Check Out My Bangin' New <strike>Belt</strike> Armor!
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:22 pm
Here's some progress pics on the *' belt I'm working on. They're phone pics; deal with it.
I started out with an extra long belt blank from Tandy, because I'm lazy and either make too much money or don't know how to manage it. Your choice. These belt blanks presumably are designed for monstrously obese people, but they make great starters for ring belts if you either don't want to buy an entire side or simply don't want to take the effort to cut out a 64" strip of 1.5" leather.
I'm doing a relatively basic pattern throughout the length of the belt, because **** this is a lot of leather. I cut out a 1.5" by 6" (or so) piece of paper and drew on my pattern. This was then encased in clear packing tape so the paper didn't get wet and fall apart as I traced out my pattern in to the leather. Here's a progress shot. Sorry for the bad lighting, but you can see the indented lines on the left hand side and my tape & paper pattern on the right. I use a modeling spoon (the stylus end, top right in the photo) to trace out the lines in to cased (damp) leather. This leaves an indentation that can then be carved out using a swivel knife.
The previously mentioned indentations have all already been carved with a swivel knife and are now simply deep gashes in the leather. Because this is a ring belt, there's about 18" of excess that hangs down from the ring/buckle area. I like to jazz the end of this up a bit. Here's the beginnings with a hint of a Chaos Star.
I next used a beveler and backgrounder (actually a matter, but uh, I don't think there's really a difference) to flesh it out a bit. Don't make fun of my shaky cuts and terrible beveling; I'm pretty rusty and was really drunk for this portion. It gets better, I promise.
Just the tip; just for a minute. Just to see how it feels. The area around the circle in the middle of the Tzeentch symbol is a bit wonky; such is the pain of trying to tool a 1/8" space.
I'm tired of dark armor and I'm tired of terrible, unfinished, streaky dye jobs. I bought an air brush. If you're going to do any amount of leather in anything other than straight Fieblings USMC Black -- buy one. Seriously. You don't know what you're missing out on.
My goal with this piece (and the following (nearly) full suit to accompany it) is a bright(ish) blue base with hints of gold and black with a gloss finish. Trying to get any color other than near-black out of the spirit based Fieblings dyes with a dauber or brush is a statistical impossibility. That's where the air brush comes in. Here's my setup along with some dilution & coating tests on some scrap lamellar scales:
In order to prevent the dye from immediately turning the leather to a dark navy, it must be significantly diluted with rubbing alcohol; to the tune of 6-8:1 rubbing alcohol:dye. This plus the air brush allow me to get very, very fine control over the exact color I get, but requires a stupid number of coats. The following picture is about 10-12 coats in (fortunately, due to the alcohol base, they dry very quickly). Also note that I've beveled the edges of the belt prior to this picture.
More pictures are coming. I expect to have the belt finished tonight or tomorrow.
I started out with an extra long belt blank from Tandy, because I'm lazy and either make too much money or don't know how to manage it. Your choice. These belt blanks presumably are designed for monstrously obese people, but they make great starters for ring belts if you either don't want to buy an entire side or simply don't want to take the effort to cut out a 64" strip of 1.5" leather.
I'm doing a relatively basic pattern throughout the length of the belt, because **** this is a lot of leather. I cut out a 1.5" by 6" (or so) piece of paper and drew on my pattern. This was then encased in clear packing tape so the paper didn't get wet and fall apart as I traced out my pattern in to the leather. Here's a progress shot. Sorry for the bad lighting, but you can see the indented lines on the left hand side and my tape & paper pattern on the right. I use a modeling spoon (the stylus end, top right in the photo) to trace out the lines in to cased (damp) leather. This leaves an indentation that can then be carved out using a swivel knife.
The previously mentioned indentations have all already been carved with a swivel knife and are now simply deep gashes in the leather. Because this is a ring belt, there's about 18" of excess that hangs down from the ring/buckle area. I like to jazz the end of this up a bit. Here's the beginnings with a hint of a Chaos Star.
I next used a beveler and backgrounder (actually a matter, but uh, I don't think there's really a difference) to flesh it out a bit. Don't make fun of my shaky cuts and terrible beveling; I'm pretty rusty and was really drunk for this portion. It gets better, I promise.
Just the tip; just for a minute. Just to see how it feels. The area around the circle in the middle of the Tzeentch symbol is a bit wonky; such is the pain of trying to tool a 1/8" space.
I'm tired of dark armor and I'm tired of terrible, unfinished, streaky dye jobs. I bought an air brush. If you're going to do any amount of leather in anything other than straight Fieblings USMC Black -- buy one. Seriously. You don't know what you're missing out on.
My goal with this piece (and the following (nearly) full suit to accompany it) is a bright(ish) blue base with hints of gold and black with a gloss finish. Trying to get any color other than near-black out of the spirit based Fieblings dyes with a dauber or brush is a statistical impossibility. That's where the air brush comes in. Here's my setup along with some dilution & coating tests on some scrap lamellar scales:
In order to prevent the dye from immediately turning the leather to a dark navy, it must be significantly diluted with rubbing alcohol; to the tune of 6-8:1 rubbing alcohol:dye. This plus the air brush allow me to get very, very fine control over the exact color I get, but requires a stupid number of coats. The following picture is about 10-12 coats in (fortunately, due to the alcohol base, they dry very quickly). Also note that I've beveled the edges of the belt prior to this picture.
More pictures are coming. I expect to have the belt finished tonight or tomorrow.