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I've been handpainting and airbrushing onto leather jackets and waistcoats since I was at school in the mid 1980s and have a lot of photos stretching all the way back to that time. I wanted to present as much as I could on this site so I've put the best of the photos together into collections for you to look through.

Collection 1 is a selection of band related jacket art, most of which were done whilst I was painting for heavy metal shop Metal Head in Carnaby Street and Camden High Street, London. A couple of the artworks such as the Iron Maiden Trooper and Sepultura Tribal Armpiece were for private customers that I met when I set up stalls at bike rallies in the mid 1990s.

The Iron Maiden Truck jacket was the first piece of work that I painted for Metal Head. After painting jackets for friends and acquaintances in my late teens I painted a few for a clothing shop in Halifax, but I'd heard that London was the place to go so I borrowed my parents' car and drove down there to see what I could find. I found Metal Head's Carnaby Street shop, walked in with a book of photos of the work I'd done and they gave me a jacket to take away and paint that Iron Maiden design for them. They were really happy with the results and I went on to paint many jackets for them over the next few years. I painted some of the popular designs over 20 times in total.

Unfortunately, mainstream heavy metal fashions changed from leatherwear to more skate oriented gear as we went into 1997 and that source of work dried up, but I had started setting up stalls at motorcycle rallies at that point so my leather art customers started coming from there instead. I was also starting to branch out into painting helmets and motorcycle panels as my skillbase expanded.

I can't thank Metal Head enough for the work they sent my way. There was such a variety that my handpainting and airbrushing skills picked up with each job and I also learned how to produce to a deadline and a certain standard. It wasn't the best paid work I've had but it was regular and showed me that I could make some sort of a living from this kind of work.

As requested elsewhere, if any of these jackets are still in existence I would very much like to know who has them, where they are and what sort if condition they are in so please get in touch if you have any information.

Continued in Leather Art Collection 2.

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