Well this was a learning experience! While I work with leather, most of the things I make (masks, leather feathers, keychains) are all painted with acrylics. However, as I'm getting back into archery, I wanted to try my hand at an arm guard and thus decided to try actual, traditional leather work - tooling, dyeing, and finishing the leather so it's flexible instead of stiff like my masks.

There's a lot I would do differently, but this was for practice, so I'm fairly happy with it as a practice piece. Dyeing leather in sections is tougher than I thought it would be! The only acrylic paint on this is on the leaves, since I don't have green dye.

And yes, this is a fully functional archery arm guard! It has buckles so you can put it on and tighten it one-handed. From the lower picture, you can see it covers from just below the elbow to just above the wrist.

Once I practice more, I may remake this design. Then you can see a 'first attempt, second attempt' comparison :3