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Leather Works by Willow

Cosplay DIY (Blog)

Building an Epic Leather Cosplay- Part 2

11/19/2016

 
by Willow Enright
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Grecian Style Wonder Woman Leather Cosplay
Welcome to the second installment of Building an Epic Leather Cosplay! We're going to cover some more of the basics for understanding and working with leather. There are many different types of leather for various projects, each having their own thickness, durability, and usefulness. Let's see if we can summerize a few of the leathers that you might want to work with as a beginner leather worker. 

Types of Leather

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Vegetable Tanned Leather
  • Natural Vegetable Tanned, Tooling and Molding Leather: Perfect leather for tooling, embossing, molding, dyeing & oiling. Uniformly absorbs dyes and oils. Dries to a firm, long-lasting shape. 
    Vegetable Tanned. 
    • Great for: Armor, Pouches, Belts, Straps, Holsters & Sheaths
  • Bridle: Firm, rich-colored leather with just enough oils to withstand weather. Great feeling leather can be oiled for darker hues.
    Vegetable Tanned.
    • Great for: Larping, SCA Armor, Belts, Straps, Pet Collars, Leashes, Gun Belts, Holsters
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Bridle Leather
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Latigo Leather
  • Latigo: A combination of veg tanned with chrome tan to make it rigid but very pliable, great for use on products in which strength and flexibility are needed. 
    Chrome Veg Retanned.
    • Great for: Messenger Bags, Belts, Straps
  • Shearlings & Sheepskins: Beautiful quality wool sheepskins in a variety of thicknesses. Available in both veg tan and chrome tan in a variety of shades and colors. 
    • Great for: Lining saddles, padding, ect.
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Sheepskin
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Chrome Tanned Leather
Chrome Oil Tanned: Beautiful, durable leather has just the right amount of oil for a soft, supple feel. 
Chrome-Tanned. 
Great for: Chaps, Cases & Bags, Boots, Armor
​Suede: Finished by buffing the flesh side of the hide to produce a “nap”. 
Chrome Tanned.
Great for: Chaps, Garments, Trim
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Suede Leather
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Upholstery Leather
​Upholstery: Soft, supple leather is very strong and durable. Tanned in whole hides for little waste and for use in automotive and restoration upholstery where large pieces of leather are desirable. 
Great for: Garments

Leather Hide Weight and Thickness 

The chart below shows the different parts of leather hide that are available, along with the ounces and thickness.
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Tandy Chart for Leather Weight and Thickness
The chart below is Tandy’s recommendation for what thickness of leather to use for what project, but you can change this up somewhat. You can make journals out of a thinner leather than a 5-6 oz, you can use a 3-4 oz instead. And holsters can be made from 6-8 oz leather and not just 8-10 oz. It depends on what you are trying to achieve. Larping armor should be between 7-9 oz, and armor for the SCA should be more like 10-16 oz. Otherwise, you can use whatever you think is best to achieve your cosplay. 
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Tandy chart for what leather to use for different projects.

Devil is in the Details

You can really get a lot of details into your leather project when you use a Vegetable Tanned leather. You use tracing film and a stylus to transfer your desired design to the leather, and then use a swivel knife to carve the details. Case your leather by wetting it and leaving it to almost dry again, and then use the Craftsman Tool Set and Rawhide mallet to pound the design into the leather. This process is often called Hand Tooling. 
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Tooled Wolf and Moon design from Cara Mason's Mord-Sith Armor
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Tooled Dr. Who Wallet
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Tooled neck gorget pieces from Cara Mason's Mord-Sith Armor
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More details from Cara's neck gorget
Below and to the left is an example of the design carved into the leather, and below and to the right is the finished tooled and painted design.
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Carved Gambit Design
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Gambit design after Tooling and painting.
The shots below are of my first Mord-Sith armor. I used a 5-6 oz mahogany leather for everything except the belt, that was made with a much thicker vegetable tanned leather of 8-9 oz. For the first version of this armor I concentrated on the pattern and the hardware to give it the design and feel that I wanted to match the T.V. show, Legend of the Seeker. 
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Denna from Legend of the Seeker, first Mord-Sith Armor
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Denna in her first Mord-Sith Armor
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Denna's Mord-Sith Armor, and buckle hardware.
​The second set of Mord-Sith armor was done with a 7-9 oz vegetable tanned cowhide leather so that I could really tool the design I wanted in order to show others the character’s story on the leather.  Some of the raw detailed shots are above, but the finished shots are below. If you want to see how this costume has transformed over time please check out my blog all about the Mord-Sith. 
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Cara Mason Mord-Sith Armor
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Cara Mason Mord-Sith Armor on duct tape body double
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Cara Mason at Emerald City Comic Con 2013
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Cara Mason at Emerald City Comic Con 2013

Wet Forming (Shaping)

The process of wet forming (shaping) is extremely useful for creating cosplay pieces, especially armor. It isn’t quite as difficult as it seems either. You can check out that process more in depth through my Wet Forming blog. 

Margery Tyrell Armor Wet Form

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Wet Form Shaping the Margery Tyrell chest plate armor.
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Shoulder Pauldron being Wet formed on duct tape body double
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Raw, carved, shaped Tyrell Armor
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Tyrell Chest Armor
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Finished Margery Tyrell Armor Chest piece, Shoulder Pauldron and arm bracers.

Wonder Woman Wet Form 

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Wonder Woman pieces cut and carved
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Ancient Greek Wonder Woman chest plate Wet Form
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Wonder Woman Wet Form
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Wonder Woman skirt pleats carved
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Back Chest Plate for Wonder Woman, carved, wet formed, and painted.
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Front Chest Plate for Wonder Woman, carved, wet formed, and painted.

X-Men Rogue Chest Armor Wet Form

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Wet Formed X-Men Rogue Chest Plate front, back and sides
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Rogue side pieces Wet formed
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Side pieces all painted but still needing their coat of Antique Black Stain to give that worn feel.
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Rogue from X-Men Chest Plate Wet formed
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Wet Formed and being painted with Acrylic Leather Paint
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Rogue from X-Men back chest plate Wet Formed and painted.
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Rogue front chest plate Wet Formed and painted.
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Finished Rogue Chest Plate
​There are a ton of amazing things that can be done with leather. Getting yourself some specific tools, and learning the basics of attaching bits and pieces is a huge chunk of it. Trying out some useful techniques such as Wet Forming or Wax Hardening can also take your cosplay to the next level. The tooling can be a challenge, but it’s very rewarding when you get that perfect design onto the leather. However you choose to incorporate leather into your cosplay, have fun with it!

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    Etsy

    Willow Enright

    I started crafting out of leather in 2011, and now I am making it my life's work. I am writing this blog to help myself remember some of the small steps in past projects, sharing my triumphs and failures, as well as my love of leather. 

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  • Leather Works by Willow
  • Cosplay DIY (Blogs)
  • Quality Leather Goods
  • Leather Armory
    • Wonder Woman Ancient Greek Armor
    • Rogue X-Men Armor
    • Margaery Tyrell Game of Thrones Armor
    • Mord-Sith Armor
  • Custom Leather Work