Another leather coronet completed

I completed another leather coronet on my to-do list. I was working on this one for a while but had to keep it under wraps until it was handed out. It was handed out in April so I can finally put up some photos. I was pretty happy with it. I had to hit a point of "getting it done" as the deadline got closer, but honestly, I have always found it important to not obsess too much on details. Whatever the project is you have to hit a point where you stop and "call it good". Like most of my coronets this is tooled and painted leather. 

Work on the to-do list continues!

One more off the to do list, a quick modification to an older project adding pearls. Next, a conceptual drawing for another past due project (knife sheath) that is on my desk and about to go to patterning. I am also working on a third project that I cannot reveal until it is handed out to the recipient. 

More leather coronets

This project took far too long to complete. The new owners remained wonderful and understanding the entire time. I was happy to hear they arrived at their new home safely. I have included some in progress photos to document the journey. Two Baronial coronets in tooled and painted leather. Some progress pictures included to show the process. 

Heraldic belt

This was a project I wanted to work on for a while and was a long overdue second payment for some seamstress work. It is a heraldic belt for Baroness Miriel du Lac (SCA). The belt is tooled and painted leather (the main belt is dyed black). The hardware is from Billy and Charile's. White is always a difficult color to work with (at least for me), and I hate to fall back on the "pictures don't do it justice" defense, but in this case the photos do fall a bit short. The shells and pearls are shaded in gray and highlighted with mother of pearl white. It is a rather striking effect in person. I was not too certain about the black dye for the belt but took a chance. I now wish I had gone for blue. Overall I am pretty happy and I think Miriel enjoyed the belt as well.

Court Baroness Coronet

My latest project was a Court Baroness coronet for my good friend Mistress Ysabeau Tiercelin (now Baroness). As I have said before I am not much of an artist so settling on the cosmetic aspects of this project was a challenge for me. I went back and forth on design, the basic pattern, and color scheme for a while (too long given the tight deadline) and finally came up with this. The main coronet is very basic (I think maybe too basic in hindsight) and the primary feature is the tooled personal heraldry on the front.

The tooling is some of the smallest detailed tooling I have done to date (the Horse is about an inch tall) and I was very happy with it. I was almost sad I had to paint it but I did like the “pop” the color gave the finished project. The paint job was not my best. A few spots of the white primer are peeking out here and there and some of the paint is thicker than I like. It is hard to notice in person but it will forever haunt my nightmares.  It was a tight deadline and I should have spent less time debating on the design and more time painting.

I had another plan for mounting The “Pearls” on the top but I was concerned about durability with an untested method so I went with something I could trust on a mechanical level. Each Pearl is mounted to the inside of the coronet on a stainless steel pin. I turned the end of each pin over to for a hook that was then sunk into the leather. Over each pin I glued a soft leather tab to cover the pin cosmetically and to firmly anchor the pin and pearl in place.

As with most projects it was a learning experience and given the chance I would do several things differently but the project seemed well received. 

Thanks for looking!