Straps - Tumblr Posts
Here’s an outfit with a bunch of my personal pieces. Most of these things I haven’t posted online before. The occasion for me wearing these was the anniversary party at the Wildfire Retreat this last weekend. (Wildfire is a spinning arts event that happens a couple times a year in New England. It has lots of juggling workshops and fire spinning.)
The shirt is made primarily of black anodized aluminum and black neoprene rubber, with an insignia inlaid into it made of blackened stainless steel. The pattern is a European 4-in-1 weave. When I made it originally I ran out of rings before being able to fill in the back completely, but I kind of liked it like that. So I have a pile of more rings sitting in my basement in case I decide to do that.
The horned headband is similar to this one, but with more horns.
The leather thing on my left arm was something I made the day I got a strap cutter. It links together with snaps, and was a lot of fun, but the sizing was super specific so I haven’t bothered offering it to the general public.
The arm bands and collar are your typical goth spike type of item. I thought I’d put them up on my Etsy, but it looks like I hadn’t. I don’t usually make much of a point of keeping those spikes in stock, though, so that’s probably fine.
The belt is in stainless steel in a Persian 6-in-1 sheet weave. It’s a very thick weave with a really nice texture and some interesting bending physics. It’s also the most time consuming weave I’ve ever made anything substantial out of. It took about an hour for every couple inches.
The rainbow tail is maybe the only of these things I’ve posted before. Here it is in another post. The diamond-shaped spade tip is made of birch plywood.
I decided to make something festive this year. I found somewhere to get a whole bunch of sleigh bells, and I made a reindeer harness! For reindeer! Definitely!
These were photos I took while making it. It took 2 evenings, with a day to dry out in the middle. (I soaked the straps to form them around the rings and buckles so they’d sit really nicely.) I used some pretty thick and stiff 8-ounce vegetable-tanned leather, so the straps have a nice heft to them, even before adding a couple pounds of bells on.
The one thing that I’m a bit unhappy with was the pop rivets to attach the bells to the leather. They worked great, and they seem like they’ll be strong and long-lasting, but on a bunch of them they left a bit of a scratchy point pointing in towards your skin. That might end up being uncomfortable when wearing it, though I wasn’t really able to test that since I was finishing this up late at night and I didn’t want to bother my housemates with more noise than was strictly necessary.
In just a moment I’ll post up a couple shots of me wearing it. I got this done the night before flying out of town for Christmas, so no nice photos yet, just phone-camera selfies, but oh well.
Link to photos of it being worn.
I made this reindeer harness for Christmas! This thing is really loud!
I think this is probably the first big strap-based project I’ve done in leather. I’ve made a couple chainmail X harnesses a few years back, but my leather projects have mostly been masks. This was a really fun piece to make, though it turned out to be a bit more work than I’d anticipated.
I got this done the night before flying out to visit family for Christmas, so all I could get was phone camera selfies. I’ll see about getting some nicer photos of it in the new year. I’ll probably put it up for sale, too, since I won’t have much opportunity to wear it, and it really is fun enough that I think it should be enjoyed. In theory it would’ve been nice to make this in time to sell it to someone who could have fun with it for the holidays, but oh well. At least I got it done in time to post for you all. Merry Christmas.
Progress shots over here.
Here’s my empowering warrior armor for Magic Meat March! Got it done just in time! I made the whole get-up out of leather, save for the shoes and the prop dagger. I just went to town this week with the strap cutter and the rivets.
It’s got a jointed spaulder for the shoulder, held in place by an asymmetric harness, zig-zagging down to a supple pouch to hold the necessaries comfortably in place. Onto this attaches a cuisse to guard the thigh.
Then there’s some accessory pieces: A thigh piece made of three panels laced together; an arm band with shearling trim for warmth; and a corset-like bracer to protect the wrist and forearm. Oh, and there’s that mass of straps for the left arm. I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to be for.
If I’d had a bit more time I was planning on adding more fur trim to the other pieces, but since it’s spring time now I don’t think that’s necessary. Wouldn’t want to overheat, after all. That extra padding would just get in the way during a battle anyway.
Some close-ups and silly shots from my @magicmeatmarch submission. (More “reasonable” photos here.)
The only piece didn’t make specifically for this costume, this week, was the strap thing on my left arm. (That I made the day I got a strap cutter, and just really wanted to make something silly to test it with.) Nearly everything else was made with a pre-finished leather that I got recently to try out. I maybe should’ve gotten a somewhat thicker grade than I did, it’s a little bit floppy for the armor parts, but it’s really nice to work with for the straps. And it saves a lot of time, since I don’t need to dye it and seal it with a top coat.
Definitely the hardest part of the Magic Meat Month challenge is finding a secluded place to take photos. This time we only had one pair of people wander by and look Concerned at us. One of them pulled out his phone, and since the cops didn’t show up by the time we were finished, I can only assume I ended up on his Snapchat feed. I waved to him, that seemed to scare them off.
For some reason today feels like a great day to post more photos of my codpieces.
This one’s the ever-popular black version of my overlapping plates codpiece. It’s been my best-selling item this year!
Etsy link
I got a bunch more photos of this design in a gold color, but sorting through photos is hard work and something kinda wore me out on the internet today.
And here’s my finished holiday joke for the year! Kinky leather Christmas stocking! Fill it with your favorite stocking stuffers!
I used 2 types of thick garment leather for the stocking (because I was on the last scraps of 2 different hides), and a third, shinier type for the straps. I still need to make up a price for it and post it to Etsy, but I figure it’s probably done for this year.
According to the text of Tumblr’s guidelines, technically this doesn’t count as adult content. We’ll see if it still causes problems. (That wood is awfully flesh-colored, it’s triggered the content mommy a bunch of times.)
My contribution to @magicmeatmarch this year! It’s a set of armor fit for a light and swift fighter. It protects the important parts while avoiding restrictions on mobility.
I’d been wanting to make a larger breatplate-type item for a while, this felt like a good excuse. I went with the overlapping plates motif that I’ve used in a number of other projects. It’s secured in place with Too Many Buckles along the sides. When it’s all tightened up it has a bit of a corset nature, straightening up your posture. Made it a bit tricky to do the over-the-top twisting-to-show-off-tits-and-butt poses. But I persevered.
The codpiece, bracers and cuisses were older designs, but it’s always good to fit them into matching outfits.
Actually two separate codpieces that got ordered in quick succession. This is my more straightforward and simple design, and it’s made with a very nicely finished leather with a very consistent semi-gloss surface.
For the most recent one, I went and made some adjustments to the straps that probably nobody but me would ever notice. Fixed the spacing on some of the rivet holes, and tweaked the lengths of the straps with the buckle holes in them. And since the straps are modular and I use the same pattern on all my codpieces, it’s a fix that’ll carry through all of them.
Maybe you want one for yourself?
Sometimes you just gotta make something simple as a material test.
Threw together this collar because I’ve been dissatisfied with my strap work. Needed to do a bit of practice and figuring out on making the edges a bit nicer.
Normally I’m happy to just leave the laser-cut edges on things I make. I try to put the hard work into the design, and keep the labor to a minimum. After all, there are plenty of other leather crafters who’re better than I’ll ever be at doing things like highly polished collars and straps. But as I’ve been doing more designs that require buckled connections, it’d be good to get more confident in the hand-made strap department.
Christmas is coming, and I want to make another sleigh bell harness. Are you a reindeer? Do you want to be? Drop me a note!
A copy of this one would be $300. I could do various other configurations too. It’d be super fun to get to make one of these along with the dragon tails that I’m opening for commissions on.
(This one was sold a couple months ago to someone with a reindeer fursuit, and that makes me so happy.)
Nail this under your chimney and wait for Santa to slide down and stuff something fun into your stocking. What do you want bound up under your tree when Christmas morning comes around?
I was a bit late on my holiday joke item this year, but this kinky leather Christmas stocking is ready to ship out immediately!
Here’s the Etsy link!
Here’s a codpiece that someone ordered, in the natural un-dyed color of the leather. Though the oil I rub into it to make the straps supple darkens it noticeably, so I gave the codpiece some oil as well to bring it closer to that color.
This style of codpiece is available on my Etsy shop here.
Just grabbed a couple quick photos of this piece before I shipped it out. Made it 2 years ago as my Christmas season shitpost, and it finally sold! It's on its way to San Francisco, which is where like 90% of my kinky joke items end up living.
If someone wants another one of these, drop me a note! I've got just enough time and materials to make another in time for the holiday.
Here was the original post, which I guess was too much for this pure Christian website because I couldn’t search for it on my own blog.
Fig leaf codpiece! Shipped this one out some time in January.
This is one of those designs where I still chuckle at my own joke. And I'm kinda surprised when someone actually wants one, since it's always felt like just a (decently-executed) physical shitpost.
Here’s the Etsy link. Everything’s on 20% off sale this weekend to celebrate Virtual Anthro New England.