so hi folks a couple of people have asked me a couple of times if i would like to maybe make an instructional video about how i create my leather feathers well i was kind of trying to sneak out there but finally decided to do it um so where do we start it's about creating a leather feather for um out of a piece of leather uh to have the feathers stand out from the leathers i mean it's gonna be sculpted then for uh items like bracelets for example um just like this here hope you can see this so to make it look as if the feather was just lying on there and this is all one made of one piece of leather um and i'm going to show you how i start on such a leather feather and also what kind of tools i'm using for that and of course uh what leather i use i personally prefer to use a vegetal tanned sheepskin which i got on which i got here it has kind of a rubberish surface so it's um and it's also kind of easy it really bends easily it's kind of flexible but what i like with that quality of leather or with that type of leather is that it sculpts really well your leather should not be thinner than like uh five ounces i'd say five to six ounces or um or whatever that or what's above that should be fine so the tools i'm using um is a stylus i made this myself and i ground it so it has a really really small tip um i can show you the difference if you have a normal stylus uh the difference in uh the impression that creates uh the the stylus with a really really narrow tip this is the one with the narrow tip and this is the smallest of the small side of a normal stylus and i think you can tell the difference yeah it's a lot smaller and i really like that so my leather is uh damp i think it's kind of the right moisture we'll see i start uh with a with a quill and i just draw it freehand you know i don't make a pattern for these anymore and uh you know you can you can decide if you want to have a straight uh quill or a bent one it depends on what kind of feather you wanna depict so i draw start out with one bent line and put the second one right underneath you should you know it is of real great help if you study a natural feather so you will know how it looks like and also the quill it gets thinner to the end there we go this is what i need the stylus for and the other tool i'm using is a modeling spoon and i have modified it a little bit uh i have ground the edges here and on this side too so you you just get a kind of a sharp edge so you get a deeper impression if you uh if you're using that and the the other tool which is one of the most important tools of course is a scalpel i'm using a three and you should make sure that your scalpel blade is really sharp i mean they're always sharp anyways but they need to be really sharp if you're doing this kind of work okay so let's start out i've already drawn the the quill here and then i start with the feather just a natural shape this would be a feather of a right wing and i just do i hope you can see that actually i'm just using my stylus here to draw the outlines it gets a bit narrow further you reach to the end of it on this side the other side is always um the vein is always uh smaller on a feather than the inside okay there we go it still looks like like more more like a leaf at the moment but you'll see so lengthen this a little bit here also on this side there is nothing cut yet and i do the same here with the quill with pressure i think the leather is already getting a little bit dry to make it stand out hope you're not just seeing my hand there well this is my first instructional video so be kind on me so you got a nice you got a nice uh cool here in the middle and the reason why i'm using i'm i'm not just cutting the lines uh the uh the leading edges of the feather with a swivel knife or something is because i need to under i want to undercut it with a scalpel later on um i need a separation line to the rest of the leather because otherwise it would be too risky it would be too risky uh to cut the rest of the leather with a with a scalpel okay just like this next step what i'm doing is either using a hair blade to create the barbs or you can as well use your your scalpel for it lately i prefer to use the hair blade since it doesn't cut that deep and always if you have studied the real natural feather you should know how to uh how to work with your with your um tool sorry to create the barbs you know they're not straight they're all like going down to the tip you know pointing down to the tip so i'm going to start here and it does not matter you know you can you don't you can just go over over that uh that edge line here that's not not a problem because you're gonna background the thing later on anyways so if it leaves marks on here it doesn't matter we take care of that later so with a minimum amount of tools you can create really nice stuff here would be nice if you then the hair blade would be a little bit sharper but i think and the leather is still a little bit wet too wet so you can do them or should do these curved okay so everything done it still kind of looks like a leaf but i'm going to take care of that pretty soon yeah a little bit too wet but not skin better it's just to separate the rest of the leather from the object where we want to create here so let the phone begin here it is important as i already said that your scalpel blade is really sharp for these things and you should really watch out on the angle you're using it i suggest to use a really flat angle if you don't want to cut the feather out of that leather if you wanted to cut it out it would not matter too much you know for maybe um for a half a red but on such a subject when it just has to stand out and be still connected to the rest of the leather um you really watch out when doing this the first time you mic break uh the blade because it really bends you really need to bend it and also just using the tip of the blade careful not to cut into the other leather even if you're probably gonna use a backgrounder on that one later on it's still better if there's no injury on it so one side is slightly cut and you can see before so because i used the hair blade um before and you know it did not just stop at that line here you can see these um the barbs are not right close together here just as you normally get it on a natural feather you know which you just fight when you're out somewhere in nature so we're gonna cut the other side a really flat angle you don't need to cut all the way deep um right from the beginning because we're going to do a second cut anyways depends on how much you want the feather to stand out there i tend to cut um right to the to the quiller but as i said not in the first step okay you're really careful up here okay so now you can already see you can already tell it stands out quite well you know it's uh cut approximately to the middle you know so um i can still cut a little bit deeper really really flat angle don't forget and you can also see uh your blade going underneath this here so you can kind of tell how deep you have to cut even more and also here flat angle and just using and it cuts through there real easily if you're just you know if you're just doing it on a um on a piece of leather like this um it's okay if you cut through there um if you want to make a bracelet or whatever you want to line it maybe anyways like i did it with uh with this one here i'm working on this one at the moment and have already cut the cut off the feathers and also um cut the you know uh the separations of the barbs here and uh this was a is for a brussels brushlet i just prepared before and it was already lined before so if you do that you really uh make sure that you're not cutting through other ways you you know you have another piece of scrap or garbage or whatever so what happened here i don't know if you can tell i can tell i cut through the leather you know i cut i cut too deep that would not be a problem afterwards as i said if you line it this will disappear no problem at all this is a demonstration thing you know as always okay now you got that feather cut loose already and you start uh with the fluffy part the i think it's called the after feathers or whatever and you make sure uh that you follow the direction of the uh of the uh the barbs and cut along these and for the fluffy part here you need to create really really really really small but small separations and i think it's personal preference how far down you want to cut these fine ones i hope you can see this already cut them loose and later on when we i will start sculpting it um that would make it look really natural cut another one off and also be careful not to cut too deep that one okay and also here and they are not really symmetrical so you might start uh further up here for one side and further down below for the other side when you're doing this the first time it really makes sense to uh to try to get a hold of a natural feather to get an idea for the shape should be really really thin okay and now we're doing some more separations of the barbs say for example like here and always follow the direction here okay there we go it's not all cut loose yet really careful and without any pressure since you're you having a really really sharp device here you can round up the edges a little bit here and you don't need to cut another separation here you can if you want to but you don't need to since when it when we model it later on um you can create that that space between it okay do another one here difficult part i'm using this leather because it's so kind of a rubberish quality um sometimes it doesn't cut that nicely okay there we have this and create another one here cut it a little bit more open that's okay try to fumble this piece out there okay oh come on get this out here okay another one down here you don't necessarily need to need to cut it all uh up to the end here you can also leave a little tiny piece attached so it would kind of like still be connected to the leather okay on the other side now okay well so another one here if you don't lose yes and one here actually i figured i just cut it a little bit too too deep but uh well you get the idea and another one here do a little bit curvy line just like i cut it with a the hair blade and another one here that shall do it then okay so hope you can see from the side and from the top now i'm not behind the camera so you tell me guys and since you have done that you can either if you decide to background it you can either do it right there without having it uh sculpted yet you know you you just lift it up a little bit and then with your background or whatever um whatever you want to use for it there are a couple of nice big grounders i preferred the the pebbles tool actually um but well okay and what we want to do now is because we want you know if that feather is supposed to be on a bracelet or or a hairbread it really needs to be uh to get a treatment that makes it um after drying out it makes it rock hard you know because it will be touched and bend and all that and you want it to keep the shape yeah so we what we're what i'm actually using for this is bad coat this is a neat thing to have you might want to use i i don't know maybe like super sheen or um or acrylic wrestling or i mean this is also personal preference but i really really get along well with the back coat and it leaves the feather rock hard so i decided this time i mean what you can still do you can still do the the um the end of the quill here you can also cut that loose just a little bit in the middle and leave it attached at the end and maybe here at the first part i didn't do this right now so you can you know use a lot of that i use a soft brush for it with a narrow tip and i don't usually just soak the the front of the feather make sure not to hit the background with it if you decide to later on want to dye it it's always better to to keep the blackout just here on the feather and okay so front side is done now i'm going to do the back sides too okay one side and the other side oh well i failed because i cut through it it happens did you get the idea is that don't try at home thingy you know don't cut it all out but as i said it's my first instructional video and i don't know how to how it uh will come out and so since we have sold it now we can start put this away now we can start by using a stylus and our either our scalpel or maybe two styluses i tend to also use my fingers when shaping the feathers making the after feathers here really fluffy you know you can you can as well just kind of have it line over it a little bit you know just like i said the feathers in in in nature they're not really tidy you know they're rather untidy just reach underneath and use your fingers or even a second stylus or whatever tool you might prefer whatever suits you best it's a you know try and arrow trial and error so here you can as well you know take the tips here hope you can see this and bend them back a little bit and twist them bend and bend them and twist them here too as i said you can use whatever tool you want for it uh you'll find out what is the most comfortable for you to to sculpt it and give it its uh its final form okay lift this up a little bit and it takes uh for the back coat it takes a while to dry out which gives it gives you enough time to correct here and there if you decide okay i want this part of the feather shaped differently or more standing out this is all uh it's on your choice so we are pretty much done here and i think you get the idea there we go it doesn't look like a leaf anymore it stands out nicely and if you look from the side it's just as if it was lying on there you know somebody had just put it on then you can just blow it away and i can i can show you on on this already finished bracelet uh i'm not i hope you can hear this you know it is really really you