Wildlife and/or landscape scenes

[PIndelicato]

Just wondering if anyone has done much in the way of carving wildlife and/or landscape scenes on knife sheaths. I'm still new to sheath making and about as far from artistic as you can get, so I'm giving it a try but not really sure how to pull it off. The most difficult part (in my mind anyway) is the space in which to work along with the sheath being more of a vertical canvas without much to work with horizontally.

Here's a not-very-good pic of what I came up with. It's still a little wet and is not yet dyed and is my second carving attempt, so keep that in mind. The knife I'm making this for is a small Bird & Trout so I attempted a quail in desert scape scene.

If anyone has any tips on approaching this, pics of work you've done, or feedback on what I came up with, I'm 'all ears' and won't be offended by any constructive criticism.

Thanks!

 

[Ebbtide]

Pretty cool.
As an experiment, try grouping your elements (quail, cactus & grass) together.
Maybe just a bit higher than the center of the sheath.
They will give each other context and the white space above and below will balance the over all design out.

It looks good, keep 'em coming

 

[sheathmaker]

Next time you are near a Tandy or Leather Factory store drop in and look at Al Stohlman's "Figure Carving" book. It will give you a ton of technical help and some great patterns. The stock number for the book is 6045-00. Another good one in the same vein is Stohlman's "How To Carve Leather", stock number 6046-00. They offer step by step illustrations and are absolutely full of technical advice.. Good Luck!!!

Paul

 

[PIndelicato]

Thanks for the inputs, gentlemen!

If anyone has any pics of work they've done along this vein, I'd enjoy seeing how it's supposed to be done.

 

[Ebbtide]

I haven't had the courage to carve a sheath yet.
I'm still working on my crooked basket weave.

Those Al Stohlman books are good stuff.
:thumbup:

 

[PIndelicato]

The carving doesn't actually seem all that hard to me, but I"m sure getting good at it takes lots of time and practice like anything else. It's a little time consuming but that's it...give it a try.

I find trying to keep a basketweave straight in some ways more challenging.

 

[leatherman]

Ah basketweave, I still shudder every time someone wants it. One false tap and bingo! Trash.

 

[PIndelicato]

Here is a pic of my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sheaths, respectively. Although the carving was significantly more time consuming, I found the basketweave on the next two much more fidgety and challenging to try to keep straight. This resulted in more errors and overlapped stampings on these.

My only major disappointment on the carved sheath (given my skill level that is) was that I blew the layout of the carving border, and didn't notice it until later when the sheath was sewn.

 

[mikeymoto]

Excellent thread fellas.

Paul I like the lines of your sheaths; they have a creative flair to them that make them stand out from a regular shaped pouch sheath.

I haven't done any wildlife scenes though I've done some carving and embossing. I've used patterns for carving and I've also made my own. I don't want to pollute this thread with non-wildlife carving photos (which is all I've got), but I hope to see more from other talented makers here.

 

[sheathmaker]

Paul, The tri weave you used is probably the very most difficult to control of all the basket category stamps. The most experienced makers have a hard time with those stamps as well. They are very unforgiving of even the slightest misalignment. I have a full set of Bob Baird tri weaves that I seldom use for this reason. Then end result when compared to the standard basket weave is not worth the hassle.

I give my self a bare minimum of 1/2" to 5/8" margin from the edge for pattern lay out and then I make the pattern border follow the exact outline of the edge. This will result in plenty of room to final finish the edges and still have the pattern border follow the edge curves exactly.

Practice, pratice, practice.

Paul (the other Paul)

 

[PIndelicato]

Excellent thread fellas.

Paul I like the lines of your sheaths; they have a creative flair to them that make them stand out from a regular shaped pouch sheath.

I haven't done any wildlife scenes though I've done some carving and embossing. I've used patterns for carving and I've also made my own. I don't want to pollute this thread with non-wildlife carving photos (which is all I've got), but I hope to see more from other talented makers here.

Thanks for the nice words mikeymoto, but any credit should go to Chuck Burrows/Wild Rose Tradings' DVD which I followed pretty closely for these designs. I did tinker slightly with them on each one however. Looking at your site, it seems you've got at least one with some animal tracks; although not exactly what I had in mind, that's at least in the ballpark.

Paul, The tri weave you used is probably the very most difficult to control of all the basket category stamps. The most experienced makers have a hard time with those stamps as well. They are very unforgiving of even the slightest misalignment. I have a full set of Bob Baird tri weaves that I seldom use for this reason. Then end result when compared to the standard basket weave is not worth the hassle.

I give my self a bare minimum of 1/2" to 5/8" margin from the edge for pattern lay out and then I make the pattern border follow the exact outline of the edge. This will result in plenty of room to final finish the edges and still have the pattern border follow the edge curves exactly.

Practice, pratice, practice.

Paul (the other Paul)

Thank you for the additional tips! It's amazing how much different things look when the sheath is assembled vs. laying flat on the table. Nothing seemed overly amiss until I sewed it, and then it stuck out like a sore thumb. My first sheath used a different kind of basketweave stamp, and as you say it was much easier to keep straight.

 

[PIndelicato]

Here it is after dyeing and buffing (but not yet sealed.) I think it could have turned out worse, but it also could have turned out much better....


Being a small bird knife, the space within the border measures only 5 1/4" high x 1 1/8" wide at the top, so maybe I'm just trying to do too much in too small of a space...again, I'm about as far as you can get from being an artistic person, so I'm really going into unfamiliar territory with this sort of thing.

 

[sheathmaker]

Paul, on this particular sheath, or any sheath for that matter, I would have made a verical line 1/8" to the right of center line (for a right hand sheath..1/8" to the left of center for a left hand sheath). then the 1/2" to 5/8" boder line following the edge of the sheath and a corresponding border at the top. Anything that will fit within those boundries is fair game. This still leaves the working margins on the edge as discussed previously.

Paul

 

[Josh Dabney]

P J 234,
I carved this belt as a gift for my bowling maniac friend last year. Although not on a sheath or wild life I was very proud of the end result. What do you think ? By the way all of the pics are before staining. I finished it up the day before going up to Ohio and forgot to get pics after staining.

 

[PIndelicato]

Paul, on this particular sheath, or any sheath for that matter, I would have made a verical line 1/8" to the right of center line (for a right hand sheath..1/8" to the left of center for a left hand sheath). then the 1/2" to 5/8" boder line following the edge of the sheath and a corresponding border at the top. Anything that will fit within those boundries is fair game. This still leaves the working margins on the edge as discussed previously.

Paul

Thanks again Paul, I'll make sure to do that on the next one.

P J 234,
I carved this belt as a gift for my bowling maniac friend last year. Although not on a sheath or wild life I was very proud of the end result. What do you think ? By the way all of the pics are before staining. I finished it up the day before going up to Ohio and forgot to get pics after staining.

Looks very well done, JAD! Lots of fine detail there it seems, and I can see I have a lot to learn about carving.