Leather Carving Styles....

[bermudahwin]

25 minutes ago, johnv474 said:

There is a great book available free online called Handbook of Ornament, by Meyer.  He was a professor of architecture, I think.  The book is from the early 1900s and goes through the types of design / decoration people have used since ancient times to more modern.

There are tons of illustrations of geometric (think: Middle Eastern mosaic tiles), animal, plant, etc., with explanations. From it I was able to invent a few patterns and invent a couple of crest/shield type designs.

Just downloaded it from archive.org along with a couple of others, great call, thanks

Harry

[chrisash]

Biker

In the Uk we have Gargoyle:  (drains from churches roofs to take the water away from the stonework) these all have very ugly head shapes and may well make a good subject

Not sure if they are just English or also in Europe

Tudor or earlier wall paper may have some nice flower designs and also canal boats had painted flow designs (Canal Art) on the cabin doors, buckets and water buckets

Hope these idea's give some inspiration

 

[Dun]

Bikermutt, i never really cared about carving either but now my wife wants a punk star wars jacket so we are coming up with ideas still. This was from the first test.

[bikermutt07]

Thanks for sharing @Dun and @chrisash.

[koreric75]

Next time we get together we could break out the tooling stuff, I have some "not western style" craftaids and such to use.

[bikermutt07]

2 hours ago, koreric75 said:

Next time we get together we could break out the tooling stuff, I have some "not western style" craftaids and such to use.

It maybe awhile yet, I posted this before I got inspired by the shoes. And that's going to take a bit.

[skinhacker]

On 2/20/2018 at 10:27 AM, johnv474 said:

There is a great book available free online called Handbook of Ornament, by Meyer.  He was a professor of architecture, I think.  The book is from the early 1900s and goes through the types of design / decoration people have used since ancient times to more modern.

There are tons of illustrations of geometric (think: Middle Eastern mosaic tiles), animal, plant, etc., with explanations. From it I was able to invent a few patterns and invent a couple of crest/shield type designs.

I am a real estate guy at my day job.  When you mentioned he was an architect I just suddenly envisioned walletswith center hall colonials carved on the front. LOL

[rodneywt1180b]

The good thing about England is it has had a lot of different cultural influences in it's history.  You have a wide range of styles to choose from.  A lot of really good suggestions from the others here.

[Sheilajeanne]

4 hours ago, skinhacker said:

I am a real estate guy at my day job.  When you mentioned he was an architect I just suddenly envisioned walletswith center hall colonials carved on the front. LOL

ROTLOL!  I like the Tudor roses. That's going to be my next project! I think it would look great on either a wallet or a belt bag like the one I did recently with the Celtic horse design. 

[Gabriel Rasa]

I know I'm late jumping on this train, but celtic/viking tooling is kind of my wheelhouse. :D As another person already commented, googling "celtic knotwork" etc is going to turn up a lot of modern interpretations mixed in with the attested styles. If you want historical accuracy:

- Aidan Meehan has written prolifically on celtic styles, lots of examples and historical background, though he can be light on the information for how to design your own.

- Jonas Lau Markussen is the expert on viking art specifically, and the fine distinctions in style between the different periods.

- I got this book from the library (it comes with a CD), which has a ton of easy-to-work-with lineart, and saved copies of my favorites. Most (all?) of the pictures are taken from actual historical artifacts such as the Book of Kells, etc.

- I've written a bit about the graph method for designing knotwork from scratch, which I learned from Christian Mercat.

And if you're not so fussed about historical accuracy, there are some modern artists doing stunning work in that style:

https://twistedstrokes.deviantart.com/

https://feivelyn.deviantart.com/

https://one-rook.deviantart.com/

Celtic tooling is about 95% beveling, there's really not much else to it. My only piece of advice would be to use textured bevelers instead of smooth ones, so that you get more contrast between the design and the background.

Have fun!