Getting Metallic Color Into Tooling

[Gabriel Rasa]

I took a commission to do a pair of bracers like what Legolas wears in Lord of the Rings, and I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to get silver/gold pigment into a design cut into the leather, like so:

(I know, the answer is probably going to be "carefully.")

I've done a bit of experimenting but nothing has come out quite as tidy as I'd like it, so I thought I'd toss the question out onto the forums and see if anyone else had solved this particular problem before. Thanks for all feedback!

[electrathon]

Antique it with t-shirt paint. I have never done this but the technique was brought up a couple days ago at class.

[Gabriel Rasa]

Antique it with t-shirt paint. I have never done this but the technique was brought up a couple days ago at class.

Interesting idea... did they say what you should seal the base color with before putting the t-shirt paint on?

[electrathon]

Yes, seal it up, then antique.

[Tina]

You can use metalic acryllic paint ( ex. http://www.joann.com/folkart-metallic-acrylic-paint-2-oz-/prd2196/ ) and then mix it with ( http://www.joann.com/folkart-extender-2-oz/prd10149/ ) to keep the paint "open" longer. This is how I use the white as an antique paste, it should work just as fine for the metallic colors :-)

[Gabriel Rasa]

Thanks for the tips! I bought some acrylic gold and then ran some tests today to figure out which sealant would make for the cleanest contrast.

Fiebings aerosol Leather Sheen:

Satin shene (and by satin shene I mean equal parts water and Mop-n-Glo):

And Tan Kote:

The only one that did really poorly was the resolene, with a lot of gold pigment sticking to the surface, and between Fiebings and Tan Kote, Fiebings' ozone-destroying aerosol won by a hair. So, for anyone interested in doing this effect in the future, don't use Satin Shene.

FIN~