Hi all,

I'm looking for advice on how to get the texture on the picture below on pleather.

The bit I need advice on are the grey "spots", I know I could use paint but could you possibly lightly burn it in using a soldering iron to get rid of a bit of the shine and give it more texture?

Also, (being a total clothes making newbie) how do you do the embossing bits that are on the elbow pads? I've seen a similar effect on biker jackets and Batman costumes but I have no idea what they're called to even look up how to make them. They look a bit like raised seams.



Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

You could always look at tooling it with leather stampers to get the textured dotty effect part, and then burn in the raised seams with a pyrography/soldering iron.

Or maybe quilt the pleather for the elbow detailing?

That to me looks a little like crocadile skin or snakeskin. You may save yourself some hassle by finding fake croc/snakeskin and changing the colour to match.

Though I'm unsure how readily available it is.

Fake croc skin is quite easy to find, especially if you're willing to fix its colour - its not cheap but if you shop around its not too bad. I've seen it around £40pm in store but you can get it online for £10 - £15.

http://www.fabricempire.com/crocodile-vinyl-fabric.aspx

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-COBALT-BLUE-CROCODILE-VINYL-LEATHERETTE-PVC-9-95-PER-METRE-/290758925093?pt=UK_Crafts_Fabric&hash=item43b2951b25

Perfect, thanks guys. Crocodile skin seems like the perfect material. I'm going to get a sample of that stuff from the guy on Ebay and see what it's like in person. Thanks very much for the suggestion.

Does anyone know how to get the raised edges where each panel of the material seems to meet? It looks like a corded seam (is that even a thing?) with a sort of raised edge.

For the edging, if you're using a material like leatherette/fake crocodile skin then it's normally fairly thick. Either by top-stitching a separate part on or quilting (laying a fabric underneath and just sewing the two lines on top, possibly simpler) should make it stand out a fair bit. I've done this for a fair few details on leatherette costumes, unfortunately I don't have any detail shots - best example I can show is this, looking at the two vertical seams and around the zip. Due to the material, leatherette tends to indent more than woven stuff. Of course, circles/patches are a bit more fiddly than a straight line!

Alternatively if you want it to stand out a bit more would be to edge it with bias of a slightly different texture (which I did for details on the arm parts of this costume), but if you're using snakeskin that might look a little odd maybe!

Shout if I've not made any sense, it's been a long Monday

Cool, thanks very much for the advice Delusional. Made perfect sense, aren't all Mondays long . That looks like exactly what I am aiming for. I'll get the samples of the material and have a play.

Thanks everyone for all the help again!