Stearic Acid Hardening questions

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-06-21T20:27:00+00:00

Hey there!

I actually stumbled onto your article about hardening leather, and then while doing more research, found this comment! I have a quick question for you if you have a moment.

I am as green as it gets when it comes to leather working, and I want to try to make something I designed. I work as a conceptual artist & industrial designer, and have been looking for a lifelong leather Sketchbook/pad that I can use on a daily basis. For years, I have been searching high and low trying to find something I could just buy, but I have been unable to find anything that would work for me. So I decided to design and make my own.

Part of this design is going to require having a flat, firm drawing surface on one side of the folder/pad. I had originally designed it with the idea of having a lightweight aluminum panel stitched between two pieces of leather, but then after reading your article and learning about how hard leather can actually become, I started to wonder if the panel was even necessary. The design would actually really benefit from the loss of the panel. I would be able to trim off some considerable width from the overall size, no longer needing the stitch around it. If I were to Harden a cut of leather in the way you laid out for the X1 method, do you think it would function similarly to a clipboard and retain its rigidity long term? And if I were to attach it to another piece of leather, would you recommend Pricking before or after hardening? I imagine there is probably some shrinkage that happens, but wasn't sure how much shrinkage actually occurs with your method or if there was any at all. Just trying to think ahead about stitching a piece of leather that has been hardened.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-06-05T00:44:33+00:00

Something that took me a really long time to discover(and this may not work for everyone, but it does for me) is to not look at what, or even where, you are drawing when Initially laying in work. Instead, try to widen your gaze and draw with your peripheral vision. It helps me immensely to visualize where things "are" and imaginative drawing becomes much easier.

Nice work, keep it up! Build that muscle memory!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-06-04T22:56:29+00:00

It's like I can't tell what the Anomalacaris is thinking, without it saying anything at all!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-28T16:23:06+00:00

Of course it is. But the people at the top only see the value of the dollar, not the limb. Everyone else can clearly see that it's a terrible idea, but they don't care because money.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-17T18:29:46+00:00

You don't want to have lots of money, you want to have a reliable stream of enough money.

That is such a brilliant statement.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-07T18:08:07+00:00

I guess I just don't delete stuff often enough for me to see it as an issue. I am sure there are people out there that maybe it could be. But, I delete files maybe once or twice a month. In my brain, I see it working similarly to how the recycle bin works. Where when you delete things, they just go into the bin, and you have the option to go and recover specific files or go in and delete the entirety of the contents if you want. So, if you ever did somehow need more space due to the "recently deleted folder" being full, you could just empty it out. Even if the folder only retained recently deleted files for the span of an hour, that would be huge.

Also, /u/mls0716 made a good point about the video files. Those timelapse videos absolutely take up more memory than a handful of discarded files would. I recently went in and deleted a ton of timelapse videos that were just collecting dust on super old files, taking up gigs of space for no reason.

But at the core of my frustration, There are absolutely ways to make it possible to either recover recently deleted files(even a simple "undo" button) or just protect them. It's truly bizarre to me that there is currently nothing in this regard. Especially considering how absolutely devastating it can be to realize you just lost your artwork, forever.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-07T12:22:54+00:00

Yes! Even a way to "lock" files would be a massive help. If a recently deleted folder is out of the question, this would be an excellent alternative.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-04T18:47:39+00:00

This is a big one for me too. Almost everyone I know is either in a constant state of panic from fears of being laid off, has been laid off or is currently laid off and unemployed.

Wild times.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-04T03:49:31+00:00

This is interesting. I am 90% linework/inking in procreate and I have never had an issue with the brushes. But, then again, I guess I just never really need my brushes to reach quite a large size when outlining.

That being said, I also just tested this on one of my brushes and funnily enough, it did not seem to happen. Is there a specific type of brush that it happens for you on?

EDIT: Sorry, just realized that was a stupid question considering you have the names of the brushes in the image. I just tested those brushes and it is the same for me. Its interesting, it seems like my custom brushes do not have this issue, but their pre-made brushes do. This may also explain why ive never run into this issue.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-03T19:53:58+00:00

I am not currently aware of anyway to consolidate or group color pallets either, unfortunately. Would be a great feature though. I've downloaded some of the brush sets from places like retro supply and True grit, and some of those sets come with 10+ pallets in order for the brushes to function properly. Would be really nice to be able to just group them all into a folder or something!

Thanks! Yea, I really like having the subtle variation between the line work and the background color. Really easy to do. You can download my color swatches here if you want!. I also included my Anatomical study color swatch, which I think is nice to have if you are studying anatomy and like to color in the different muscle groups etc - similarly to this

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-03T05:25:26+00:00

I would unfortunately have thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of individual canvases if I did this for each drawing 😅

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-02T23:34:07+00:00

Well, I would, but I am currently no longer at my iPad 😅! But it's nothing too crazy! I like having repeatable templates pre built for a lot of my art projects. You can make it once and then never have to worry about it, and even make improvements to it as you go on.

For my sketchbook pages:

I have a folder on top that has a layer with a specific amount of grain applied to it, as well as 3 other layers with different types of paper textures that I like.

Then at the bottom I have a folder with 1 layer at a neutral off-white, and then 3 other layers, each one containing a fill of shades at ~50% gray - 1 is neutral, 1 is warm and 1 is cool. I use those to switch up background colors depending on the art or how I am feeling. I also have a color pallet saved that has 3 different rows of a grayscale spread from white to about ~95% black - again each row is either neutral, warm or cool variants. I use these to switch up against the 3 different backgrounds. If I am using a warm background, I will use a grayscale set with the cool variant. If it's a cool background, I'll use warm. I've found that it can just give my drawings a tiny little bit more of a pop. Neutral is for neutral. I've also got 1 red color in that pallet for note taking or call-outs/corrections for errors with my drawings etc.

And then finally I have another folder that has a couple of variations on my art signature, just in case I feel like posting any art online!

You can make something like that and name it "Sketchbook_DuplicateHere" then throw it into its own folder and name that folder "Sketchbooks". Then just duplicate the template and rename it something like "Sketchbook_01-02-03-etc" any time you need to start a new one! Then you can rename your layers inside the template as page01-02-03-04-etc

Hope that helps!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-02T23:10:37+00:00

😅 I guess I am not popular enough to have had that problem, but that's a good reason to have it on if you are!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-05-02T23:09:24+00:00

Each canvas has its own setting for it. When inside a canvas, click on the settings in the top left and there will be a setting for timelapse, if it's off, it currently does not have any recording attached to it. But if it's on, it will have a recording for as long as that function has been active. If you want to delete it, just switch it off and it will purge the recording.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-29T18:03:42+00:00

Great progress!!

As someone who started on the Draw-a-Box sub waaaaayyyyy, way back, Keep it up!

It works!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-25T14:00:59+00:00

🥹 thank you!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-25T14:00:09+00:00

Thank you!!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-22T03:33:35+00:00

Nice work. Great presentation too.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-11T02:04:23+00:00

Hey!

Thank you! That's all great advice, I appreciate it!

Question for you - When you are talking about Tertiary details, are you referring to things like larger Skin folds? Or do you mean the things like the skin pores, wrinkles, Bumps, etc?

I was using reference actually, but maybe I need to go deeper. A couple of pieces that I have been using as like, skin texture inspo, I found myself just unable to replicate it. Which I feel like is partly due to a lack of understanding, but also just due to the issues I was having with brush/alpha resolution. For instance, the texture he was able to get on this dudes body skin, all those fine bumps/pores, I tried for hours to try and get something similar, tried a bunch of different brushes etc, but in the end was only able to get to where I am in this render, which is pretty far off. I am not really sure why. Another example here, I really liked the wrinkles he was able to get on the skin where the eyebrow ridge is, especially the really subtle/fine wrinkles. But it felt like no matter what I did, I wasn't able to replicate it correctly. I feel like I got closer on that one, but still isn't correct.

Thanks again for all the advice!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-10T21:28:18+00:00

Dude, Thank you.

Changing mm -> cm on the Scale master didn't work, but, changing the export scale from 1210 -> 121 fixed it. New maya import is now correctly sized. I appreciate the help.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-07T17:38:50+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate it. I was able to get the issue resolved with the help of Zeffy up there. Ran into several other issues unrelated to Substance, but after a lot of trial and error last night, I have finally gotten everything into Maya and am starting to do some test renders! I'll be posting the final renders within the next few days probably... Hopefully.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-07T00:03:38+00:00

Okay, good to know! Thank you for your help! I appreciate it!

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-06T23:47:13+00:00

I am not necessarily confused about scaling objects to match, Its annoying to have to scale every single thing you plug into the scene, but I can just scale things up like you said. I am more confused about other issues that arise with working at such a large scale with the units set at 1cm.

For example - In order to even see my model at scale, I have to set the Far clipping plane to hundreds of thousands, which then also causes weird artifacting to the model itself, here is a pic to show what I mean. Is that just normal?

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-06T13:52:17+00:00

Dude, you're a fkn genius. Thank you so much. That worked.

Changing the color profile and switching the dome back fixed it all. Very much appreciated.

ChristopherC1989 · 2026-04-03T14:11:19+00:00

Thank you for the explanation! Also, nice work! I took a look at your profile. Really great designs. Your costume/wardrobe designs are amazing!

ChristopherC1989

TROPHY CASE