Buffalo Girl

I've been working on this one for the past 6 or 7 months.  Once it's painted I think it will be one of the best so far even though, after taking the photos, I noticed a couple areas that need to be corrected.  With the walnut base she will stand about 20" tall.  An impressive piece.

She's a Cheyenne girl, preparing for the Call of the Herd dance.  I plan on painting a few ceremonial symbols on the skull to carry that theme.  She has her skinning knife on her belt and will be ready to follow the hunters once the herd is located.  While there is quite a bit of beaded decoration on her dress and more will be added once I start painting her, I added a role of Elk teeth above the strip of

beads on her chest.  I made those with some 3/16th' dowel and inset them into the wood.   The earrings, choker disk and hair feather disk are made from hammered galvanized

tin.  Once carved, I covered the hair braids with texturing material to simulate a fur wrap.   As for the coloring, I'm thinking of using this dress as a guide:
I really like to darker colored cape.

While I had a number of Buffalo skulls aready carved the size of the figure required that I care one more.  I carved the arms and hands separate so they would fit naturally around the shape of the horn caps.  

While this was a pretty challenging project once it's finished it's going to really look nice.  I hope you agree and will look forward to your comments.  More photos in the Gallery.