Tooling Ram's Head, Advice Appreciated.

[Cedillo]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am in the process of completing this for a biker's vest. I am posting to request some guidance on tooling the ram's head.

If anybody has done anything similar, if you could post it, I would greatly appreciate it.

I used the search function, saw a few animals but nothing like this. I did see that a member here, moeg, has a ram's head as his avatar but I was unable to open it up in a bigger size.

Here is a picture of the only animal, wolf, that I have tooled. Being on a holster, it was alot smaller, I tried giving it as much detail as I could.

Cedillo

[WyomingSlick]

Since this is a stylized drawing rather than a realistic depiction, just a good beveling job like done on the banner should be suitable.

You might give considerable thought on how deep you wish to bevel the various elements..... perhaps a deeper beveling on the outline and

lighter beveling on the interior elements

[Tina]

Here's an example of one I've done. The real size of it is around 2x2 inch. You really have to "think" 3D when tooling :-)

Edited September 17, 2014 by Tina

[JLSleather]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am in the process of completing this for a biker's vest.

YIKES that's a lot o' backgroundin' Comin' along, though - looks good so far! I was sure I saw a ram done around here somewhere...

[Cedillo]

Thank you Tina. That is a good looking Ram. If you don't mind, I will use yours as a reference to tool mine.

Thank you JLSleather. I still have plenty of work to do. I will be cutting about half an inch around the outer perimeter to have room to stitch it to the vest. I'm still looking for a new backgrounder to tool the inside around the ram. I've seen some with a pebble grain look to them.

I've used this link, http://www.robertbeardtools.com/educational.html , as a great source of information.

[JLSleather]

That site you've been checking is basically a copy of the information contained in Stohlman's books (30 years ago) Pictorial Carving Finesse and Figure Carving Finesse.

I don't have mine any more -- one MORE thing that got away -- but I know that the figure book had a detailed carving of a ram. And the pictorial book has some really good info on coloring. I've seen books - and I'm the last one to suggest that leather crafters go buy yet another something other than leather - but these are actually worth having.

[billybopp]

Both of those books, and many others as well, are available in .PDF format for download from Tandy's Leathercraft Library.

https://www.leathercraftlibrary.com/c-79-ebooks.aspx?pagenum=2

Hope that helps

Bill

[Tina]

Thank you Tina. That is a good looking Ram. If you don't mind, I will use yours as a reference to tool mine.

You're more than welcome :-) I do use a modeling/spoon tool loads, on the face and more. Please post a picture when you're done, always nice to see it finished//Tina

[Cedillo]

I started this post a while back. Since then, the guy that commissioned this patch decided he didn't want it anymore, and it sat on my to-do pile. It will now be used for a display that will be presented to a good friend of mine as a going-away gift. A big thank you to Tina for her help with getting a good idea on the tooling, and everybody that provided very good advice. The tooling is complete, just have to finish the dye job

Edited December 10, 2014 by Cedillo

[Troy Burch]

JLSleather gave you some good advice. Get the Figure Carving Finesse by Al Stolman, it will greatly improve your carving technique. You will be very glad you did.