garypl Posted January 13, 2018 Report Posted January 13, 2018 1 hour ago, JiffyJones said: I would love to experiment with paint consistencies! Has anyone had any luck with something to thin leather paint or help it's transparency without just watering it down? I have some beautiful thin cova color, but I would also like to play with the opacity! Like with pouring medium, or maybe gouache? Do you have a particular antique finish you like or recommend? You have me thinking now about mixing media. I was checking a dye color tonight by using a wool dauber to apply some light brown dye to some scrap. I then used the same dauber to apply some Tan Kote to see if it would darken it further and I was surprised to see pleasant brown streaks in the finish. I will try to find time tomorrow to mix a little dye with some Tan Kote and see how the concoction turns out. I’ll post results when I finish. Gary Just now, garypl said: You have me thinking now about mixing media. I was checking a dye color tonight by using a wool dauber to apply some light brown dye to some scrap. I then used the same dauber to apply some Tan Kote to see if it would darken it further and I was surprised to see pleasant brown streaks in the finish. I will try to find time tomorrow to mix a little dye with some Tan Kote and see how the concoction turns out. I’ll post results when I finish. Gary I will also try mixing some acrylic paint with Tan Kote. Quote Cowboy 4500, Consew 206RB-4
Members DJole Posted January 13, 2018 Members Report Posted January 13, 2018 First take a look at videos like this, to see if this is what you want: Using antique gel and hi-lighters: I myself used a resist and some antique to get the edges on these pieces here: I used a resist (2 coats) on the large light brown sections. When wet, it gets a little darker, but then it dries clear. I left the stamped sections bare, with no resist. I wiped the pieces with a full strength antique black -- I must admit, it's a bit terrifying wiping it over the resist-treated portion, because I wasn't sure if it would work or not! But it did -- after letting the antique dry according to the instructions, I wiped the pieces down with a damp sponge, and the antique dye wiped right off the big treated portion yet stayed mostly down in the depths of the tooling. The raised portions turned a "worn out" charcoal gray. What you should do is experiment on scrap leather -- use different strengths of antique dye, diluting it (either alcohol or water, depending on the dye) to get the shade you want. Quote \D. Jole \ --> <http://djole.altervista.org/djole/Publications/Leather/Lindex.htm>
Members KittenThrasher Posted January 13, 2018 Members Report Posted January 13, 2018 16 hours ago, JiffyJones said: Thank you! So, do you think if I hypothetically only wanted to harden the face and not the bendy part of the flap, that I could maybe cover the parts I want to remain somewhat malleable with like wet paper towels? Never tried that; I imagine it would work, maybe with some fabric toweling or something that won't dry out much or at all, 'certainly worth a go on some scrap at least, I know someone who 'diferentially' hardens stuff with a hair dryer, she's quite happy with that. Quote
garypl Posted January 13, 2018 Report Posted January 13, 2018 20 hours ago, garypl said: You have me thinking now about mixing media. I was checking a dye color tonight by using a wool dauber to apply some light brown dye to some scrap. I then used the same dauber to apply some Tan Kote to see if it would darken it further and I was surprised to see pleasant brown streaks in the finish. I will try to find time tomorrow to mix a little dye with some Tan Kote and see how the concoction turns out. I’ll post results when I finish. Gary I will also try mixing some acrylic paint with Tan Kote. Well, I didn’t have time to play with the dye today, but I took some green acrylic paint an$ started diluting it with Tan Kote. In the photo, the patch on the far right is straigh5 paint. Moving left, I added Tan Kote to the paint, starting with about 20% TK to 80% paint, then added another 20% TK, etc until the far left patch which was @60% TK plus I added a small amount of water. The conclusion I reached is that Tan Kote does not play well with paint - too streaky. Quote Cowboy 4500, Consew 206RB-4
alpha2 Posted January 14, 2018 Report Posted January 14, 2018 From seeing this, I'd have to agree. Thanks for the info! I just read the bottle of my Tan-Kote, it says "used to thin Fiebings Antique Finish." Nothing about Acrylic paint. This is unexplored territory for me. Quote So much leather...so little time.
Members JiffyJones Posted February 2, 2018 Author Members Report Posted February 2, 2018 Hey guys!! Oh man, thanks Garypl for your experiment!! That's very interesting- the TanKote gives it a watercolor type effect, but agreed about your conclusion that it's too streaky for most uses. DJole- that looks really clean!! I think I would like to try that method as well as opposed to the incredibly tedious one of painting each wrinkle like I ended up doing hahahaha Mjolnir WELCOME BACK!! Here's a bit of progress on the face if anyone is curious! I'm trying not to go too thick with the acrylic but I feel like something is missing on the mostly done leftmost eye. Is there a way to remove the paint if say, it got out of hand or I left a streak somewhere it wasn't supposed to be (thankfully that hasn't happened yet)? Does anyone have any recommendations for cleaning the surface as well, say of fingerprints and general griminess that happens while painting but before sealing? What do you think I should do with the edges? I burnished them a bit with just water to get them to be flat, but I'm debating if I should bring them to more of a shine- and logically, I'd have to do that before I painted them because you can't burnish acrylic, right? That doesn't seem like it would make sense. Would it be dumb if in the end I painted the edges a really obnoxious color? Since I still need to worry about bending the flap to curve over the bag, I'm not super concerned about it right now, but I also just can not seem to get rid of some stubborn water stains. But maybe they're grease stains and they're just part of his skin now? Quote
garypl Posted February 2, 2018 Report Posted February 2, 2018 I think it's looking good! I think maybe the colors in the eye are a little too washed out - maybe more vibrant colors would make the eyes pop a bit more? Gary Quote Cowboy 4500, Consew 206RB-4
Members JiffyJones Posted February 4, 2018 Author Members Report Posted February 4, 2018 Here's some more progress on the face! It's movin along. Quote
garypl Posted February 4, 2018 Report Posted February 4, 2018 1 minute ago, JiffyJones said: Here's some more progress on the face! It's movin along. Looking good! I like the darker color shades. That tongue is nasty! Quote Cowboy 4500, Consew 206RB-4
alpha2 Posted February 4, 2018 Report Posted February 4, 2018 And THAT'S why I don't do self portraits! I just won't do it. Quote So much leather...so little time.
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