Whitetail deer

[ClayB]

Here are a couple pictures of my second attempt at Robb's whitetail deer. I did this with his pattern and instructions off a video. As with everything I do, I can see room for improvement but I am fairly happy with this one. Now it will go on a shelf with the bear that I am scared to try and color for fear of ruining it.

Clay

[ClayB]

Well, I finally did it. I colored the deer. For me, that is always a scary thing to start, and such a relief if I don't have to throw it away when I am finished. Coloring has been the hardest thing for me to learn to do. I am still learning, but think I am getting the hang of it. I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people. Jan Schoonover, Silva Fox and Bob Beard have taught me so much. Silva and Bob both have videos out that are really worth getting if you want to learn to use acrylics on leather. Last time I talked to Jan he was thinking about making a video, but I haven't heard if he ever got it done. Also, if you ever get a chance to take a class from one of these people, or anyone else, I really encourage you to do it.

This deer was done off a video by Robb Barr. I have done a few of the projects off of his videos now and so far they have all turned out pretty good. I have found his carving and embossing instructions to be really good. He goes through the coloring pretty fast in some of these. I am not sure how I would have done on that part without some of the other lessons I have taken. I am looking forward to getting some time to start another one.

Clay

Edited September 11, 2006 by ClayB

[Tom Katzke]

Well, I finally did it. I colored the deer. For me, that is always a scary thing to start, and such a relief if I don't have to throw it away when I am finished. Coloring has been the hardest thing for me to learn to do. I am still learning, but think I am getting the hang of it. I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people. Jan Schoonover, Silva Fox and Bob Beard have taught me so much. Silva and Bob both have videos out that are really worth getting if you want to learn to use acrylics on leather. Last time I talked to Jan he was thinking about making a video, but I haven't heard if he ever got it done. Also, if you ever get a chance to take a class from one of these people, or anyone else, I really encourage you to do it.

This deer was done off a video by Robb Barr. I have done a few of the projects off of his videos now and so far they have all turned out pretty good. I have found his carving and embossing instructions to be really good. He goes through the coloring pretty fast in some of these. I am not sure how I would have done on that part without some of the other lessons I have taken. I am looking forward to getting some time to start another one.

Clay

Clay,

I usually do not do this but nice job.

To make me feel better. Is that a blend of hair techniques from Robb and Jan? It may be the picture but it looks different then what Robb did.

Tom Katzke

[pepin1948]

It looks fantastic! I know what you mean on worrying about coloring something though.

[ClayB]

Clay,

I usually do not do this but nice job.

To make me feel better. Is that a blend of hair techniques from Robb and Jan? It may be the picture but it looks different then what Robb did.

Tom Katzke

Thanks Tom and Holly,

As for the hairing Tom, I tried to do it the way that Robb did in the video. I got side tracked a little though. Robb used a pointed figure beveler to give texture to the body before he used the hairing knife. I never really liked the Craftool pointed figure beveler I had. The end was blunt and it really didn't work like I thought it should. The first tool I ever bought from Bob Beard was a fine lined pointed figure beveler. It has a very sharp point and the fine lines make it nice to use on figures with hair. I used this on the body of the deer and found that it gave it a really nice hair effect without even using the multi-blade knife. I think the pictures of the deer without color were taken after just using that tool. I thought about just leaving it like that, but then before coloring it, I did use the multi-blade knife and a scalpel to seperate the hair. I tend to be a lot more reserved with the hairing than either Robb or Jan. I think the longest I ever make any hair is about 1/4 inch and usually shorter than that. On some of the projects that Jan has done in classes, when he lifts the hair with the scalpel, it can end up looking sort of like scales. I think it is probably because of the time limitations in a class situation. I am sure that when he does a project at home, he takes a lot more time seperating the individual hairs. I try really hard to make sure mine dont end up looking like that. Usually when I compare my projects to his, mine always had a lot finer looking hair. I dont know if that is good or bad, just the way I do it. In a class with Bob Beard, when I compared my carving to his, I noticed that he bevels a lot deeper than I do. I asked him about it, and if I should try and do mine differently and he said that a persons personality shows in their work. He said that he could see that I was quiet and easy going and it showed in my carving and tooling. I guess if he is right, it shows in the way I do hairing too.

Not sure if I mentioned the differences between Robb's technique and Jan's before or not. While they both get pretty close to the same results, they do things a little different. Jan cuts, bevels, hairs with the multi-blade knife and then the scalpel, then embosses. So far from the videos that I have watched, Robb cuts, bevels, embosses, then re-bevels, then does the hairing. I discussed this with Jan and he has some good reasoning for doing it his way. He does the hairing when the leather is still pretty flat. When you emboss, the hairs lift and seperate when you are pushing the leather from the back. The down side is you cant really go back and re-bevel after you emboss because the hair would be mashed down. The way Robb does it, you can get more definition in the muscle by going back and re-beveling, but it is a lot harder to do the hairing once the embossing is done. The muscle stucture created by the embossing leaves high and low spots that are hard to get into with the multi-blade knife and the scalpel. As with most things you do with leather, there isn't just one right way to do things.

In talking with Jan, it sounds like they were both experimenting with this technique at the same time. Jan saw some of Robb's work and started asking him how he did some things. Robb told Jan to take one of his classes so he did. When Jan started, he was cutting each individual hair with a swivel knife. If I remember right, he was using a mixture of sawdust and glue to fill the cavity from the embossing. From Robb's class, he learned about the multi-blade knife and the leather dust. Jan did a wolf that was featured in a doodle page in 1996 using his original techniques. After that, they began competing with each other to see who could get thier animals the farthest out from the leather. The result of thier friendly competition was Jan's grizzley bear that was almost 6 inches off the leather. I really wonder what kinds of things Robb would be doing today if he hadn't died so early.

Well, that got really long winded! I really admire the work these guys have done (could you tell?)

Clay

[freak]

MAN, very very nice. I've gotta get some vidoes.

Thanks for the tips.