Cracked leather

You know that look. Undyed or old brown leather showing some cracks or use. The cracked area shows a redder brown than the rest of the leather. Anyone have any ideas to reproduce this? I’m using masking tape as the leather, but I’m not sure how to do the coloring correct ot get that look. Any ideas?

Thanks.

I never tried this but what springs to mind when I read this tried is this…

Before you put the masking tape (I’d use one with quite a stick surface) on the seat paint some lines of reddish brown colour on the seat. When you lay the tape down on these lines and using a new blade on you knife make some slight cuts. Then with your fingers pull the gaps apart, now with some light coloured pastel scrap some dust into the gap to highlight the crack, pat the dust down with a q-tip and the blow any remainder away.

That’s what I’d do. Let us know if this helps, works or is a big failure.

James

HEY,
I havent tried it either, but one thing you could do is take the seat, and cut a few very thin lines with a hobby knife then use a wash of whatever color you want. Just an idea to run with.

Randy

Bones,here is another ideal to try and is what I do.1coat the area that you want to look like cracked leather with white glue.2 cover with a piece of tolet paper,making sure that the glue soaks throught the paper.This way you can mold and shape the paper in the form you need to make it look like cracked leather.You can take your knife and scratch some paper off of the seat,don’t scratch to deep but lightly to leave some fibers on which can be painted white or off white to show stuffing.The texture of the tolet paper once dry and formed to what you want will give the apperance of leather.Digger

Digger,
I like your cracked leather technique. I haven’t tried to do any leather yet but when i do it will be this one. Sounds like it works pretty well and gives you the ability to show seat stuffing and the edges of the cracked leather.

O.K. I’m doing a 1/72 seat in a stuka, used a #11 blade to scratch/score the seat a few times. painted the scratches brown, then when it drys I’ll dry brush with a light tan. In 1/72 that’s about all you could see anyway.
G.L.

Another idea to build on the scoring idea is to heat the blade of your hobby knife, then slice into the seat. This might give you more of a “ripped” effect. I tried it on a seat of a pickup truck, and it looked pretty good. Sorry, to pics yet of it.