Yup! Iso is isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol. You just slosh some onto a clean rag, rub it over the leather, then smear on some vaseline and buff. I am fairly confident that this WILL NOT work on faux leather though! You can try, but I doubt it’ll do anything on not-real-leather. Good luck with your Shep! :D

On the leather dyeing note! Remember that when using a paint-on dye or finish, you can mix them. I did this when I was making my Veatrice belt from Granado Espada - I bought a mahogany dye, which was too dark, and a red dye, which was too bright. I ended up doing a couple of coats of the red, and one of dilute mahogany. These were all water-based dyes, so mixed well, and diluted with water. Some photos to illustrate - these also illustrate how easy it is to get a very streaky finish. Which is obviously really not ideal…I applied this with a wool dauber, and I really needed to use a larger applicator I think. I need to practise more! It did look a bit better than this in the end, honest :/

Like so:

Still not perfect, but a little less yuck!

Not hard at all - but there are a few things to keep in mind!

As with any dyeing, you want a separate vessel that won’t be used for food ever again. You also need an acid dye rather than a fibre reactive one - acid dyes are used on protein fibres like wool or silk, and also leather (or so logic tells me, and I’ve learned from experimenting).

HOWEVER - acid dyes also require heat! Leather does not like heat. I’ve done a little bit of experimenting on swatches of leather, and I didn’t let the dye boil, so I haven’t damaged the leather..but if it gets too hot, the leather will harden. Boiled leather armour was once a thing, and not generally a thing you want when dyeing leather now.

I haven’t played with it much, but in my experiments I tried to get a black dyed colour. I used a fibre reactive dye rather than an acid - you can use FR dye pigments on other protein fibres, and also on leather, but the colour shifts. My “black” ended up a very attractive shade of indigo! I’ve just ordered some black acid dye to play with, so I’ll let you know how that goes :)

littlenoisephotography:

Uploading this everywherrrrre and I don’t carrrre because I made a thing and it is gorgeous. Got a shoot planned with a MUA friend of mine, and there will be bosoms and chains and some awesome serpentine makeup. Pattern was modified from one I found online (found here) and is a single layer of this gorgeous reptilian textured vinyl. There’s a single bone each side at the back to support the eyelets, but the rest is just the stiffness of the fabric. Reeeally pleased with the shape - and man, it makes your neck look LONG.

Ahem. Yeah, so this is what I do at work when we’re quiet! :) This was technically a prototype for a gorget I’m making for an upcoming costume (Dark Eldar kabalite warrior) but hey, now my work has a sweet new swanky thing. Win-win!

Neck corsets/gorgets YEAH!

There is heeeeaps of new stock listed as well, hooray! I haven’t bought leather from Lapco before, just dyes/buckles/etc, but I am looking forward to ordering a whole bunch of stuff to play with :D

…I answered this on my phone hours ago! Tumblr, what are you doing?

Anyway - I have never stiffened leather before, only softened it (iso+vaseline = works a treat) but I would recommend just starting with a stiff leather and wet forming it to shape. Tooling leather forms really well and takes colour and finishes well too, though you should be able to wet-form leather that’s already been finished. At least as far as I know.

If that’s not possible, there are a few options you could try. You could use the leather as a covering over a more rigid shape - Wonderflex, sintra, EVA foam or cardboard would all work. I wouldn’t use interfacing (at least not fusible stuff), but you could try flatlining it with a heavier fabric if you want to maintain a little bit of flex/softness. Heavy denim, maybe a couple of layers, for example. Boning is another option, though you would either have to bone some lining and wrap the leather over the top (to avoid visible stitching where the channels are) or just have stitches visible. It depends what you want for the final look, and what properties you want the finished pieces to have :)

littlenoisephotography:

This write-up outlines how I made my Aela the Huntress/ancient Nord armour costume, from Skyrim. I learned a whole lot making this costume, first and foremost how it pays off to actually take your time and use more than one colour paint when weathering a prop. Finally took on board all the advice from tutorials I’ve read over the years! Read on for details.

Read More

I am not quite finished with this costume, but nearly! Here’s some info on how it was made.

If you ever need rolls of pretty high quality ribbon, silk roses, or any other kind of thing that could be used in wedding decor as much as costuming…Dreamlands is good!

Update on the Tandy saga - apparently when you order an item that ends up being out of stock, they just ship your order anyway. No offer to wait until it comes in, no offer of a refund or exchange on the out of stock item, nada. They also don’t tell you that it’s out of stock unless you email them going, “UM why is this missing from my order?”. I am pretty mad. And still getting some really pathetic service, might I add.

Quick note on leather buying - just had some really poor customer service from the Tandy Leather Co. in Sydney. My order was changed without notification, and while I’ve paid what I was expecting to, I suddenly have a whole lot more pigskin than I wanted, am missing a tooling shoulder as they’re apparently out of stock, and the shipping has gone way up to make up the difference. This is a real shame, as they have a great range, but apparently can’t be relied upon to actually give you what you’ve ordered. I keep hearing great stuff about their US stores, so I don’t know what’s going on here…but not impressed. I understand shit happens sometimes and you have to give customers what stock you have, but I wasn’t given any notice and am now short some supplies I was relying on for a project and out of pocket on the rest. Thanks a bunch, Tandy.