Any leathercraftsmen / women out there? I need a little advice.

To learn basic tooling, it’s hard to beat the Tandy basic leather craft kit they sell at along with any of the Stohlman books on leather carving.

The tools in the kit needs to include:

1 swivel knife
1 Beveler
1 Veiner
1 Camouflage tool
1 Pear shader
1 seed tool

These are known as the basic six and can be used to carve pretty much anything you want, but are kind of optimized for doing florals (particularly Stohlman style florals). The kit also includes a wooden mallet (suggest upgrading to a better one if you decide to become srious), some lace, some dye, a basic carving instruction booklet, and the pieces for a few basic projects to practice with.

Personally, I use a sewing awl rather than a sewing machine. It is true that it is much slower. On the other hand, you can get into tight places quite a bit better with an awl, plus I get a satisfaction out of hand stitching. As always, your mileage may vary…

Hope this helps.

In addition to what @YoBob said I would invest in an airbrush, a single action should do well enough but you would be able to do better with a double action airbrush, a skiving knife, modeling tool, a set of hole punches, round, oval and oblong, some tamp tools of you wanted to add names or special symbols like the military or certain vehicle makers, a set of lacing punches, a slap of marble the best surface to tool on IMO, belt striper, a grommet punch and grommet wrench, and a good under cutter craft tool. Can I put in for a wallet? My handmade leather one from 25 years ago is not starting to show it’s age. :-)

All great tools to have in the kit @Hypocrisy_Central.