So I got a commission request for Barriss Offee’s belt, from Star Wars, to which I said, “…who?” and promptly googled it. And then I said yes, because it’s totally in my wheelhouse. But the tooling on it was more interesting than what I usually do, so let’s look at the steps involved.
Starting with a screencap for reference:
Import it into Inkscape, clean up the pattern with vectors:
It is going to be attached to the front of a buckle blank to make it a functional buckle, and the reference pic turned out to be a perfect fit for the larger one. So trace your 4 1/8″ x 2 3/4″ rectangle onto the thickest veg-tan leather you’ve got (I used 10 oz):
Cut it out and clip the corners:
Apply duct tape to the underside, because stamping compresses and stretches the leather. Usually the amount of stretching is negligible, but for this project, you need it to stay precisely the same size after tooling:
Soak it underwater for 10-15 seconds. I didn’t photograph this step, but casing is necessary before you can carve and stamp leather. And you have to duct tape it before you get it wet, or else the tape won’t stick.
Use a stylus & stitching groover with modeling head to trace your pattern. Be very precise with this and the next step, because with a design this simple, any deviations from symmetry will be verynoticeable and unsightly:
Carve lines with a swivel knife. (Note that I did notcarve the line around the edge, that is just to keep your stamping aligned.)
Use an edge beveler to round off the edges of the leather. (Usually this would be done aftertooling, but in this case, the rope border looks better if you bevel the edge first):
Tesselating rope border (Craftool stamp R956):
Beveling around the design (B201, B203):
Textured backgrounding to make the design pop (E294, E294-04):
Pear shading – eh, not my best stamp. I don’t get much practice with this one (P709, P972):
And I debated using a stamp to do this part, but decided I’d have more control and flexibility with the swivel knife again:
Remove the duct tape. Tooling complete!
Next step will be deciding how I want to paint/dye it.
So I got a commission request for Barriss Offee’s belt, from Star Wars, to which I said, “…who?” and promptly googled it. And then I said yes, because it’s totally in my wheelhouse. But the tooling on it was more interesting than what I usually do, so let’s look at the steps involved.
Starting with a screencap for reference:
Import it into Inkscape, clean up the pattern with vectors:
It is going to be attached to the front of a buckle blank to make it a functional buckle, and the reference pic turned out to be a perfect fit for the larger one. So trace your 4 1/8″ x 2 3/4″ rectangle onto the thickest veg-tan leather you’ve got (I used 10 oz):
Cut it out and clip the corners:
Apply duct tape to the underside, because stamping compresses and stretches the leather. Usually the amount of stretching is negligible, but for this project, you need it to stay precisely the same size after tooling:
Soak it underwater for 10-15 seconds. I didn’t photograph this step, but casing is necessary before you can carve and stamp leather. And you have to duct tape it before you get it wet, or else the tape won’t stick.
Use a stylus & stitching groover with modeling head to trace your pattern. Be very precise with this and the next step, because with a design this simple, any deviations from symmetry will be verynoticeable and unsightly:
Carve lines with a swivel knife. (Note that I did notcarve the line around the edge, that is just to keep your stamping aligned.)
Use an edge beveler to round off the edges of the leather. (Usually this would be done aftertooling, but in this case, the rope border looks better if you bevel the edge first):
Tesselating rope border (Craftool stamp R956):
Beveling around the design (B201, B203):
Textured backgrounding to make the design pop (E294, E294-04):
Pear shading – eh, not my best stamp. I don’t get much practice with this one (P709, P972):
And I debated using a stamp to do this part, but decided I’d have more control and flexibility with the swivel knife again:
Remove the duct tape. Tooling complete!
Next step will be deciding how I want to paint/dye it.
