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Why Did I Think This Was A Good Idea (art rant)
9 years ago
General
Or "Why I haven't updated my gallery in ages"
I have been on a leather kick lately. Somehow, my plan to redo my shoulder piece/"saddle" that allows me to carry Imar'i (my green and black Night Fury http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16523699/) to ride on my shoulder for events has snowballed into an entire costume.
The leather wolf mask is also part of it ( http://www.furaffinity.net/view/20646759/ )(...though that piece has morphed into a very complicated head piece involving a fabric back piece with pony bead ornament. It has slowly become a supply nightmare, since I am using the 4mm pony beads instead of the more universally available 6mm pony beads (which are the sort most people think of when they think Pony Beads), since getting red beads in this size is a right royal pain the rump. They only appear to come in the mix color bags. (though I did finally find bags of just red on eBay). Thankfully black beads come in single color bags, which has made my life a lot easier.
So I have a lot of other color Pony beads that I really should come up with something to do with. So far, one of my plans is to make a couple of parade collars, one using the pastel pink, purple and blue in a diamond pattern and one American Flag pattern collar and put them up on Etsy. I will post pictures of those here too when they are done.
The biggest part of the costume though, time wise, is the gloves. It started as just a pair of wrist guards, then it morphed into overhand gauntlets and finally into full claw gloves. 28 intricate little pieces of leather later (3 pieces per finger x 8 fingers + 2 pieces per thumb x 2 thumbs) I am slowly working my way towards completing this monster of a project. The gloves also include sheet steel claws, cut from the same sheet of metal that the mask teeth are cut from.
As of this moment, I have all of the claws put together and two fingers (index and pinkie fingers) and thumb attached to one of the gauntlets. The great mistake I made with this project was that, due to some serious lapse in judgement, said gauntlet is for the right hand...I am right handed so fitting it together has been difficult. Usually I make the pieces for the left hand first and add a bit to make up for the slight difference in hand size. (Anyone who tells you that the right and left hand are the same size has never tried to make gloves) Since these gloves are made of leather, instead of my previous glove construction method using wire wrap rings, I can adjust the size of each separate piece rather easily using beads as spacers for where the pieces join. Each leather piece is flat and is turned into a ring by joining the ends, so beads work very well as spacers to adjust the size. Unlike my previous glove projects, I am quite intent that these gloves will be comfortable for long time wear, like for a convention or Ren Faire, instead of just marginally comfortable like my wire gloves tended to be (or as my mate so nicely described them, as "tetanus shots waiting to happen")
Other than the value of glue, I must say I haven't had to do much "engineering" on this project...and that is a bit annoying. Usually big projects like this result in some amount of experimenting and learning. This is much more of a "here is everything I have learned about working leather" project, which I suppose has its own merits.
So that is why I haven't been posting much, this project has been eating up my time.
Edit: After my art-ing day yesterday, I discovered I was very much wrong about the lack-oh-experimenting involved in this project. A better way to describe my experience with this project and the learning curve/experimentation related to it is as follows.
In terms of the actual "how things go together", yes, I have that down and could probably do it in my sleep...correction, functionally I suppose I have done that, where I am literally too mentally and physically exhausted to do anything that require real thinking (most weekends) but I could still stitch the leather pieces (still needed to keep my hands moving or I would be absently chewing on my nails...I have ADD). I could even do the edge stitching when not medicated (thus extremely fuzz-skulled) in between naps during a Sleep Study and Nap Test.
In terms of figuring how the gloves actually go together...human hands are complicated things and making articulated gloves is definitely a learning process. This applies to both figuring out the spacing for the finger pieces and attaching the finger pieces to the gloves. Unlike the other pieces of this project, which have in 5 and 10 minute intervals as thing-to-keep-my-hands-busy-so-I-don't-chew-on-my-nails-while-walking-at-work projects, fitting the fingers to the hand pieces is definitely a weekend sort of project. Lots of fussing and fiddling and re-doing to get the fingers to fit just right to create a glove.
WIP of the gloves. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21314666/
I am hoping to finish one this weekend, spend whatever time I have this week on the headpiece and put the second glove together next weekend...we shall see how well that plan goes.
I have been on a leather kick lately. Somehow, my plan to redo my shoulder piece/"saddle" that allows me to carry Imar'i (my green and black Night Fury http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16523699/) to ride on my shoulder for events has snowballed into an entire costume.
The leather wolf mask is also part of it ( http://www.furaffinity.net/view/20646759/ )(...though that piece has morphed into a very complicated head piece involving a fabric back piece with pony bead ornament. It has slowly become a supply nightmare, since I am using the 4mm pony beads instead of the more universally available 6mm pony beads (which are the sort most people think of when they think Pony Beads), since getting red beads in this size is a right royal pain the rump. They only appear to come in the mix color bags. (though I did finally find bags of just red on eBay). Thankfully black beads come in single color bags, which has made my life a lot easier.
So I have a lot of other color Pony beads that I really should come up with something to do with. So far, one of my plans is to make a couple of parade collars, one using the pastel pink, purple and blue in a diamond pattern and one American Flag pattern collar and put them up on Etsy. I will post pictures of those here too when they are done.
The biggest part of the costume though, time wise, is the gloves. It started as just a pair of wrist guards, then it morphed into overhand gauntlets and finally into full claw gloves. 28 intricate little pieces of leather later (3 pieces per finger x 8 fingers + 2 pieces per thumb x 2 thumbs) I am slowly working my way towards completing this monster of a project. The gloves also include sheet steel claws, cut from the same sheet of metal that the mask teeth are cut from.
As of this moment, I have all of the claws put together and two fingers (index and pinkie fingers) and thumb attached to one of the gauntlets. The great mistake I made with this project was that, due to some serious lapse in judgement, said gauntlet is for the right hand...I am right handed so fitting it together has been difficult. Usually I make the pieces for the left hand first and add a bit to make up for the slight difference in hand size. (Anyone who tells you that the right and left hand are the same size has never tried to make gloves) Since these gloves are made of leather, instead of my previous glove construction method using wire wrap rings, I can adjust the size of each separate piece rather easily using beads as spacers for where the pieces join. Each leather piece is flat and is turned into a ring by joining the ends, so beads work very well as spacers to adjust the size. Unlike my previous glove projects, I am quite intent that these gloves will be comfortable for long time wear, like for a convention or Ren Faire, instead of just marginally comfortable like my wire gloves tended to be (or as my mate so nicely described them, as "tetanus shots waiting to happen")
Other than the value of glue, I must say I haven't had to do much "engineering" on this project...and that is a bit annoying. Usually big projects like this result in some amount of experimenting and learning. This is much more of a "here is everything I have learned about working leather" project, which I suppose has its own merits.
So that is why I haven't been posting much, this project has been eating up my time.
Edit: After my art-ing day yesterday, I discovered I was very much wrong about the lack-oh-experimenting involved in this project. A better way to describe my experience with this project and the learning curve/experimentation related to it is as follows.
In terms of the actual "how things go together", yes, I have that down and could probably do it in my sleep...correction, functionally I suppose I have done that, where I am literally too mentally and physically exhausted to do anything that require real thinking (most weekends) but I could still stitch the leather pieces (still needed to keep my hands moving or I would be absently chewing on my nails...I have ADD). I could even do the edge stitching when not medicated (thus extremely fuzz-skulled) in between naps during a Sleep Study and Nap Test.
In terms of figuring how the gloves actually go together...human hands are complicated things and making articulated gloves is definitely a learning process. This applies to both figuring out the spacing for the finger pieces and attaching the finger pieces to the gloves. Unlike the other pieces of this project, which have in 5 and 10 minute intervals as thing-to-keep-my-hands-busy-so-I-don't-chew-on-my-nails-while-walking-at-work projects, fitting the fingers to the hand pieces is definitely a weekend sort of project. Lots of fussing and fiddling and re-doing to get the fingers to fit just right to create a glove.
WIP of the gloves. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21314666/
I am hoping to finish one this weekend, spend whatever time I have this week on the headpiece and put the second glove together next weekend...we shall see how well that plan goes.
As for the last bit, the longer you work in a medium, the less experimenting you will need to do. So yay for you!
Upon further consideration, I suppose that the part about less experimentation is only partially true. In terms of the actual "how things go together", yes, I have that down and could probably do it in my sleep (...correction, functionally I have done that, where I am literally too mentally and physically exhausted to do anything that require real thinking but I could still stitch the leather pieces) but in terms of figuring how the gloves actually go together...human hands are complicated things and making articulated gloves is definitely a learning process.
WIP of the gloves. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/21314666/