Leatherwork Begins

I am trying to hunt down some good pictures of the design on Caspian's shoulders. All of the promtoional photos I have found have so much affect on them it is difficult to make out. I think I remember seeing in the book about the making of the movie a picture of the detail... I will have to check that out tomorrow. In the mean time, here is the progress on the leather items so far.


So, As usual I have cut out the pattern for my pieces out of paper and then tried it on using masking tape to hold the pieces in place. I was rather impressed I got the sizing right on my first attempt. Usually it take several iterations before I am hapy with the fit.

When you go to do this yourself, make sure you measure/try on pieces wearing what you plan to wear under the finished item.

I wore my current vambrace pads, which are basically cut off football pads (i think) from sports authority. The finished product will probably have some padding built into the under tunic, but I have not yet decided for sure.

Since I was happy with my paper patterns I traced them onto the leather to be cut out. Luckily everything JUST fit onto my piece of leather.






Making extra sure not to cut my good kitchen table I cut the pieces out (over my cutting boards) using a razor blade. The results were very satisfying. The vambraces upon trying them on again turned out to be a half inch too long and was pinching in my inner elbow so I cut them back a little. It is very important to do as much testing of fit before tooling the leather as possible to avoid having to recut and tool a piece due to size issues.

And now for some of the photos I am using as inspiration for these pieces: