Pleatherworking?

[Artemis]

Hey everyone, I'm working on a leather vest/armor/something that looks like this http://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/up ... rnhelm.jpg
I'm not planning on actually using it in Belegarth, it's actually for a Dernhelm costume i'm making (hence the photo).
My problem is the only material i have on hand is a nice thick pleather. I've sewn it up fine, but now i'm having problems with putting designs in it, since pleather doesn't like to be tooled. Does anyone have any tips for putting designs on pleather, or ways to make the tooling process easier and more permanent? Right now whatever i do doesn't leave much of a mark, but I can't exactly just use paint on the whole thing.

Thanks

[Derian]

You're not going to have any luck tooling pleather. If you want to tool the designs in, I seriously recommend picking up some real leather. It will look much, much better in the long run.

[Artemis]

yeah, i've kinda given up on that. my hope now is i'm scoring the design into the leather, and then staining it and hoping the design picks up more dye than the rest.

[Sir Thurat]

Post pics when you're done; I'm interested to see how it turns out.