What's This Engraving/carving/dying Technique Combination?

[Matani]

Thus far I've only done little work with veg tanned leather and no dyes, mainly using the mallet to pound stuff into the leather (I'm very much a beginner), but I saw this today and fell in love with the look.

How exactly is this look accomplished? The edges look a lot crisper than what I'm used to getting, is that just the effects of the dye playing tricks on me, better knife control, etc?

I'm making sure I don't have any illusions about what I'd need to do before I just go get some dyes.

[BDAZ]

Looks like standard antiquing on a carved image..

Cya!

Bob

[biglew]

looks like he may have used an airbrush and darkened the edges... i sometimes will dillute the dye for the center and spray full strength around the edge

[BDAZ]

I think it was antiqued and more removed from the center than the edges.

Cya!

Bob

[stingray4540]

IMO, it looks like the bird is a stamp, then some kind of antique was applied to the whole piece, and the center is lighter because they wiped the antique off the bird more vigorously than the rest.

I could be wrong, but that's my guess. Doesn't look like any carving was done on that piece.

[DoubleC]

I think it may be carved because of the backgrounding done on it too. But it might be stamped. Cheryl

[BDAZ]

I suspect it's too big for a stamp.

Cya!

Bob

[stingray4540]

BDAZ, too big for a stamp you would get from Tandy, or most of the stamp makers you or I would have make us a makers stamp. But not too big for a company who pumps out hundreds of these. I may be wrong, as it's hard to see too much detail from my phone, but the whole piece has a very commercial look to it.

Looking at it from a high volume standpoint, it would be a fairly simple process to get that look. Stamp it. Base dye it. Antique it. Rub off antique, more vigorously around eagle. Add liner and corner pieces, then run through a sewing machine. Done. Sell for a reasonable price that consumers are willing to pay.

Looking at it from a hand carved viewpoint, well it's hard for me to do, because I just can't imagine what tool would be used to make an impressed image like that. It certainly doesn't look like the relief carving typically seen in leatherwork.

Assuming there is a tool(s) to accomplish this look by hand, it would be immensely tedious to do all those random dots and lines, not to mention that they are all un-uniform. Easily accomplished in a sketch drawing, but very difficult and tedious for hand carving. And if it was hand carved, the amount of time invested would make it unreasonably expensive.

That's why I suspect it was sketched on paper, and a stamp created from the sketch.

[BDAZ]

My initial assumtion was that the item was an I pad cover so a stamp that size, would require a massive press. The cover seems rather amateurish and definitely not commercially mass produced. I suspect that it is either laser cut or pyrography.

Cya!

Bob

[stingray4540]

I suppose we could just ask Matani where he got it, lol.