WIP Sporran #5 (hunting)- from the very start

[artificer]

Hi All,
emboldened by the relative success of works #1-3 (with 4 slowly coming along) I've decided to do a full documentation of sporran #5, from inception through a (hopefully successful) conclusion.

Browsing over the many images of traditional through modern hunting sporrans I came to a realization. Many of them are too busy for my (admittedly, VERY) minimal tastes. One of them struck me time and again as delightful. HRH Prince Charles'. He has one that appear in nearly all of his day photographs.

Looking more closely at his sporran, it's unusual (to me, at least) in several ways. The bag is structured differently than most. In some pictures, where HRH is walking, the 'break' of a shortened front structural panel can be seen. This implies that there is a harder panel under the softer bag face... oddly, it doesn't appear continue to the bottom of the front panel gusset.

The traditional decoration of 'petals' has been altered to what appears to be a simple gather in the leather. Also, the 'pinked' edge (saw tooth) of the front panel extends down over the very front edge of the gusset on the face of the bag. HRH also appears to have little of the perforation (like on a pair of brogues) that is so common on many hunting sporrans. Many of these details can be seen in the XMarks thread about HRH PC in Highland dress.

Fascinated by the variation from what I see as a 'standard' design, as well as my attraction to it, I've chosen this bag to be the inspiration for my first hunting pattern sporran.

Obviously, I don't wish to replicate the bag entirely, simply pay homage. COPYING is merely plagiarism and IP theft. However, it has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Since I'd be hard pressed to find a smarter dresser than HRH, I feel pretty safe about using his as a jumping off point.

After a few preliminary pencil sketches which I won't show you, as they are illegible to the untrained eye, and the camera doesn't do them any favours either, I will give you my first vector based rendering (Adobe Illustrator).

None of the tiny details (pinked edges or perforations) show here, as it's fairly early. The final proportions need tweaking, and no stitch lines are indicated. This study is JUST for the basic bag shape. It's also out of scale now, as I've converted it to a jpeg for easy web viewing.

I should also note that the face of the bag will be lacking the pinked edge facing of HRH, and have a standard construction, rather than what appears to be the unusual structure of HRH. I may also put a half round 'top collar' above the central roundel, as most hunting sporrans have today. The pattern of perforations for this piece are under development and not ready to be shown.

From here, assuming changes aren't massive, a paper mock-up, then an exploded view, then a layer detail pattern will be generated.



So THAT'S how I start. Any thoughts? Gut reactions? Niggling concerns?