Exercise 49: Leatherworking Step by Step

Check out and Download the Step by Step and Original Practice Sheet .PSD HERE.    

Artist: Tim Von Rueden (vonn)

Here's the Downloadable 49 Exercise Template:   

After  completing the exercise myself, I’ve realized how much detailing and precision can go into leather works. So take your time with this material and be patient with the execution! For the step by step I created, I went with the same leather material for each so that you can see different examples cut of the same cloth. Leather can definitely be different colors and how a various levels of sheen onto them. So know that this isn’t the only way to create leather, is just one of many!

For the exercise let’s break down each step and see how to build up those values.

1. Refined Outline – Start with a clean outline and create a believable object that would be leather.
2. Solid Base – I personally like to work dark and then build up from there, so here we’re starting with a solid dark base. 
3. Build Up Values – From there, I grab a slightly lighter brown color and build up the values and give the object some form.
4. Push Light Placement – Here is where you can further push that lighting placement based on where you paint on even lighter values.
5. Remove Outlines/Refine – Once you remove the outline, clean up the edge and refine the details further. You want to make sure it “reads” without the lineart. This can be tough and I even darkened some of the areas where the lineart was to help separate the forms.
6. Highlights – This step is what will really make your material “shine”. I choose a light level of reflection with my highlight and wanted to give more of a worn leather look that maybe got polished a few months ago. So be mindful of the highlight placements and I also threw on a soft light to give that brown some more color variation to it.