Creative Practice
Leather Making
Tools Used
1. Round Awl
2. Divider
3. Beeswax
4. Pricking Iron
5. Cheese Boy (Glue Container)
Model
For the model design, I focused on enhancing the futuristic experience of the Pricking Iron, whereby instead of simply smoothing out surfaces on the leather. The product is also a wearable which allows for better control over the areas in which the user wants to target for smoothing. Furthermore, the product also tells the user what type of leather is being used and is shown on the display. The LED lights of red and green inform the user of the heat applied and whether the task is complete and also as indicators for when the product is fully charged and ready for use. Delving a little further into the fiction, the product could potentially transform leathers on command to the type the user wants.
Prototype
For the prototype, I wanted to make something that was actually useful to leather makers. So I focused on the act of skiving and tracing, inspired from the Round Awl and the Divider. Skiving is the act of making marks on the leather for tracing and cutting. However, skiving long and intricate designs on leather tend to result in the skives made disappearing before the trace is complete hence leather makers sometimes utilize pencil markings instead. To aid this act of cutting along pencil markings, I made this prototype to perform with capacitive touch, whereby so long as the knife used by the user is tracing and cutting the pencil mark accurately, the LED light will continue to stay lit. The moment it turns off, it means that the knife has gone out of the line, and the user can stop and adjust, resulting in a cleaner and more accurate cut of the leather.
Reflections
Thanks to the exhibition, I was able to glean some useful feedback on my prototype. Instead of using light as a feedback to my user, sound would be a better choice as it removes the aspect of dividing the attention of the user from the focused act of tracing and cutting. After looking at the works of others, I also began to realize that my works are also too grounded in reality and I need to expand the fictional aspect of them as well to create a genuine story world that is not only believable but also fantastic.