Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park

[ClayB]

Here is something that I tried last week since it was too cold outside to work. I took the picture in Rocky Mountain National Park in CO last summer.

I blew the picture up to 8 X 10, printed it out black and white and then drew a pattern from that. Not too many tools needed to do this one. Mainly just a small figure carving beveler and a background tool. I did get to know both of them quite well before I was finished. I have a bunch more pictures from that park and I think I will be trying a few more of them like this. Probably wont be this week though, it was 52 degrees here in ND today so vacation is probably over.

Clay

Edited February 19, 2007 by ClayB

[pepin1948]

That is so lifelike, right down to the detail of the trees!

[Regis]

Clay,

Just great. I'm particularly taken by the eye detail. How small/large is the eye?

Regis

[SmilinJim]

Great piece Clay. Like seeing original work like that. You've got a good eye for detail. You should do a tutorial for us.

Keep on Smilin

Jim

[MatthewD]

Awesome work on that one and I have to agree very life like..

[ClayB]

Thank you all for the comments.

Regis, the eye is about 1/4 inch wide and 1/8 high. I really like doing larger figure carvings because it's a lot easier to do the details on them. I watched Bob Beard do some eyes last summer and he could do them about 1/16 of an inch and get all the details in. You just need a really good modeling tool and a lot of practice.

Jim, tell me what you want in the way of a tutorial and I'll see what I can do.

Clay

[techniques]

Clay,

love this carving. How have you done the hairing on the body of the elk?

Greetings

Gisela

[ClayB]

Hi Gisela,

To make the hair on the body of the elk, I used a tool I got from Bob Beard. He calls it an LP1. I think that stands for lined point, size 1. It's similar in shape to a Craftool F902 but narrower and it has fine lines running the length of the tool. It was my first Bob Beard tool and I really like it for creating hair like this. You can get a similar effect with the 902 tool but you might have to file the Craftool version down so that it has a finer point. I did that to mine and it's pretty simple to do and makes the tool work a lot better. Then after you make the hair texture with the 902, you can drag a hair blade over it to give it even more hair texture. I think I took a series of pictures when I was doing this project. I'll try and find them and maybe I can post a few of them here.

[TomSwede]

great work as usual Clay!!

Ditto what all said about detail!!!

Tom

[techniques]

Hi Gisela,

To make the hair on the body of the elk, I used a tool I got from Bob Beard. He calls it an LP1. I think that stands for lined point, size 1. It's similar in shape to a Craftool F902 but narrower and it has fine lines running the length of the tool. It was my first Bob Beard tool and I really like it for creating hair like this. You can get a similar effect with the 902 tool but you might have to file the Craftool version down so that it has a finer point. I did that to mine and it's pretty simple to do and makes the tool work a lot better. Then after you make the hair texture with the 902, you can drag a hair blade over it to give it even more hair texture. I think I took a series of pictures when I was doing this project. I'll try and find them and maybe I can post a few of them here.

Hello Clay,

thank you very much for this information. I have looked through my tool collection and I found 2 line point tools from Bob. They didn't have numbers but I guess this are the one which you mean. I purchased them nearly 15 years ago and at this time some of Bob Tools didn't have numbers. I will make a sample with this hairing technique and show it at the forum.

Greetings

Gisela

[ClayB]

Thanks Tom. I missed your reply somehow. I hate it when I do that!

Here's a few pictures of how I did the long hair on the elk cow. It was all done with Bob Beard's lined point tool.

I started out along the edges making impressions with the point of the tool.

Continue overlapping impressions away from the edge.

I made impressions with the back of the tool when at the bottom of an area that needed hair.

Continue filling in the entire area.

And here is what it looked like when I was finished.

For the shorter hair on the elks body, I just used a hair blade in a swivel knife.

[CitizenKate]

Another great carving in the making!

Kate

[ClayB]

Thanks Kate. If you check the date on the original post here, this ones been done for a while so put that popcorn down and get back to work

[CitizenKate]

LOL - I thought it looked familiar! Okay, back to my Chess board restoration job....

Kate

[techniques]

Here's a few pictures of how I did the long hair on the elk cow. It was all done with Bob Beard's lined point tool.

Hello ClayB,

thank you very much for the great tutorial. I'm so sorry that I answer so late, but I haven't seen it. I was very busy carving horses after yaklady's Tutorials and have seen your tut.

I will try doing hairs with Bob Beards pointed lined Beveler. I will be very busy in the next weeks. Have to learn how to carve horse eyes, nostrils, foreheads, muscles and now hair textures. But it is a lot of fun and I hope I will improve.

Greetings

Gisela