There was a sheath contest on a knife forum I frequent. Whoever's design was best and won, got that sheath made. I still haven't received the sheath, but here's the design I won with, all made in GIMP:

With, and without the knife. I added a firesteel loop on the final design:

Nice work and congrats on your win.

Very nice. Is that snakeskin?

Hope your new sheath arrives at your door soon.

Those are nice. I will probably make one with a ferrocerium rod holder also.

Thanks guys, appreciate it. Yes, I made it look like dyed leather, with rattle snake skin inlays. Zebra wood scales, and matching firesteel handle. I was going to go with a "redder" looking wood to match the sheath, but thought a different color would contrast better.

That's a winner for sure The Warrior, do you care to share some techniques?

Thanks man, appreciate it.

I don't remember exactly, but, I started with the knife. Made a selection around the blade, grow the selection, add a layer, filled with leather. Drew the belt loop part, filled with leather, shrunk the selection, new layer, filled it, shrunk by 1 or 2, then cleared. That left a rectangular line. Erased part of it, then used that to bump map the line in it. Same technique for the bottom part. Bumped a depression in it, for the snake skin inlay. Bumped a stitch line it, text to path for the stitching, and used the dash on the keyboard for stitches. Hard to tell, but I actually created a layer, and made "holes" for the stitching. If you make the photo larger, you can see it. The snake skin was from a pattern I googled, and the snap was also. I just cut it out, and resized it. Drop shadows, etc. Made a gradient in a new layer, then set the mode to overlay, or something to that effect, that makes the leather looked raised when the knife is inserted. Same for the firesteel loop. Something in that order.

Thanks man, appreciate it. This is the most "realistic" looking item I've ever GIMPed. I'm no professional GIMPer, I have to stop and think about a lot of the things I do. That one took me awhile. Something would come to mind, and I would go back and make a change.

Excellent design work Warrior.

the warrior: beautiful gimp work! it looks very realistic and it's inspiring to read of the techniques you used - nothing too complicated but a great looking result. i hope you get your custom designed sheath soon .

Thank you very much everyone. Looking forward to getting my sheath. The guy that's doing it is a perfectionist, and I know it will look awesome when I get it. I think he said he made a few design changes. Whether he means for functionality, or looks, I'm not sure. When I get it, I'll post photos in this thread.

Very realistic, could be a photo of the real sheath already.

Thank you very much, appreciate it.