Making Leather Armor Fancy: Burning it

So you have a Basic Leather Bracer, ok that is good, you are protected for dangerous objects. But what good is it to wear armor if it doesn't look good? No, that what. So here is the first way to make armor fancy!

The main bit to this tutorial is a wood burner. You should be able to find one at a hobby shop, or a quick search online. They plug in, and have multiple tips that screw on.

For this tutorial you need:

• A wood burning kit (or a really hot peace of metal)
  
• Leather Armor (to make fancy)
  
• Pencil
  
• Paper
  
• Ruler
  
• A burn proof work space

First things first, you need a design. My "client" wanted a bracer with "a border of curlicues and that sort of thing as well as in the middle put three bobcat faces each above the other." So, lets start with the bobcat faces.

I did a quick google search, for bob cat faces, same up with some lame results, except for the bob car printed on the upper part of the pace in the pict above.

I wanted it more front facing, so I made a grid using a ruler. The grid is made of .5' squares.

I draw half my bobcat face in the grid. Then using the grid as a guide I draw the other half.

The grid is important. I is a techequ I learned about when studying ancient egypt.

Make a grid on the armor with a pencil.

It is kind of hard to see, but, I have used the grig to help transfer the image from the paper to the leather.

Ok as for the edges, the client requested curlicues. I gave his some options and he asked for #4. I draw everything on with pencil.

Ok, now back to the bobcat face. I decided to go with another method for tracing them on. I made up the faces on my computer, scaled two of them down a bit, so that they get smaller each face.

I cut them out. and taped them with very little tape. I then traced the faces on. and then removed the paper cut outs.

Once the wood burner is hot, you don't have to press hard to get a nice burn. If you press hard, you will indent the leather and get a darker burn. However, it will make a lot more smoke and stink more.

I simply traced the lines with my fine point tip, then used the wide tip to fill in the faces.

The smell is smiler to cooking/toasting meet. And not to bad.

Here is the fist face done.


And all 3 done.

Here is another bracer I did, telling a story.