@spike, this is the hide that I just bought (turns out it was sheepskin, not pigskin). It’s veg-tanned, very smooth and quite soft for veg-tan, light in color, and relatively thin–about 2.0 oz. I like it!
They also have these remnant bags, including veg-tan remnants: http://www.tandyleather.com/en/category/remnant-bags
@morganstanfield Sounds very nice. Let us know how it works out. I would love to try some leather working into my art somehow.
@ekla, those are tremendous! Our own @shaug made some cool stingray leather masks:
but these really take the cake. I can’t wait to see what you do with your Glowforge.
The good news is that the filter will pretty well nullify the smell of the leather you’re cutting, especially if you leave it closed after the cut finishes to let the odors clear. The bad news is that I don’t have a solution to invisibly thicker/thinner areas in leather that you source causing hiccoughs in the cutting procedure.
Thank you @dan! @shaug 's post inspired me to share my own.
Haven’t tried to cut sting ray yet, excited to know it’s possible!
Thanks for clarifying on the filter. More experimentation ahead.
In what way leather bike saddles are tanned? If the saddle is veg-tanned I could wet flatten it, encrave it and wet form it again.
@ekla Thanks for sharing this, making a mask wasn’t even on my radar until I saw this post. That clearly has changed and I will be adding this to my project list (as if I don’t already have enough).
Thanks for sharing.
These masks are lovely, hope you’ll share more down the road.
@ekla thanks for sharing this and explaining the process. These masks are gorgeous, and you make it sound much easier than I imagined it would be, can’t wait to play around with some leather now! 
Great post, thanks for sharing your knowledge and awesome results.
These are beautiful - love the bird! 
If you didn’t want to do these out of leather, (which seems a bit pricey), it would be easy enough to cut them out of fabric and stiffen them over the face form using a fabric stiffener. I’ve made fabric masks that way.
Friends who lives in the West Indies had to come back to the Midwest to get their broken extremeties fixed up after a car wreck. One had a badly fractured finger. First time I saw up close the thermoplastic used for the splint. He said the tech whipped it up, but cut the outline with the scissors. I thought “Glowforge” potential. Pardon my posting before doing the research on the materials. I know there are few medical types here that might weigh in on it. Suitability, composition, and, “ouch” the price.
Thanks @Jules. Veg tan leather is pretty inexpensive when you buy by the hide. There’s only $2-5 of leather in each of those 
Awesome! That’s a lot cheaper than I would have expected!
Springfieldleathercompany.com
I bet the Herman oak veg tan in a 3 to 4 ounce would do wonderful. . It forms very well and has a nice buttery feel to it.
They sell it by the foot.
I can’t find the page for “by the foot,” just straight edged bellies.
Would you be willing to snap a quick pic of your mold?
Hello all RE: variances in hide thickness…I am a regular leather worker who has done ALL SORTS of leather arts - garments, boots, arts and crafts, corsets (soft traditional and hard wet mold)… on the wet mold corsets we found that 1/32 was the ideal thickness for us, we used a wood planer with 40-60 grit sand paper to take down thick hides to an even thickness…which then gave the ability to mold and dry evenly.
Or in this case…CUT evenly. Hope someone finds some value in this information.
