Map, North America in Quarters

I'm not entirely sure what the whole story was here but the client wanted to show the path these two people took together using a leather map and a few Canadian quarters.  Whatever the story is I'm all for that sort of thing!

They wanted to mark each of the cities by placing a quarter in the map where that city would be and tracing a line to where they met up in Washington, DC.  Canadian quarters are 23.9mm across but the closest bit I have is 25.4mm.  That 1.5mm difference is just enough to be obvious so I printed some cradles/sabots so the quarters would fit perfectly.

Another new thing I tried with this map was building a new faux frame around the finished map.  I used to do something similar on my earliest maps but with the stitching I figured it was worth trying again.  I'm pretty happy with the way it all came together!

Guitar Strap, Rush Clockwork Angel

About 2.5 years ago I made a trio of guitar straps for a friend's family, the first of which was a laminated strap based off the album art for Rush's Clockwork Angel.  This client must've liked how that one turned out because they requested nearly the same design, just in tan rather than red.

I've picked up a few tricks since early 2015 and my materials have definitely improved.  I used to use a glazed pigskin to line the guitar straps but this time around I used a piece of goatskin.  Goats aren't that big but by taking a cut down the spine of the hide I was able to get a piece just large enough to work for the lining.  It's very supple, almost deerskin-esque, and it won't slide as much as the pigskin.  It does make the edging a bit tricky but with the proper glue, a lot of burnishing, and some kote I think it's all worked out pretty well.

Buckle, Asterisk Design Group

A design company in Austin decided to celebrate a big job being well done with a set of custom buckles (very Texan of them 😀 ).  It was kind of cool getting artwork from a group that develops this sort of thing professionally.  They needed the buckles in short order but fortunately I had just enough of the backings to get them right out the door.

Cosplay, Fallout 4 Harness

I'm usually pretty good at predicting complications during the drafting phase, even with complex builds like cosplay.  This order had a couple of hooks I didn't see coming though.  The order was for a functional, leather harness like the Leather Armor in the Fallout 4 games.  The client had already purchased a the harness from another leatherworker but had never received anything more than pictures.

As is often the case with cosplay the drafting phase was pretty intensive.  I had a few measurements and lots of screenshots to work off.  From previous experience I knew that buckles larger than 2" are just about impossible to find so I made the assumption that the belt was 2" wide and scaled everything accordingly.  That was the first "whoops".  It would have been more cumbersome but I should have used the avatar as my meter when figuring out the scale.  This became evident once I started production and found that the pouches were a bit smaller than they should have been.  In fairness, it wasn't that big of a difference.  The pouches are still about 80% of the size they should probably have been and the relative sizes are spot on to the photo references.  Aside from the tiny trio (mostly decorative to begin with) in the back they were all large enough to be practical, usable pouches.

About half-way through the production, after I built the belt was was preparing to work on the bandoleer & chest pouches, the client let me know what they'd intended to carry in the harness.  More importantly I found out the measurements for those items.  Even if all pouches had been to full scale they might not have been large enough for the wallet and phone they wanted to carry.  It was too late to modify the belt so I had to decide between making hasty alteration to the chest pouches or starting over from scratch.  If this had been the only order I was working on at the time I probably would have started over but that would've meant delaying the other orders I had, one of which had a hard deadline.  So in the 9th hour I cut new leather for the chest pouches and made them waaaaaaaay larger than the scale.  They wound up so big that all three of them wouldn't fit together on the front of the bandoleer and one had to be moved to the belt.

I'm conflicted but, I think, ultimately satisfied with the work I did here.  If I'd just had the specs at the start though I could've made a harness that perfectly matched the game art.  At the very least something closer than what we got.It was a rough situation that I tried to make the best of and, most importantly, the client is happy with the result.  The harness fits their stuff and it's solidly made, perfect for traipsing conventions and ren faires with.

Map, Homebrew Fantasy

This map started (for me anyway) as an Inkarnate map the client provided.  Once I turned that into a draft and got to carving I was able to try out a few notions I've been pondering for awhile.  I'm still liking the bargrounder for the forests.  It takes forever but I like the effect and with the right beveling/sculpting around the borders it doesn't look as sunken.  I did some tinting too and though the overcoat mutes most of it it's just noticeable enough in the final version.

Shoulderpad, Cushioned

I make these with some regularity, both the padded and unpadded versions.  They're so steady I don't normally post them on the blog but I particularly liked how this one came out.  I understand it'll be handy on an upcoming vacation to Italy.

Map, Walloon Lake

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get this order out on time but it looks like it left just in time.  This was a gift meant to mimic a laser cut map of the same lake.  It was an interesting challenge to represent the depth of the lake but between the carving and staining I think it worked out pretty well.  In hindsight I just would've used a tiny bit more stain in the shallows since the overcoat seems to have neutralized it a bit.