Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 9 – Finishing Up!

With this installment we’ll finish the Cowboy head and this series of videos.  I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did making them. 
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If you’re interested in the San-O-Flex sanding wheel you can get all the information at http://www.meritabrasives.com/product/sand-o-flex.aspx.  I use the 320 grit refills.   You won’t be sorry in getting this tool as the more you use it the more uses you find for it.
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In the future I hope to do additional videos with this same head where I’ll show how to give him a hat, a bust-type body and finally, a paint job.  However, that will be down the line a bit as I have to get some things ready for the upcoming Dayton show in November. 
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As always your comments are welcome especially as I’m trying something new.  I appreciate your input.

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 8 – The Eyes

Okay….here is how I carve eyes.  I sure hope it’s easy enough to understand and follow.   It’s a really simple operation and with some practice I think you’ll be able to do it without much difficulty.   In this first part I show how to carve the platform for the coming details which will be in the following, and last, video on carving this head. 

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 7 – Style & Hair

This video has a hiccup in the beginning.  But it’s not so bad that I need to go back and redo it.  So I’ll just apologize for repeating myself.

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In making hair I keep it quite simple.   The reason I do it this way is that for my carving style I think its all that’s needed.   And speaking of style I expound a little about my thoughts on developing one of your own.  There is no greater satisfaction than when people recognize that something you made is truly yours.

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 6 – Ears & Eyebrows

With this we finish up the ears and start fiddling with the eyebrows. 

We also start adding some distinctive features to the face.

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 5 – Cigs & Ears

This one starts off with the appearance of a bad habit.  I’m not sure whether all cowboys smoked but I’ll bet a large majority of them did.  Well, this fella is in that last bunch.  To make his cigarette I used a piece of coat-hanger wire.  The reason I use wire vs. wood is that wood breaks and wire doesn’t.  I’m carving for the long-haul and I want my pieces to stand up to any possible wear or abuse as much as possible.

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I also outine the sideburns and set up the ears for their final, inner details which we’ll do in the next one. 

Carving A Cowboy Head –Part 4 - The Mouth

With this post we start carving the facial details beginning with the mouth.  Again, it takes two videos to do the job.  I’m just about to give up on my 5-minute time as I never seem to stick to it. 

We’re starting to get into the detailing now.  Just take your time. 

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 3A-The Nose

We’re zipping right along with this project.  As you will see I’m having a hard time sticking to that 5-minute time limit……maybe I talk too much?  I also noted in this video that I have a tendency to move that head around so much that it sometimes completely goes out of the frame!  Sorry!  I’ll try to reign in my movements.  Its just that I want the camera in close enough so you can see exactly what I’m doing. 

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Once more this will be a two-parter as those short segments just don’t seem to cover enough time for a separate Blog post.  Hopefully this isn’t presenting a problem for you.  We have a pretty high-speed DSL here and I forget sometimes just how slow some of your circuits are.  I already have one dedicated follower pulling into McDonalds each morning on his way to work to watch the videos on their wifi network as he can only get dialup at home.  Now that is true dedication!

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My wife continues to do a great job trying to keep up with me.  Hopefully you won’t experience a sudden loss of picture due to her throwing the camera across the room in disgust because I can’t keep my hands in one place.

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Again, I really appreciate your kind comments and suggestions.

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 2 – The Ears

In this post we will locate the ears, block them out and indicate the hair

and jaw.  I had to do this in two videos to keep the download times within limits.  Once these steps are done our head blank is set up for the upcoming details, i.e., the nose the eye plane and a big decision…..whether our figure will have a mustache, a beard or just a 5-o’clock shadow. 

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In the first video of this post I talk about knives and how you should only carve with a curved tip blade.  Just disregard that.  Carve with whatever you want.  One of the things I’m finding as I do these things is that I have a tendency to preach to the viewer.  I certainly don’t want to do that.  I even caught myself wagging my finger in the first one!  Yikes!  Fortunately, my editing program allows me to delete these embarrassing scenes before anyone has a chance to see them. 

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One more thing…..in doing these videos I want to let you see the whole process from start to finish with all the details in between no matter how small.  In doing this the series just might seem to run on forever, but that’s okay, I’ve got plenty of time.  Also,  the videos have been tagged to not allow any copying, at least I hope they are.   My plan is that once the series is finished I can combine them all onto one DVD which will be available for a small charge.   But that’s down the road a ways so right now lets just have some fun.

Carving A Cowboy Head – Part 1

As this is the first instructional carving video I’ve made other than that Boot experiment I placed on YouTube quite a while back I’m not really sure how many parts it will take to complete it.  Whatever, I’m going to try and keep the time of each

video around 5 minutes otherwise it will take forever for you to download.  I’ve already gotten a few comments from those of you using dialup that the download time is long.  Unfortunately there is just no other way I can do a video.  My suggestion is to upgrade to a DSL or Cable modem connection.

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So let me know what you think. 

Moving Around The Blog

I've been getting a number of questions lately about just where things are on this Blog and how to access the different parts of it. So here are some tips on navigating around this place.

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Each Blog post usually shows a photo of the topic being discussed, let's use Deets as the example. Now if you want a closer look of him without having to go to the Gallery then just move your cursor arrow over the photo and click on it. It will be enlarged.

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When I say there are more photos in the Gallery I'm talking about my Outwestwoodcarving Picasa site located at a completely different location than this Blog. To get there look over to the right side of this page directly beneath my Profile and you'll see "Picasa Photo Gallery". Again, just move your cursor over those words and when you see them underlined just click and it will take you to the Gallery. Once there you will see a collection of album photos associated to the various Blog posts. Normally, the most recent will be the first one you see. Move your cursor over the photo or title of the album you want to see and click and that album will be opened. Now you can move through the photos clicking on the wants you want to see. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on the little magnifying glass icon in the upper right corner. To get back to the main album page just click "View All". To get back to the Blog just click on your back arrow at the top left of the page.

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The "Daily Hit Counter" shows how many hits or visits the Blog receives.

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The "Out West Posse" is a group of followers who visit the Blog on a constant basis. It's easy to become one ... just click on the "Follow" button and follow the directions. You can click on each individual photo to learn more about these people and quite a few of them have their own sites and Blogs you might want to check out.

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Beneath that is another counter which shows where the last 100 hits came from and as you can see they come from all over the place.

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Next is a Google Search box where you can look up or search for something you might have a question about.

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In the next box are Advertisements I've allowed Google to place on my Blog. They're usually associated in some way to what the post is about.

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"Great Links To Visit" are some of my favorite sites. To see them just move your cursor over the one you want to check out and click.

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"Great Carving Blogs" work the same way.

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Last comes the "Blog Archive" . This is a list of all the Blogs I've published over the years. One thing I should mention is that a year or so ago I had a major crash of my photo site which resulted in the loss of the photos I had stored. The Blog posts are still around but the photos might not be.

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I hope this helps you out. Hopefully, I'm going to start posting more videos in the near future so it will probably get even more confusing.