Props Looking for coffin material suggestions

I'm about to build my final coffin which you can see here in post #47. The other coffins have all been black leather. This final coffin is for Gilles De Rais the evil knight in my story. I was thinking about covering his coffin in red fabric as show in this pictures. I do have concerns about consistency, whether they should all be of a similar material. I've asked two different people I know and gotten two different answers. So I'm looking for people to let me know what they think.

#1 Stick with black leather
#2 Red = blood and is good for evil!

Then I'll go ahead and finish the build on the final coffin.

Here's my current line-up at the foot of my bed where I can keep an eye on my errant dolls:

 

So here's a little box I made out of fabric for the general idea of the look I'm thinking of:





And here's my little Nibelung modeling the box that will become his bed:



Nibelung: I thought you were supposed to be painting a set for me, an evil lair with bones of my victims for me to gnaw on...
Me: I had to whip this together for critique for Gilles coffin, for your master alright?
Nibelung: I feel like I'm in abstract painting....or some crappy installation art at MOMA.....I wanna kills things!
Me: Soon my precious.....

 

Thanks for the feedback. That's two for black leather and one for red fabric. I'll have to look into red leather though. I hadn't thought of that....

 

Thanks for the comment. Sounds like the black leathers have it. You generally have to get leather at a leather store, here in Seattle I get it at Macpherson leather. It's sold by the cowhide which isn't cheap because leather is expensive and also because the shape of the hide means that you get less usable square feet out of it. I probably have enough leather to cover the lid but will have to buy another hide to cover the box so that's about another $100.

The other idea I've had is to attach leather scraps and bones to give the coffin a look somewhere along the lines of the Reaver's space ships in Firefly and Serenity. That way I would use existing material and give the coffin a look different than the other ones. This is for the evil knight so it should look different from the others. While all the dolls are characters along the axis of his story they are tangential and except for a couple, they don't know the extent of his darkness. The initial idea for the red was to again, use material I had, but to also make his blood thirsty ways apparent on the outside. But I've been rethinking that. I might try the leather scrap idea on a single board to see how it looks and then either go with that or buy more leather and make another coffin in black leather and red interior.

 

Lilith - Thanks for the input. The leather is pretty nice and since I've already done three this way I would be likely to stick with the same type. I don't really have the time for dying leather and this is going to be the last coffin. (I think). I'm finding these days that I'm spending too much time building. I work full time and as an artist I spend of lot of time on my work and really just want to get more into the story with the dolls. I'm participating in Nanowrimo this month (National Novel Writing Month) to try and flesh out the story. I'm writing a fictional Gilles De Rais and focus on the murderous demon raising times. My theme is that he lost his faith after the Joan of Arc situation and became existentially involved with the occult. My other dolls are basically characters either interested in aspects of the occult, or exiles who gather at his castle since it becomes a haven for the persecuted. In that case I'll be focusing on Gilles without the Catholicism. The story has always fascinated me and the historical context allows me to borrow from the times around it, pretty much give or take 100 years in either direction. The other thing I was invoking with stitched scraps would be of course, Frankenstein. A lot of the imaginative work and the skills I build engaging in this will hopefully feed into my other artistic work so it's all a rich tapestry.

When I go over to Macpherson's I'll see what they have in red leather and see what that looks like. I might associate that too much with British punk to go there but we'll see how it looks......

 

I am probably going to cover it in black leather. The interior is going to be white and splattered with blood. I think that will give the effect that I'm after concerning this character. I'm leaving town but next week I'm going to experiment with applying stitched leather to a board and put it up here and see if I get any feedback on the look and notate what I think. Then by the end of next week I'll start either working on whatever direction seems best.

 

Lucius Sikilmituile - I could add that to the test cases. That would be a good experiment using a single board. Before I commit I should probably do a couple tests just to see.

 

I wonder what people would think about black velvet instead of leather with a red velvet interior?