Patterned Leather (Egawa)

Matheau · Post by **Matheau** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:01 am

I was thinking of starting to make a couple of O-Sode, so I was wondering a bit about doing the actual patterned leather (egawa).

For one thing, does anyone know of any good sites or books with good pictures of egawa? I haven't really found anything other than Effingham's site.

Is there anyone that sells egawa pattern stencils, or something similar? Not really sure I actually want to go that route, I might just want to make my own, but it could be an option.

Would it give a better effect to actually use leather dye, or would something like decocolor permanent markers look about the same anyways?

I think that is about it in terms of advice. Though if anyone has done this before and has any other advice, it would be quite helpful.

Maredudd · Post by **Maredudd** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:10 am

Have you been to "Tousando", the Japanese forum?
One of the members recently made egawa and described how he did it.
http://tousando.proboards.com/index.cgi ... hread=2805
I'm halfway through doing the same, and it seems to be working.

raito · Post by **raito** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:27 pm

I've done the Sharpie thing. It doesn't last too long. I need a better way.

Saburou · Post by **Saburou** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:53 pm

The link is to my egawa project, so I feel I should probably weigh in. A couple of things:

- DecoColor markers are SERIOUS business. There ain't no smudgin'. But be careful not to spill, either.
- If you can make a metal stencil, do so. Paper stencils are not strong enough, and absorb ink, then weaken further.
- I also looked long and hard for better pictures of egawa. The best I found were here:
http://rhinohide.cx/daimyou/
Just click on any of the armours with egawa for high rez shots, like, at random, this one:
http://rhinohide.cx/daimyou/daimyoutaih ... G_8792.JPG

Good luck, and post progress pics!

Kilkenny · Post by **Kilkenny** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:50 pm

Saburou wrote:The link is to my egawa project, so I feel I should probably weigh in. A couple of things:

- DecoColor markers are SERIOUS business. There ain't no smudgin'. But be careful not to spill, either.
- If you can make a metal stencil, do so. Paper stencils are not strong enough, and absorb ink, then weaken further.
- I also looked long and hard for better pictures of egawa. The best I found were here:
http://rhinohide.cx/daimyou/
Just click on any of the armours with egawa for high rez shots, like, at random, this one:
http://rhinohide.cx/daimyou/daimyoutaih ... G_8792.JPG

Good luck, and post progress pics!

For stencil materials, consider transparent vinyl or plastic. The plastic sheets in numerous offices for covers on bound papers are an excellent weight for stencils. Clear means you can see where you are placing it more readily. The plastic doesn't absorb the ink, etc.

Effingham · Post by **Effingham** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:08 pm

Heavier clear plastic is good -- you can see where you're placing the stencil.

You have to be careful, though, in placing it that you don't smear anything.

A good idea is to make the stencil area WAY larger than you need, use only the bit you DO need, and put registration marks/holes in the stencil, and use them to place the stencil on as-yet-unmarked (i.e, dry, non-smudging) parts of the leather being patterned.

Effingham

raito · Post by **raito** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:05 pm

And make sure that what you buy for stencil material can be run through a printer.

Matheau · Post by **Matheau** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:07 am

I think I'm going to try the transfer idea from the "Tousando" post first. I know someone with one of the professional heating presses, didn't really think of that before reading that in the post linked above. Seemed to work quite well for Date, though the only picture of his armor is pretty small, so it is kind of hard to see the details.

Even if it doesn't work, I wouldn't really be out that much time or effort. Might take a little bit of playing with to not completely destroy the leather, but seems worth a shot.