I wanted a simple leather camera bag for my very small setup (Camera with one additional lens and an extra battery. Everything available commercially was overkill and terribly plain, so I decided to make my own. This is my third project in leather and my first attempt at making my own design. I am pleased with the results.
I wanted to decorate the bag with patches and I was trying to think of a fictional newsroom or reporter to theme it with… Peter Parker? The Daily Planet? And then it hit me: The Edison Carter Show and Max Headroom.
The painters tape is much better than the masking that comes on the proofgrade leather, which appears to be made out of some hellish combination of concrete, tears and suffering. It’s seriously impossible to get it off without making one corner of the leather look like a dog’s chew toy.
Other than that, The project was a real pleasure and I am pleased with the result.
Really nice! I love the compact shape and those inserts are perfect. I bought a “Think Tank” camera bag so I could take all my equipment as carry-on when I went to Spain and your bag is similar in shape. And now I have to get busy making patches to personalize mine.
Interesting.
I have not done a lot with leather, but just the opposite is true with woods and plastics in my experience.
The blue painter tape was my first self masking resource and it gave me a terrible time with weeding (brown shipping tape is even worse). I now use medium tack for everything.
Regardless, I totally agree on the proofgrade masking, and remove it and replace with medium tack.
That is a bag worth being proud of and I love your pick for Max as a theme.
The patches were one of my favorite parts of this project. I have an old army jacket I plan on decorating next. When the holes are premade, the stitching on the patches always looks nice and even.
I use the medium tack for almost everything too. However I wanted a little more adhesion for painting. The medium tack tended to come off on the smaller pieces (insides of letters) when painting. The blue painter tape held pretty well.
Very cool–great explanation and nice work on the design. And more smiles as it brings back memories of weekly gathering at a friend’s dorm room (one of the few with a TV) to watch Max Headroom!
Absolutely adore the Max reference and never expected it in such majestic form.