Making A War Bonnet

I've been holding off on putting up a post on this project until I can see if it will actually work.  Well, it looks like it will so here's what I've been trying:

For a long time I've been wanting to attempt to make a Native American wearing a war bonnet made with individual feathers,  Watching David Lemon's latest sculpture take shape really brought that idea forward to where I got the nerve to try it.  You can see David's work here: http://adayinthelifeofalemon.blogspot.com/  So......

I sat down and carved 20 feathers about 5 inches in length out of pretty thin wood.  I went ahead and painted them as to do that after they were installed on the headress crown would very difficult if not impossible.  I also painted the crown.  Once everything was dry and with the help of my trusty sidekick...Judy, we temporarily attached the feathers to the crown with super glue just to hold them in place until I could lock them down with epoxy.  This step, one which I thought would be difficult, actually was fairly easy.  With all the feathers in place I epoxied them permanently in place using a toothpick to work the glue around the base of each quill.   The next step will be modeling the base plumes at the junction of the feather and the red quill wraps.  I plan on using acrylic modeling past as this will lock all the feathers permanent to each other.

I've left plenty overlap where the crown meets the head for all the attachments to come...braids, ermine fur strips, etc.

I carved the body of the bust yesterday but it's still up in the air whether I'll use it or go for a complete figure.

To sum it all up .... I like it but do realize that the feathers are way out of scale which I why I only used 20 feathers when, to be correct I should have used 32.  But it is a semi-caricature so I guess I can get away with it.  Now that I know it can be done maybe I'll do a more realistic one later.