New set of bracers for a metal band

[TomSwede]

Theese were made from their logotype. The white/grey behind the REV letters was an attempt from me to simulate the stone background they have.

The logotype was very hard to carve beacuse of the demand for long straight and accurate lines and keeping it symmetrical. I carved it pretty dried out and didn't go to deep either just to keep it symmetrical. The REV letters is inverted in order to make the thin white lines to pop out a bit more from the leather. They are just to narrow on the horisontal plan to bevel in a good way. They had high demand in keeping the logo as intact and true to the original paper version as possible.

They will be fitted on the guitarists and I think they will rock on stage. Their singer has the black/red Kaos bracer shown a couple of weeks ago.

It's impossible to get true pictures with the lighting situation after they are sheened and normally I do the photos before the sheen wich actually produces quite a true image. I buffed them thoroughly but not to the point of the black/red one wich is extremely cool with it's high gloss.

Any criticism welcome, this was my first attempt with acrylic so any point will be valuable. I used the cova colour.

Tom

[CollinsMS]

I think you did a great job on the straight and accurate lines and keeping it symmetrical. They look good, the colors work good for acrylics. Maybe it is just the lighting but how did you get that bumpy looking background? I am amazed at the number of clients you have that use these. Very cool.

[ArtS]

They turned out awesome Tom!!!

ArtS

[rdb]

They are great!.

I don't wonder why you have so many customers who want these.

[sodapop]

be cool if ya could get some band pics tom with them wearin or rockin them...be a nice promo thingy to add on your site

lookin good man!!

darryl

[TomSwede]

Thank you so much all!

CollinsMS: I used the Craftool E294 stamp on very dry leather to just get a bumpy structure that did not sink in too much. It is used both under the white behind REV and to the black background to the sides. I had to be very careful when I used it to the the white area as REV is inverted and not beveled deep too avoid colappsing it to much and loose the inverted feel.

It was difficult to paint the white in such a way that I'd get a stonelike surface with shifting white/gray/black texture like a real stone piece since that require some swift brushing and that couldn not be done in this small area.

Anyone ever tried to do a stone surface??

Thanks Art!

Thanks rdb! Yeah I have hit it off with the right people lately. Next bracer is for the president of a viking (??) mc club and possibly I'm making more of that one for the club during winter. He thought 10-15 perhaps:-)

Thanks Darryl! That'd be nice I'm invited to their show on Sunday but money, time and blah blah prioritys says I stay home. Too bad I have the photoequipment to do it.

Gunna ask them if they have photos laterz, they are really a bunch of great guys so prolly not impossible.

Tom

Edited September 23, 2008 by TomSwede

[Bree]

Nice job! I like the design and the shape.

I am eager to see what you do with those Viking braces. The last ones I did were kind of a Viking theme with berber fleece lining extending out beyond the leather. I did them for a train engineer as a birthday present. I thought they would look cool on an engineer driving a big locomotive.

[leatheroo]

another great creation tom,

isnt it hard to photograph glossy projects...the color is never true

i have tried inside..outside..in the sun...in the shade...my cheap camera doesnt help either!!

[TomSwede]

Nice job! I like the design and the shape.

I am eager to see what you do with those Viking braces. The last ones I did were kind of a Viking theme with berber fleece lining extending out beyond the leather. I did them for a train engineer as a birthday present. I thought they would look cool on an engineer driving a big locomotive.

Thanks Bree! The shape is very nice and comfy!

Oh the next one is just a variation of this one layed out to be similar to a runestone but the design is not set really yet so it might come out quite close to this one.

The guys I work for is a bunch of friends so they see each others and want similar ones.

So have you seen him operate the locomotive with it?? I love old steampoered locomotives, you can't find anything more heavy metal than that on land;-)

another great creation tom,

isnt it hard to photograph glossy projects...the color is never true

i have tried inside..outside..in the sun...in the shade...my cheap camera doesnt help either!!

Thanks Roo! I have quite expensive camera gear and that doesn't help either. What you would really wanna to do is to control the lighting, the absolute biggest factor in all photography, in this case soft boxes and some good flashes would be nice and perhaps even after that lots of photoshop.

Next time I go at it before sheen then add some contrast via unsharp mask (Amount 25% 10-15 usually best for black leather, Radius 250 px, Threshold 0, try it you'll be amazed what you can do with it. New life to flat pictures guaranteed)

Tom

[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

[TomSwede]

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

Thanks alot VM! I'm sure gonna cut n paste this snippet into my tip folder!!

There's plenty of room for improvement so I'm gonna get some grey or maybe some black and dilute it.

I won't be doing this stonetexture for the next bracer but I have 4 rifleslings to make and free hands on design too. Time to fix me some vinegaroon aswell.

Tom

[Bree]

Thanks Bree! The shape is very nice and comfy!

Oh the next one is just a variation of this one layed out to be similar to a runestone but the design is not set really yet so it might come out quite close to this one.

The guys I work for is a bunch of friends so they see each others and want similar ones.

So have you seen him operate the locomotive with it?? I love old steampoered locomotives, you can't find anything more heavy metal than that on land;-)

Tom

No I haven't! I think I will ask him to have some PIX taken with the vambraces on as he drives his locomotive. But I don't think it will be a steamer! More like a GE Dash 8-40C engine built by General Electric for Union Pacific!

If I get some PIX I will post them.

[TomSwede]

Thanx Bree! Any locomotive is heavy so it'll do just fine, after all, not many people are lucky enough to operate a steamer!

Tom

[francesca]

Hello Tom.. I don´t want to sound stupid, but... those bracelets are specifically for a rock metal band?

I really like them, they are like... tuff!

What kind of leather you like to use?

[TomSwede]

Thanks Francesca! Do you like metal??

Yes, theese are for the guitarrists of an hopefully upcoming extreme metal band. The members have good validation in this world so I keep my thumbs for them.

Actually a bit nervous about how they like them. They were picked up today (mailorder) but haven't heard anything yet wich I normally do via myspace.

The logo I think was a bit tricky for leather so it's a bit of compromises in the design to keep those thin lines and the logo straight. I did a first one that I cut and beveled deeper but I couldn't avoid getting the lines to crooked or straying away. They wanted it true to the image they sent me so had to do my best with that. I'd like to rework it a bit and toss around some of the foreground/background elements or widening the borders.

I use 1/10 to 1/8 inch, 2,5 to 3mm vegetabilic tanned leather. I like the thinner best because it feels better on the wrist and gives a slicker look but the thicker one is easier to tool but if you check my posts here for the pogskull bracer you can see that the thinner can take tooling great aswell. I think the motif/design is an important factor aswell to make a more relief look, it's alot about fooling the eye. Like playing with the borders and put elements in smart ways so that the stuff in the background still appear in relief. That was hard to do with this since the lines are to thin to bevel/tool properly.

Tom

[Bree]

Hey Tom when you make your bracers do you try to fit them so that the inner edges come together or fit snugly together or do you allow space between the edges? I see that you are using grommets so these would be fastened with lace.

The forearm is an oddly shaped thing. It is not exactly cylindrical and I have found that it can be difficult to mate the edges for some people. It makes life a lot easier to cut off of a pattern a bit smaller than the forearm and let the inner edges "breathe" so that you don't have to tweak them with ad hoc cuts to get the angle right.

Does that make any sense?? Not sure if I expressed myself very well.

[Tina]

I really like your style Viking Tom:-)

Seams like you've found yourself a nice corner in leatherwork over there...Good on you

[TomSwede]

Hey Tom when you make your bracers do you try to fit them so that the inner edges come together or fit snugly together or do you allow space between the edges? I see that you are using grommets so these would be fastened with lace. The forearm is an oddly shaped thing. It is not exactly cylindrical and I have found that it can be difficult to mate the edges for some people. It makes life a lot easier to cut off of a pattern a bit smaller than the forearm and let the inner edges "breathe" so that you don't have to tweak them with ad hoc cuts to get the angle right.Does that make any sense?? Not sure if I expressed myself very well.

Think I got you right so hopefully this answer is good enough: I have a little lesser then 1" (20mm)space between the grommeted edges and use a standard pattern. I take measurement from the lowest part of the forearm over the protruding point and just check it off the scale I have on my pattern and use a needle to mark out the corresponding connecting points on the leather to cut from. I often alter the roortop lines to suit the project well and I have a standard offset for the lines to accomodate the increasing armthickness upwards so if the arm is muscular there might be a wider gap on top (wich looks quite natural) and for people with very slim arms it can be even a little lesser gap on top in cntradiction to the bottom (that does look a bit funny but it's something you really think about).I gotta cut time somewhere and this is one point I use standard. Sometimes a customer ask about this just as you and if they feel unsure bout measurements or their armwidth increase I put the grommetts a bit further so they can trim it later by themselves and anyone can colour the raw edge with a felttip pen to black.Hope I got the message through, theese things can be a bit hard to convert from thinking in Swedish and then get it over to English. We speak the words very differently even though we share alot of them beacuse of the Norman heritage to English.

Tom

I really like your style Viking Tom:-)Seams like you've found yourself a nice corner in leatherwork over there...Good on you

Tack Svenska kollega;-)Yeah I really hope so but hope they realize I can make guitarstraps and lots of other stuff and how bout some ****** basketweaving tooooo!!!

I MISS THE BASKETWEAVING

Tom

Edited September 25, 2008 by TomSwede

[BradB]

Those look really nice Tom, I bet the owner is going to be really happy!

[TomSwede]

Thanks Brad!! (two owners)

Yeah I sure hope so, they were delivered by mailorder yesterday and i haven't heard anything. Makes me nervous but they do look good and true to their logotype.

Tom