Battle of Virginia Capes – leather picture in 3D. Started Feb 12, finished Jun 20, 2016! It was an unusual and interesting project. I used different techniques to improve the volume of the scene. The background ships located far away are carved on leather. The middle plane is an applique and the foreground ships made as a leather and wood 3D sculpture. The sea is made of leather strips overlapping each other. There are LED lights to emulate the cannon explosion and the cotton wool to make the water splash created by those explosions. The clouds are pre-formed and hardened cow split. The flags are made of very thin and hardened lambskin. The foreground ships are lasted around the wooden form. Their sails are also lasted, similarly as a shoe made on a shoe last – I made a sail last for them. The black frame is also made of leather. A plywood with reinforcement bars was used to create the strong curved frame and hold all the glued and screwed objects on it. The picture’s size is slightly over 2′ x 4′ (61 cm x 122 cm).
This project was a way out of my regular knowledge. I had to read tall ship blueprints, research photos of the models in the Royal Museums Greenwich, understand details that are invisible on the original picture but visible on the 3D object.
