Newbie Question - Accuracy Dying Inside Stamped Letters

[JLSleather]

Very small letters can be done with the airbrush, but those particular letters may create more work than they 'solve'. If you're going to use a brush, definitely spend the extra few $$ and get the sable hair brushes.... FAR better than the camel hair or synthetics. And if you flush them out and form a point in them when you're done, they'll last for YEARS.

Using the airbrush for lettering can require a little thought sometimes, but in the end it's MUCH more versatile than stamps.

[JLSleather]

These letters (on a checkbook) were about 1/8" high, black on red background (the customer's logo). This one was done by laying it out on plastic, cutting out the letters like a stencil, airbrush the resulting stencil, THEN cut and bevel the letters.

The outside circle was about 3" across. The lettering inside the circle was about 3/8" high (capitals). After cutting, I still had to touch up the edges of the letters just a bit.

In hindsight, I didn't charge NEARLY enough for that one

Edited March 22, 2016 by JLSleather

[victorl]

Some great ideas in this thread!

Also, it's kind of the opposite of what you're looking for, but another way to highlight your lettering would be block dying which is very easy to do and looks great.

[bob21804]

JSL, I'll check out the sable hair brushes next time I'm in Hobby Lobby. I stop by there quite frequently - love to use those 40% off coupons. Thanks for the suggestion. I imagine that stencil-making was tedious. And the final result would only be as good as the stencil produced. No doubt I'll be trying it sometime.... so much I want to do. I was also checking out a thread ( think in this section of the forums) on using a latex rubber to mask areas. I already plan to pick a bottle of that up during one of my Hobby Lobby visits soon.

Victorl, I watched a Tandy tutorial on block dying a while ago, and did that on a couple items. I do like the way it looks, and that's partly what led me to trying an airbrush, which I just recently bought, and have used only very little so far. At this point, I think I'd use the airbrush rather that the block dying technique, and plan to start out with the most simple techniques (bases, gradients), and only go for the technique's like JSL is showing above, as my airbrushing skills improve. I'm thoroughly enjoying the process of developing all of the many skills involved in this craft. I wish I stuck with it a few years ago when I first started. I'm definitely sticking with it this time.

Victorl, BTW, I like your specialty. I can relate. lol. But's it's gotten much better over the past couple months.

Thanks,

Bob

Edited March 22, 2016 by bob21804

[Boriqua]

I have a fairly steady hand with an airbrush and my Iwata can get to making very fine lines but ... I wouldnt try those letters with an airbrush without a stencil If I am looking for a sharp edge. Now a stencil is great but its a ton of work so were it my project ... YMMV

 

I have 2 methods.

 

One I would lay in my letter color after my overall color was applied and not be overly concerned with how sharp the edges are. Then I would load up my airbrush with a muddied up color that starts with my letter color and get in there with my airbrush and carefully bridge the letter to the surrounding area. Even if I do that misty fade around an object which people seem to love I never go with just two colors but might use three and up to four to make a fade from the darkest to the lightest. The airbrush free hand is gong to have some feathering at the edges. Use it dont fight it. Bridge your letter color to your background.

 

Second way is I cheat some .. Fiebings and tandy have Acrylic antique/highlighter stuff in a variety of colors. Now before you turn up your nose... here is where you get to play artist. Think about what the different antique colors are going to do to a base color when applied over it. I have used saddle tan dye with medium brown antique and yellow dye with mahogany and a dozen other combinations. Pick the color dye you want as your base letter color and lay it in with a fine brush. I have one since my art school days 25 yrs or more old that looks like it only has 5 bristles. Spend the money once and have them for life is true in this case. Dye your overall color then paint in your letters with a base color. After I let it thoroughly dry I spray the whole sucker with resolene. I then let it dry overnight at least. I want that resolene good and hard. Go in with a slightly dampened sponge and the antique you think is going to be awesome on top, wait a few minutes for it to set up and then with a farily damp sponge wipe it off of all the high spots. The leather is porous so the antique will impart color even to the raised portions unless you sealed it to death with say supersheen or lacquer. But that is cool because we want the color of the antique to mess with the color underneath it some. You will have to do a lot of experimenting but I have come to know fairly well how much resolene to spray on to get what amount of undercoat to show through. I can use the same two colors and make it look a bunch of different ways just by varying how many passes of resolene I spray over a design. Most of the time when I see painted letters they have been sealed to death and so the antique is just in the low spots. Cool if that is what you are looking for but I prefer a bit more organic. I like my leather to still look like leather and I find a bit more mottled more pleasing to me.

Truth is though .. be happy for happy accidents and if your not trying to match something just have fun with the colors.

Hope that helps .. as stupid and easy as it sounds it took me years to work it all out to my satisfaction and more importantly be able to reproduce the results consistently.

[johnv474]

I do not use an airbrush but have had some success with stamping the letters, then rolling on Resolene with a rubber roller (no nap), which then serves as a resist for the higher surface only, then using dye and a small brush to dye letters, and then outlining the letter impressions with a Uni-ball 207 pen (the one with the special ink). The ink line helps to make the letters look crisper. There are a range of colors so one can be chosen to minimize/maximize contrast in the outline.