Autumn Bird - Leather Mask

I love masks and making masks, and for a while I've wanted to try my hand at making one out of leather. After reading a number of very helpful tutorials (one by *merimask was especially helpful and very easy to follow), I went ahead and made this.

This is in a bit of the same storyline as Dance of Seasons. This is a mask inspired by Autumn in her bird form. As you may know from my story (found here: [link] ), Spring, Summer, and Autumn were birds who gave their feathers to the trees to make leaves.

This is 6 oz vegetable-tanned leather, which turned out to be a bit too light. I should have followed the advice from one of the tutorials and used 8 oz, but oh well! I know for next time. However, the mask is still sturdy and wearable. I wore it to the Silver Kingdom Renaissance Festival, and it worked very well. Surprisingly, everyone kept asking me where I got it. They were surprised when I said I made it.

This is purely leather, with tooling and then acrylic paint. The mask is tied with pretty gold ribbon. The outer leaves are painted with gold paint. All in all, this took me about two full days to complete.

Different views of it being worn can be found here: [link]