Visor - Tumblr Posts

Finally was able to rivet this together! I decided that I’d keep this copy for myself (it turns out I have very few personal pieces, basically everything is in the “sell me” box), so I just went for a color combo that I wanted. Light green around the face, dark green jaw, and silver nose and horns. I also tried a new leather finish that I just got. Normally I go for a matte acrylic, but this was a fairly shiny acrylic-based one. I think it worked well for the robot feel, though it discolored the light green a bit.

I’ll need to get nice photos in the next couple days and post the design up for ordering, then I’ll probably start hacking this particular copy to bits and adding things. I need to figure out how to add in a forehead strap for better fit, and I want to try a funky thing at the chin for support there. See if I can extend it down the neck a bit, possibly with an integrated collar.

Overall, while I’d spent a bunch of time on the 3D shaping of the design, it did kinda end up being mostly cone/cheese wedge shaped. That is, there’s not much detail in the shape of the face. But for this sort of design, that worked pretty well. The nose and horns were the parts where the surface gets some real 3D curvature to it, and those came out pretty solid. And overall the shape is very true to the design, so it worked out.

Oh right, one of the big successes with this design is, it fits comfortably over my glasses! You basically can’t tell, but I promise they’re there.

Here’s some progress shots for a faceless robot-drone dragon mask I designed in the last couple days. Wasn’t trying to mimic any particular character/species, but I definitely did look at a bunch of Hacony/Qundium’s stuff when I was thinking about what sorts of shapes would work well in leather.

For a while I’ve wanted to try to do something along these lines but with a one-way mirror visor. But doing that requires heat-bending acrylic sheets after cutting them, and that’s really tricky to do right.

So instead I made a leather screen perforated with like 500 holes so you can see through it. (I was actually really happy with the pattern I worked out, I’ll have to get some photos to show that off when it’s done.) It looks like a sealed up gas mask, but the screen means it’s actually really breezy inside.

Next steps will be figuring out exactly where the straps will attach, then taking it apart and staining the tan leather. I’m thinking silver for most of it, with something contrasting for the horns and nose. These riveted leather masks always look super steampunk when they’re still tan, and sometimes that’s fun, but I think I’m gonna keep pushing the robot vibe here.

Here’s my drone dragon mask! (that I apparently never posted nice photos of.) It’s based on a robotic dragon concept, along the lines of protogens or synths but simplified to work with my riveted leather aesthetic. The black visor is also leather, with a pattern of a few hundred holes to allow for filtered vision, but blocking the view to the inside.

It's got enough space inside to fit over glasses!

It is available on my Etsy shop! I’m also totally happy to do this in custom colors.

Designed by me, laser-cut out of 4 oz thick vegetable-tanned leather, then dyed, formed and assembled by hand with nickel-plated rivets and buckles.

Drone dragon visor and armor.

This breastplate was the big personal project I got finished up before last Halloween, but in the rush of prep for conventions in Jan-Feb I forgot to post it.

I had a lot of fun building it. I designed and pulled the pattern off of a duct tape dummy of myself, so it fits me very specifically. (Process shots here.) With the rigidity of the leather and the fit of the design, it basically acts like a corset.

Other photos of the visor can be found here, and it’s up for sale on my Etsy (either this one or custom colors), but the torso will stay a personal piece. I don’t currently have the torso forms that would be necessary to make stuff that is quite this carefully fitted. I still do want to try to work out a reasonable corset design though.