Some resources and tips/mini-tutorials for you new belt artists here...

[fullMETAL]

Here's a set of straps I pre-made for you belt designers here to put plates onto:

http://imgur.com/a/BIrDz

 

Quick tip for reshaping them:

If needed, you can use the Warp tools in your graphics editor (Gimp, Photoshop, Illustrator) to manipulate the base shape.

If you DO do that, make sure to select HALF of the strap, duplicate that twice (flipping one of the dupes), and use THAT to make your newly-reshaped strap.

 

And here's a set of leather patterns/textures to use for your straps underneath the tooling strokes:

http://imgur.com/a/74BwU

 

More quick tips:

For Photoshop, go to Layer Options, click Pattern Overlay, and then select any of these textures.

Optional for the dark straps: Then click Color Overlay, choose Red, Blue, Green, or Yellow (for Brown), then set the style to Overlay, Hue, or Color to change the base color.

For the lighter straps, use White as your color and pick Saturation in order to make a "white" strap.

 

To do a custom strap tooling, you'll want to make a basic Stroke shape; I recommend a half-circle like the one I use, or you can get creative with something like a barbed wire, heart, star, etc.

When you Stroke the shape of your custom strap, be sure to play around with the Bevel section of the Layer Options to get it to look how you want.

 

For Gimp, you'll just have to settle for the Pattern Fill (make sure your base shape is duplicated for this), and undo if you don't like the one you're using.

 

 

 

 

For belt plates themselves, you might remember that before I designed my own belts from scratch, I started off by Beltensteining.

If you're at a loss for custom designs, try to find pics from existing belt-makers, then play around with those, manipulating them, and put THEM onto the straps.

 

 

I'll post more tips in the future on this thread.

 

If you want to see my old tutorial on making custom belts like Payne used to, adapted for Fireworks, click here:

 

Part 1 of Payne's tutorial here:

[fullMETAL]

ReapeR's PSD Sampler Pack mirror still works! Huzzah!

http://www.mediafire.com/?lm857h477k28iu2

 

Use them to learn how he makes his belts; and be sure to save those layer Styles presets to use for your own.

[PhenomenalPat]

<p>To anyone looking to get into or improve in belt making and such, READ what fullMETAL has to say and pay attention! <img alt="" data-src="//content.invisioncic.com/g322608/emoticons/smile.png.142cfa0a1cd2925c0463c1d00f499df2.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /></p><p> </p><p>

fullMETAL was (along with MJStark, don't wanna leave him out) instrumental in my learning to create belts. He knows what he's talking about.</p>