Thread: Miniature Nude Figure Whittling

Brilliant!

Nice work Mike, I find the small stuff extremely hard.

I've read, over and over, that a woman's face is a very difficult carve.
She's beautiful, the face and body are in a believable proportion.

Thanks Whittling & Rob &Robsonvalley.
Yes I find the small scale hard too, it took a long time when I had thought to work small on a hard wood like this - less to cut away I naively thought !
Afterwards when I was thinking about it, I worked out that working at this scale 1mm = 3/4 " lifesize - AH ! the penny dropped it had all gone so slowly because I was having to take tiny splinters off each cut & even that was having a big effect on proportional balance with each cut , at the end of a long day the pile of shavings would not have filled a tooth ! I am quite certain that she could have been 2ft tall & taken the same amount of time or less.
I am now thinking that there would be a happy medium size to work at for a given degree of complexity & this is below that mark by some way.

Yes the female face at ay scale is thought hard to carve because I has to be so soft & without any deliniating lines , god knows if I can get a passable face I'm happy enough. The problem with carving the human face is that we can all recognise perhaps hundreds of individual faces assess their age ,their mood etc - we are genetically programmed with this subtle ability, you could hardly say that of a fox carving or whatever !

True enough about faces. I don't think I could recognize the difference between a happy or a sad grizzly bear.

After some time, I realized that each of my carvings was bigger that the previous one (confidence?) and I pondered where it might end! Years later, my comfort zone is between 12" - 36". I have one, still leaning against the shop wall, that's about 65" tall. Some day.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

True enough about faces. I don't think I could recognize the difference between a happy or a sad grizzly bear.

After some time, I realized that each of my carvings was bigger that the previous one (confidence?) and I pondered where it might end! Years later, my comfort zone is between 12" - 36". I have one, still leaning against the shop wall, that's about 65" tall. Some day.

It's true, the bigger a carving is the more margin for error there is.

Very nice.

Wow! She is beautiful, well done!

Great work.
Cheers Frank.

Thanks for your encouraging comments Christos, Sebastiaan & Frank which mean all the more coming from fellow carvers.
This forum is perhaps especially valuable to me as I don't know any other carvers n the "real"(offline) world - so thanks to all.
Cheers Mike

3 cheers for you Mike!. It looks fantastic.
If I could offer 1 bit of constructive criticism it would be the hair on top of her head. The curls below look sweet but to my eye just a few line nicks on top would finish it off. Seems a bit smooth up there, especially from the back view.
Cheers
A.B.

Originally Posted by artful bodger

3 cheers for you Mike!. It looks fantastic.
If I could offer 1 bit of constructive criticism it would be the hair on top of her head. The curls below look sweet but to my eye just a few line nicks on top would finish it off. Seems a bit smooth up there, especially from the back view.
Cheers
A.B.

Thanks AB, YES I agree, I thought that too but after a few practice nicks on scrap wood it became obvious that they would look too coarse, too sharp & dominant at this scale so I left them out. Truth is as well -when I'm getting that close to completion , the carving is getting ever more precious ( an inhibiting & bad thing) & I'm afraid of messing it up ! However you are definitely right in your judgment , I wish I had made her bigger because I feel I could have made more of her in a number of ways.
Of all the arty/crafty things I have done in life I still find woodcarving to be the most difficult & challenging , with other arts & crafts you have a steady learning curve & with practice you reach a plateau , I still feel like I'm on the steep incline - perhaps that's why I keep coming back to it ?

Nice work, very nice

Thanks for taking the trouble to comment JJF.