At one with Nature

Leading on from my last post, I want to make a ‘Creature’ costume for the Papercut Mag competition that I’m working with Deborah Selwood from Gecko Studios.

One of the categorises is ‘Animal instincts’. I want to make a horned headdress and a feminine huntress costume.

I like the idea of the hunted being the hunter, so want quiet a feminine feel to a hard material. I’ve decided to use heavy Veg-Tan leather which I normally use for leather armour and to make the outfit  look more natural . I also am planning to use the curly Goat horns I made for the Horn Tutorial (see older posts) for the headdress.

I’ve started to make leather leaves for the costume

After spending an afternoon playing around with leather I came up with this :-

 

They are quite time consuming to make and after cutting out 50, both Ruth and myself can barely move our fingers, also I now have so many cuts on my hands I look like I’ve been bareknuckle fighting

 

 

I found a pretty leaf which I liked the shape of and used it as a guide.From that I drew a template on tracing paper,

Wet the leather and traced the design onto it then cut out the leaf blank.

 

Tooled the veins and on some of the leaves added shading, so they all looked slightly different.

I then moulded the shape by manipulating the leather with my fingers and then allowed it to dry overnight (patience is definitely not my virtue)

I then painted/dyed the leaves with leather dye and then oiled and polished them

 

And Daa! Daa! Daa!

 

OK…… I’d like to say I’m finished but I only have 15 completely finished. Only 35 more to go!