Batman Bottle Stopper - Part 2

Finally got him painted this morning. Turned out pretty well but think I'll stick to Cowboys & Indians. I give a brief description on how I painted him in the Gallery section.
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As always, comments welcome.

Batman Bottle Stopper

If you thought Chung Lee was a little out of character with the themes I normally carve you're going to love this one.

Batman!!!

The Northeast Oklahoma Woodcarvers ask me if I would do another short seminar during their upcoming show in Tulsa on July 11-12 and I thought this would be a good one as it's pretty simple but still covers a lot of the facets of caricature carving. I'll do this project in two posts...the first for the carving and the second for the painting.

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The blank is cut from a 2" square block and you'll find the pattern in the Gallery section along with a lot of other photos explaining the process.

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Chung Lee - Part 3

With this post we'll apply some paint. In the Gallery section I explain how I go about it so I won't repeat the process here. I Finally finished the smaller painting details on the hat and neck collar. I went to the web and found some chinese symbols for various things like peace, knowledge, etc., so I painted them around the base of the had and collar. Makes it look a lot colorful. There are a few more photos in the gallery of the piece from different angles.

Chung Lee - Part 2 Some Attachments

Today we attach the mustache, the beard and the Que. We're going to be working with small, thin pieces of wood so they'll be fragile but not as fragile as they would have been if we had did the head as a one piece carving. Just take your time and you shouldn't have any problems.
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To glue the pieces on I'll use dark wood glue instead the normal carpenters glue. It's basically the same stuff but the dark glue will help us when we carve off the excess that is squeezed out when we make the attachments. The mustache will be first then the beard and last the Que. But first let's make a neck collar to dress the piece up a bit. It's that little square with a hole in it.
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Lots of photos in the Gallery.

Chung Lee - Part 1 Carving the Head.

This post will cover the carving of the head. You'll note that I have not included his mustache, his beard or his Que. We'll add them in the next post. The reason I'm doing it this way is that they will be somewhat fragile and if we carved them from the original block the risk of their breaking is not worth agravation so we'll just add them on. They will be much stronger that way.

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The next post will be fun as we'll have to figure out how to do the mustache, beard and que inserts to where they don't look attached. I'm up for the challenge how about you?

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Lots and Lots of photos in the Gallery along with my commentary as I carved the head.

Teddy Roosevelt

Wow! Thats all I can say about this fella. He really turned out nice. He did have to make a detour to the Optometrist this afternoon to get a new set of glasses before his departue for Cuba but he left ready for battle.
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Lots of photos in the Gallery and comments are always welcome.

Pancho

I guess you can figure out that I'm on a Bottle Stopper kick! They're fun to do and so far a quick return on the time invested. With this one I thought a Mexican would be a change so here's Pancho fresh from his run across the border. I've heard he's hiding out as the new cashier at a Taco Bueno down in El Paso!!!
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More photos in the Gallery.

Chung Lee

I was watching some silent movies the other night and one titled "In Old San Francisco" had a bunch of Chinese characters in it and I made this quick sketch of one. I thought it would make a great caricature carving or maybe a bottle stopper thats a little different than you normally see. I also thought that maybe some of you might like to follow along on the project so I'll do it as a tutorial. We'll do it as a stopper first just to see how it will turn out. If it works we can take it a little farther.
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No photos in the Gallery yet.

Teddy-Ready To Charge The Paint Table

He's got his sword, he's got his sidearm, he's got the Regimental Flag, he just brushed his teeth! This fella is just about ready to make the Charge up San Juan Hill! However, first he has to visit the paint table!
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As you can see, I'm really having a lot of fun with this figure. Doing the research to get all the little details just right has been a real learning experience, one that will pay dividends a little while from now when I start my next "big" project. The boys over on the WCI forum really helped me to track down the proper rigging of his sword and I really appreciate that.
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The wave of the flag didn't turn out to be a problem at all. That acid-etch auto primer is the key when painting any kind of metal. I also used it on the scabbard straps, spurs and buttons. It just will not come off once it dries.
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I think I'll do the mount before I start the paint job as I want to see just how he'll look and it will take some dirty handling yet for that to happen.\
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More photos after the jump to the Gallery. Comments always welcome.