broom you are using isn't going to cut it. LOL

Never get discouraged by what someone like me tells you. Work, read, study, and buy the best materials you can afford. AND PRACTICE!

ferg

[RavenAus]

It'd be nice to see a pic of the crest itself to compare. The design looks fine, main issue I can see really is there seems to be some areas over stamped with the backgrounder. How did you work out where to go to? I can se you didn't want to cut a border, but that being the case you need to figure some way of defining the edges you want to stamp to. Perhaps something as simple as a card cutout you can lay over the leather and tack down?

[aguilerag]

RavenAus, like was mentioned before I didnt think this out to well and I agree with that. I didnt even think of cutting a border (I probably should know to do that). Is it still possible to cut a border now or should I just try to make a card cutout like you suggested to make a uniform background on both sides and top?

This is the image. I was having problems tracing it on scrap leather so I free hand cut everything but the shield.

[lesking]

A great start. A friend of mine suggested to me to do something new at least 5 times. The theory wouild be that the 5th time will be better than the 1st - 4th. U se some scrap pieces prior to the final product. As someone suggested get some or at least one good brush go to Michaels or somewhwere like that. I use a magnifying glass with a light on it that clamps to my table to help with those small intricate areas to paint, tool,carve, etc. keep working you will get there.

[aguilerag]

Thanks Lesking. I am running up to Michaels in about 15 minutes to get some good acrylic paint and some brushes. I also think I will look into the magnifying glass with the light, that's a great idea. Thanks again.

[Ferg]

If you have a program on your computer that will let you convert the image to a "Grayscale" image first then a line drawing, this will help you get the image transferred easier.

ferg

[WScott]

This is a TOUGH subject to carve and paint. Keep plugging away at it and improving.

Those do look like penises in the original as well....just weird design (I know its not yours)

I would call that a coat of d!@*s instead of a coat of arms

[RavenAus]

Ok, those suggestively shaped things are feather plumes, so a few decorative cuts to emphasize the feathers? The current design is a little high on the leather, are you planning on adding the scroll underneath? If not, border or no it'll look off centre. If it were me, at this stage, I would not try to cut a border around the design but try to even it out both sides, get it symmetrical.

As for the rest, there's critique and there's being nasty. Some here seem to be crossing the line from my viewpoint. You've done very well indeed for your current skill level. Others would've done differently. Just remember the more you do, the better you'll get, and keep at it

[aguilerag]

RavenAus, I was going to put his name minus the scroll underneath. I am going to probably re-do it and try again.

I went out and bought some good acrylic paints and some good paint brushes yesterday and I will tool with the design and get it to grayscale as was suggested. The decorative cuts on the feather plumes are a good idea and I will practice that on a scrap peice a few times to see if I can altar the way it looks.

I'm not to worried about people being nasty like the guy who I think called me a DB=DoucheBag. Typing tough guys I pay no mind too. I also knew that by posting this picture up I would probably get ripped (I knew there were a lot of mistakes) but like I said, critique it to death, be nasty if you want to but please put up some ways I could improve lol. I have a notepad that I write tips down in and then I try said tips to help me improve.

Thank you for your words of encouragement and help

[bissetdesign]

Looks to me like it may need a bit more depth to the tooling side Gabriel? I'm no expert by any means but it looks a little 'flat' in the photos, maybe its just the angle the photos were taken from.

I did a coat of arms a couple of months back on a 7" x 4" piece, found it very intricate, quite difficult to keep the detail going & carving out small letters in the scrolls without making them look like childs writing.

I thought about painting in colours but decided against it & antiqued it instead which I'm glad I did, the customer loved it, I had to explain to him about a couple of mistakes were the detailing went wrong & he said 'no problem, thats what gives it its character & if he'd wanted a perfectly accurate copy he would have got it machined', great comment I thought. Posted a couple of pics to show you how it looks antiqued rather than the quality of the carving lol!

Like everyone says practice practice practice, thats what I'm doing & always will be........

[aguilerag]

That came out looking great. I might have to try that too.

It is pretty flat I agree because I didn't have any idea of how I was going to pull this off or how to try to do it. I am going to try this again.

The area I have to work for is approx 4" long X 3" wide. I told him to get all the little detail may be difficult and he said to do what I can. He came by to check out what was done and loved it lol. He knows I am new to the whole leather thing so it was kind of cool that he said he liked it. I told him im going to start over and try to make it better.

I practice all the time and want to improve. I take what people tell me and try to practice it. I figure the more I learn (everyone does things differently) the more well rounded I will become.

[WScott]

I think you are courageous to post and ask for critique, especially on something so hard.

I was trying to make a St Patrick's Day lapel out of leather and totally muffed it up. I won't show it to my dog!

I think the "DB " comment was someone signing their initials

Cheers

[bissetdesign]

Wow thats even smaller than what I had to work with, good luck with it Gabriel, I think its a difficult one for a novice to do as its a very small area to get so much detail into it.

Theres a guy on here, think he's called Arbalat or similar who does amazing fine detail work , really inspirational detailed work too.

....PS I'm not sure Greystone was implying you are a 'douchebag', I think that might be his initials as his post was quite complimentary & he was signing off db, maybe needs clearing up

[aguilerag]

I was thinking intials too (thats why I said I think he called me that) as this community has been awesome and I have learned a lot from the people here. One of my friends blogs for a living (yes, he is a fulltime blogger lol) and told me DB usually means Douchebag if your typing it to someone.

I will have to look for Arbalat to see some of his work. I love looking at everyones stuff here. To me its a goal to shoot for to try to make some things like I see here.

Wscott-thanks lol. I think as long as you don't take what people say personally, having someone tell you what is wrong with something is great. It's easier for someone else to look at something you did or do and see the problems than for us ourselfs to see what is wrong, even if we know there are mistakes they will see more.

[Cyberthrasher]

I'm late to the game here, but since you're still practicing it, I wanted to point you to Paul Burnett's tutorial on victorian work. A careful study of his freebie (and possibly the whole course if you have the money) would really bring this piece along. If you look at the Victorian course, there's an aside at the bottom that has a link to the "leather carving bundle" which includes 5 courses for $50 - Well worth it!!!

Once you get into the free tutorials, it's "Victorian Project #1". Go over the tutorial on modeling tools while you're at it, since you'll need it for such a small piece.

http://paintingcow.com/content/index.php/publications/free_lesson_sign_up/

[aguilerag]

Thanks Cyber. I will do that for sure tonight when I get home. I will purchase the bundle also as that looks like a good deal.

I have been trying to do some Victorian, Boroque style work at home on scrap. I think this style would be awesome to learn but tough to master

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