Silva Fox Says

Patterns can be easily designed from photo's you've taken then using a copy machine to size and piece each design element. Using a black, fine point marker, trace each piece for your design carefully eliminating any part of the photo you don't want. Set the copier to a lighter setting to get rid of distractions in the pattern. Your black traced lines will show up clearly. Use the marks you are familiar with on a leather pattern ie. solid lines for cutting, dashed lines for details not cut, and feel free to add contours like muscle structure and I'll show you how to make your modeling a bit easier. Make copies of the sizes you want these design elements to be when they are assembled. Piece your picture together as you like and tape the parts down. Copy the work one more time as one piece and voila, you have an excellent pattern! I can draw, but this kind of an assembly makes designing a custom pattern a bit easier for people who don't draw well. (Make s...

There are many ways to emboss (raising from behind) leather images. Because I use a cut and lift style on the surface for most works on paintings, the plugs used are made from 1.5 to 2 oz. leather stacked and shaped for the desired effect under 6 oz. leather for the primary working surface. This way a plug can be lifted with the top surface when it's cut for extra strength and stability especially on thin parts like the antlers on this deer. Note that during the transfer process I also started some of the modeling. Only the head and right side antler (from your view) will be embossed on this picture. After cutting the work and doing the basic beveling of the subject, in this case the head and antlers, make a tracing, or faster and more efficient a photocopy of the leather surface to use in making the plugs. This is the actual photocopy of the leather When a plug pattern is made from the original tracing pattern you might not be compensating for a cut made heavier or thinner t...