White Antelope - Finished At Last!

Hooray!  It's finally finished!  I've been working on this thing for what seems like ages.  Thankfully, it's done and out of the shop.  The ermine headress has always fascinated me and I think I've captured it pretty well in this piece.  I encourage you to go on Google and do an image search to see just what one looks like to form your own opinion as to how close I came.  There are a lot of attachments with this one.....the horns, the feathers, and the rear cloth.  The beads between the two horns are strung on a wire and glued in place.  The top crown feather, the one thats shaved, is held in place by a brass wire and the lower one is soldered to it.  While it might look fragile it's not.  The ermine hanging skins are also held in place by wire inserts as are the smaller feathers behind.  On this type of headress the horns are split, no doubt to cut down the weight.  I've indicated this feature by hollowing out the rear of each one.

All in all I think it turned out pretty nice.  It's certainly an eye catcher.    Anyway, I hope you like him and will look forward to your comments as I always do.  Lots more photos in the Gallery.

White Antelope

Here is one I finished up the carving part today.  He will probably be the most colorful piece I've done to date.  I've always wanted to do this type of headress just to see if I could and also to see how it would look as a woodcarving...at least one in my style.  There will be a lot of attachments to make it reflect just what a real one incorporates but that's the fun of doing these pieces.

Hope you like it so far.  More photos in the Gallery and comments always welcome.

The Coal Miner

This post will close out the Coal Miner project. Needless to say, I'm sorry we couldn't flesh him out like I had originally hoped but even without the addition of a coal cart I think he looks pretty snappy. One thing for sure.....he needs to spend a few minutes, maybe an hour, in the shower.

To make the scenic base which he's standing on I just used some small gravel and glued it down with ModPodge like I normally do.  Once dry the entire thing was painted black with a few touches of gray here and there in a few of the open spots.  The overall appearance of the piece might seem a little dark but I think it only adds to the figure and the idea we were trying to express.

I hope you enjoyed following along and will look forward to your comments.  As always, there are more photos in the Gallery album.

The Coal Miner - Part 32 - Let's Get Dirty

Part 32 - Let's Get Dirty from Out West Woodcarving Videos on Vimeo.

The Coal Miner - Part 31 - Painting The Pick & Shovel

The Coal Miner - Part 31 - Painting The Pick & Shovel from Out West Woodcarving Videos on Vimeo.