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Saira Workshop

Now that you are familiarized with my swordbelts, I can show you the ones I've been working on for 5 months already.
The celtic inspired one probably reminded you of a fantasy sword from a very famous trilogy of movies, and yeah, you are right, Théoden's sword from LoTR was an inspiration for that one. And obviously I would want to try and make one! I ended up making two, but that's another story...

Two pieces of leather with the lines of a design traced in them. The design is the guard of the Théoden sword, two horses head facing each other and forming an almost complete circle except in the upper part. Inside there are several filigrees forming curved decorations
Same two pieces, this time the lines are carved in the leather, superficial cuts handmade with a swivel knife
The two pieces, one has not changed, but the other is tooled with the decorating lines inside the horses heads popping up
The two pieces of leather with the two horses heads design tooled completely
Public
Saira Workshop

During these months I had A LOT of shift changes on my regular job, and since I have severe anxiety, I've been struggling to keep the crafting schedule rythm, some months even without any advance. I also got stuck in some parts, like the volumes of the handle and pommel, for which I had to look for references in niche websites about exhibitions of props to get to see some weird angles...

Pic of 4 pieces of leather and a cardboard pattern in the middle of them. The pieces are from the Théoden sword handle, two of the leather pieces are the tooled guards, and the other two are each three layers of leather glued together with the form of the whole hilt
Close pic of both Théoden sword handles in leather, all layers glued together, with the metallic forniture attached too, but still uncarved or sanded
Pic of the sword hilts on a cutting mat, the decorated layer of the guard missing (not glued yet), the handles and the ring under the guard carved with a more rounded form, and the rugosities of the handle for the fingers done too. The pommel volumes are untouched but with several guide lines marked
The two hilt pieces crossed on a wood desk with a zip bad above mid-full of leather dust. The pommels are carved forming an eliptical volume
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Saira Workshop

On my bsky and my old mastodon accounts I got to explain the whole proccess more detailed, but I basically used just basic tools for all this: tracer, stampers, skiving knife, dremmel, burnisher... It's not the best manufacturing system, but it's what I can do with the basic tools I have

Both pommel deco pieces done, number order on the leather piece, and the tools used on top
Both sword hilts finally assembled completely, with the tooled layers on top of the carved bases
Frontal pic of the hilts, one facing up and the other facing down, little holes drilled in the little corners of the guard inner border before cutting the layers below the tooled one
Frontal pic of both hilts, the racing up over the facing down, inner border of the guard already cut and sanded
Public
Saira Workshop

I can say the hilt/buckles are FULL of very tiny details and textures that I just hope will only pop up even more when they are finally painted in (calculating the time I spent until this point, the processes remaining and the now cut lower free time...) like maybe two months more?
But I'm proud of the tips learnt making these, and specially the blade/straps... that I'll show to you on monday, cause now I really need to head to bed to be functionally for the 10h and half I work on weekend days!

Pic of both hilts finished from above, completely tooled, carved, sanded, burnished, textured and pyroengraved
Close pic of the left horse head of the guard, lined texture on the external border simulating the mane, and pointed texture to one of the lifted decorations in the neck
Close pic of the mane textured border at the bottom of the right horse neck, the mane lined texture continuing through all the exterior border and more of the lifted internal decorations textured
Close pic of the most hidden part of the pommels, the up angled side, with a simple pyroengraved decoration reminding a vegetal motif
Public
Saira Workshop

Continuing with the blade/straps, I found a little complication: I already tried a blade with a fuller (the celtic inspired one) and a blade with edges (the Xena one), but this one is not only a comb of both, but it also has TWO FULLERS. So experimenting again, I tested which volume was better be done first. The black leather was a edges first, the natural one a fullers first...

Close pic of the hilt/buckles of the swordbelts with each blade/strap already cut and marked with pen, only the base visible, on a wood bench, with two patterns of both the base and the point of the blades
Pic of both blade/straps rolled to get to see the point and the base at the same time, front and volumes, side by side in comparative. The black, at the left, has the edges of the blade moulded downside and the center plain. The brown, at the right, is totally plain except for two parallel fullers tooled at the center
Pic of both blade/straps longside, focused on the points
Pic of the bases of the blade/straps, where they will be attached to the hilt/buckles
Saira Workshop

Setting hides characteristics aside (this black leather is much more stiff and always gives me a hard time molding, and this time I even had my hand sore for a full week), I have to say, even though I found myself comfier with the edges first system, the fullers first ended up being a faster system, because it requires less retouches later. Also, fullers looks better being less profound than edges

Pic of the black blade/strap rolled up forming an eight, with the tip and the base visible on the front, and the middle section visible behind them too. It has both the fullers and the edges molded already, the fullers more heavily pronounced
Pic of the natural blade/strap displayed in the exact same way as the pic before, this one with the lines of the edges more defined and the fullers softer
Very angled pic of both the swordbelts, hilt/buckles positioned over the blade/straps, camera pointing from the pommel and up, and the lightning entering from behind slightly sided
The blade/straps hanging from the tip part, with the lightning hitting from the side completely so the volumes are more appreciated. There is a white mannequin behind with a brown suede armour
Mar 11, 2025, 12:01 AM·Public·Web
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