Sporran #6: Silver Lion

[A Hay]

Thanks for the encouragement.

How do you carve the leather? The whole lion looks three dimensional!

Leather carving is tracing a design onto damp leather, using a special knife (swivel knife) to cut part way through the leather, and then using various tools to press or stamp around the design or add special features. Do a google search for Tandy Leather. They have all the tools and instructions needed. There are other firms out there, but Tandy is the standard. The rest is practice, practice. I usually do a design on scrap leather at least once before trying it on a sporran.

What do you use for the silver and how do you get it on so precisely?

I got a pen with silver metallic ink locally, and I used that to color in the raised surface. It looks better close up because it almost looks like real hair. The small point makes it easy to put the ink just where you want it and any excess or mistakes can be scraped away with an Xacto knife. The tricky part was applying the seal coat. You can't wipe it on or it smears the ink away. I may try to get some acrylic paint for fabric which should dry harder.

I'm thinking an Irish Harp design in silver on black would also look nice.

Anyone else have ideas for designs? Simple line drawings are best.

Tom