Letter of formal recommendation leather pouch

So far so good...I did some more work on this rainy day.

First of getting the shape on chalk paper:

then cutting the leather parts and transfer the design on it

and now the scary part begins, bringing the pattern to life (apologies for the low quality, it was already dark and my pirate communication device isn't the newest anymore)

@musicmee ye..I would have to adjust it a bit, but it absolutely would be possible.

@lizalaroo thank you.
I have been following your awesome projects! You are a true foam wizard...pirate...well you get me meaning.

some little steps further it starts to take shape...

to increase the 3d effect I decided to use my leather stamps for the first time in months

and retrace the outlines of the shapes

once done to prepare for the painting job I used some special oil on the leather which already darkens it a bit and since it was wet already I decided to bend it a bit in shape

so far me update for today.

@stacky-a: i love it too, but since it is oil it will just fade and now the leather almost looks as bright as before (if just oiled it will take month for the leather to reach the desired worn look)...so the hard job will be to make it look oldish by dying it later.

Matey's the little pouch is finally taking shape and colour (literally):

this is how it looks after one layer of brown paint and felt 100 layers of different yellow/golden paint (the tone of the key is more accurate than the ornaments in the back, they appear very bright but are actually not that bright...who would have thought not only red is difficult to make pictures from at 11 at night)
Since the leather was already wet from dying it I immediately folded it to shape too.

@ionei-falcon thank you so much!

@KattTruewalker also thank you!

I hope to be able to maybe start stitching it together today

@specialadvisor thank you. Another major step: It is done!

I did have to adjust the letter of formal recommendation a bit, to make it actually usable. So please forgive me fellow pirates that it isnt 100% as the one in the game.

so far it looks kind of like the original execpt for the stitching, but I did add a closing mechanism which I thought would fit into the pirate world just fine..no metal, no clasp...just another piece of leather

you can see it coming out the lower pocket.

but as a pirate never can have enough pockets for his tobacco (we dont even smoke here...) I made 2 pockets.

And in all its glory....the closed pouch:

thank you pirates for following me on this journey..I think more will follow soon.

@sir-lotus well thank you! I am currently looking for more inspiration...maybe with the forsaken shores i will find some soon :-)

@stacky-a thank you so much!

@triheadedmonkey that is some serious clapping :-)

@triheadedmonkey very kind of you! thanks

@veriye
Great work.
At first I actually thought that it would have been sewn down the sides to form an envelope but I get the folder type design you were going for.
Thanks for taking us through it step by step.

---

Perhaps another project could be a shoulder bag to carry ye ol' pirate communication device.
Using a similar piece of hide with a 2" wide strap looped over and sewn to it to form both the sides and shoulder strap in one.

It would look awesome with a kraken image stamped into the front of it and the shoulder strap made to look like two tentacles that meet (slightly overlapped as they taper) in the middle.

Another could be designed to look like a nautical map chart.
I'm sure there would be a market for leather laptop shoulder bags and tablet pouches.

---

Again, great job. :o)

@admiral-rrrsole thank you so much!
I was first thinking about making an envelope, but I like how old letters are always folded up, so I decided to go with that style.

I really quite like the kraken shoulderbag idea! I am definitely keeping that one in mind...which means I prolly start drawing up the design tomorrow :-)

@veriye
That's awesome to hear.
I was debating on trying to draw the design using a paint program but I only just installed Windows again two days ago and haven't installed my preferred programs yet.

I was thinking that because where the shoulder strap is sewn to form the sides it would curve over then that curve would follow through the length of the strap and make it look odd and perhaps uncomfortable.
So for the length that attaches (at each end) as the side panels would have to be slightly wider than the main part of the shoulder strap. Sort of bottle-neck by a centimeter (or more) on each side before going up and over the shoulder then down the other side and widening again (the same bottle-necking but in reverse).

Sorry I don't know any leather work lingo. lol

---

Okay PSP now installed.
Sorry I am much better expressing myself drawing freehand but I haven't setup the scanner in years.

Hopefully you get what I mean by this quickly drafted image.

If you followed the flap / lip edge of the bag with the same tentacle design it wouldn't look out of place partially covering the kraken's head and mass of tangled tentacles on the face of the pouch. It could even be cut on a curve rather than straight across.

@ionei-falcon : thank you and you are very welcome.

@Admiral-RRRSole : wow, thank you for drawing the idea out...I indeed thought about letting the side flaps run through in the strap too and therefore they indeed have to be widened at the end, otherwise it would become a very flat bag.

@SpecialAdvisor : About the design I quite like the kraken in the "Art of Sea of Thieves book" (still on my wishlist, think they have some amazing stuff in there for creative people to pirate, I mean borrow, inspiration from.

oh dear, I think I have to get in the game more to get some screenshots etc. which would make Capt. @FishSt1ck a very happy pirate arrrrgh

@specialadvisor you are right! I think it was just too early and I was kind of overwhelmed with that many comments on a tiny little topic like this :-) I did edit it, so it should be fine now.
Spent like the entire morning scouting for nice reference pictures about the kraken...does it even have a face ingame? I never encountered it...would love to make a bag out of it.