*cut leather into pieces
*sew the leather into the basic shape of your crest
*shape and harden the leather by filling it with wet sand, drying and emptying out the sand
*cover the leather base with gesso grosso - thick plaster to shape the crest
*cover the simple gesso shape with gesso sottile, which is slower drying so allows finer detailing
*paint the crest
*bingo! You have a crest
In order to cut the leather into the correct pieces, I need to make a pattern. To make a pattern I have decided to make a clay model of the crest. The crest will be a badger, which is the main charge of the Moralez-Beaumont household.
I began by looking at as many images of badgers as possible, from all different angles. I prefer the badger to have its mouth open, but since I would also like to use the clay model to try making a latex/silicone mould, I have created a closed mouth. It will be easier to make a mould with fewer overhangs and I can add a leather lower jaw on the historical crest.
These rough line sketches show me which stripes are which colour, the rough ratios between the snout and the temple, and placement of the eyes. There was a fair bit of variance between each badger, much like the difference between dogs of the same breed. Each sketch was from a different animal but some features were constant - the ears were within the boundary of the black stripes, as were the eyes. Most badgers were giant puffballs of fur, making them a lot less defined than the shape we typically imagine or characterise in drawings. I chose to go for a more defined head, so it would be easily recognisable.
