Thread: Oneironaught's Woodcarvings.

Originally posted by Twoshadows+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Twoshadows)</div>

Awesome carvings&#33;[/b]

Yeah, I&#39;ll bet you say that to all the guys

<!--QuoteBegin-Twoshadows
And as long as I&#39;m around you will always have someone interested in your carvings --and I&#39;m sure there will be many others--because this stuff is really cool. Like you mentioned, this is not stuff you see everyday. You are the first person I know that has done things like this. I&#39;m really glad you&#39;re here, and I can see what you are doing and how you are doing it. It is very inspiring.

Well, truth be known, it is you who has inspired me to get back on the ball. I&#39;ve got so many hobbies and skills (that&#39;s right, I said it ) that I tend to do things in cycles. Whenever I get inspiration, I get back into things. Hence: You -> This. What I need is some one who&#39;s interested on what I do and I&#39;m ready and excited about doing them. I need an audience - or student - to keep on task. I love to teach AND show-off my wares; it looks like I may have found both at DV. Me so happy...

I&#39;ve got to find more of that ear wood. It&#39;s so soft that I can really make some serious chips in a fairly short time span. The stage it&#39;s at in that last picture is about 6 hours into the project. Really light wood is actually a double-edged sword (as is everything in carving). It&#39;s easy to cut providing your blades are razor sharp (if not, you&#39;ll tear the grain.) and so you get a lot done for your time. However, it&#39;s so soft that you&#39;ve got to be extra cautious not to break it while working on it. There&#39;s also issues with splitting and grain following. Also, soft woods like this don&#39;t lend themselves well to detailed work. Large-sized trick carving - such as this piece - is OK but, the finished product will be difficult to give a smooth, clean look. Especially since I never sand my work, only knife finishing.

Wow, Earwood, I&#39;ve never [though that&#39;s not all too amazing] seen someone work with it before, all I usually see are people carving hardwoods... Is it an atypical thing to do?

I&#39;ll never get tired of your work so there&#39;s no reason to stop posting. I love seeing people make things out of scratch, and at that, you use an uncommon method to do so [one that I personally adore]. So don&#39;t think that way &#39;bout your work.

Originally Posted by Lucidbulbs

Wow, Earwood, I&#39;ve never [though that&#39;s not all too amazing] seen someone work with it before, all I usually see are people carving hardwoods... Is it an atypical thing to do?[/b]

It&#39;s somewhat atypical. Most often, I&#39;d be using pine, mahogany, butternut, basswood and others in the medium hardness range. Personally, I rarely do anything in hardwoods. It&#39;s just too painful on the fingers and isn&#39;t worth all the extra time it takes to do a piece. Hardwoods aren&#39;t too well-suited for whittling. They are best for gouge, chisel, and power tool work.

I got the ball in the lower cage loose today. It's still rather rough and needs to be shaped more smoothly and rounded. The way the cage is formed makes it very difficult to have rounded it out much more without it being loose but, now I can rotated it and work on all sides. The picture sucks but it gives good contrast so at least you can see the difference rather plainly. I'll probably round it off in the next day or two.

My next thing to think about is what the heck I'll do in the next section. People often seem to assume that I plan my pieces out from the beginning but that's far from the truth. I usually only think about one or two sections in advance. So, what to do next...

This is angled so that you can see the two distinctly different types of sides I used. They seem to conflict but, the opposite sides match so it's actually quite symmetrical. The whole thing is starting to look kind of like the Eiffel Tower.

Awsome, looks like you&#39;ve found your little art nitch.

If your refine your skill in an art like this, and do something unforgettable with it, that&#39;s all its going to take to turn your art hobby into a career. Not many people do art like this, which makes you stand out.

Originally Posted by WhiteUnit

Awsome, looks like you&#39;ve found your little art nitch.

If your refine your skill in an art like this, and do something unforgettable with it, that&#39;s all its going to take to turn your art hobby into a career. Not many people do art like this, which makes you stand out.[/b]

I appreciate your confidence and kind words. However, I wouldn&#39;t want to do it for a living as I want to pick and choose what I keep and what I&#39;m willing to part with. Every time I do a commissioned piece it kills me to give it up after it&#39;s done; they&#39;re always some of my best stuff. Sure, I&#39;ve given away many pieces as gifts and I&#39;ve sold a bunch but I&#39;d rather maintain my "amateur" status.

Though, truth be known, I did apply for a job at a local theme park (some years ago) for a woodcarver position. They wanted some one to do log carvings and large-scale decorative pieces. The only problem was that it was only a few days a week and I couldn&#39;t afford to give up my full-time job for a part-time, low-pay job. It would have been cool to have my works as part of Cyprus Gardens though. Plus, totem poles and the like are pretty easy carving styles that I&#39;d been plenty able to knock out. Anyway, the park has since changed hands and is now better than ever.

That&#39;s looking really good. I love it&#33;

Originally Posted by Twoshadows

That's looking really good. I love it![/b]

Thanks, I'm trying to decide what to do next. Maybe I'll just keep doing different styles of balls in cages on this piece. Perhaps a "ball in a cage in a cage" and some balls in a twisted cage. You'd think that balls in cages would get old but there's just so many variations possible that it's mind boggling. Yeah, I'll do those then either a plunger or a ring in a cage. There's an example of a ring in a cage in the second photo of my 10-piece puzzle. There's a plunger in there too (It's another type of cage trick but the plunger extends from one end of the cage). Oh, oh, I know: A ring on a plunger in a cage

There's soooo many other things I could demonstrate for you guys but - in this scale - many things (such as simple chain links or even an un-caged ring) would probably look too plain.

Take a look at the earlier pictures I posted and see if there's anything in any of those that you'd like to see how to do. Though, as I keep saying, I will end up showing you guys a bunch more photos of other things I've done as well. If I can manage to keep motivated, I'll show you all kinds of cool "whimsies" to carve.

And by the way, things in cages don't always have to be balls. Animals in cages are cool to carve, too. But really, anything can be carved in a cage.

Alright, I'll throw you a bone. I need to take a better picture but, this skeleton guitarist I made is pretty darned cool, if I may say so myself. I've got to show you the back side too:

These pictures just don't do the pieces justice. You can't tell from the angle but the guy's mouth is opened in a cool manner and he has a mohawk.

So, I try to edit my posts to get rid of the screwed up coding errors from the software change and can't because my "post has 8 images and you're limited to 4 images per post."

The same crap happens in my dream journal because I've got a post with over 10,000 characters and you're now limited to 10,000 characters per post.

Why the hell can't we just leave what works fine alone, dammit?

This is so frickin' annoying. Not even worth the effort anymore

Originally Posted by asher

So far as images go AFAIK the more the better, so no limit from me.

...until now, that is.

I took a bunch of pictures today and will take a bunch more tomorrow. That should give me plenty of fodder to fuel this thread for a while.

This is where I'm at on the current piece.

As you can see, I've cleaned up that third ball and have begun to rough-out the next few sections. What I'm going to do next is thin out the shaft from the cages up top. That shaft will extend down through the cage you can see starting to take shape. The cage will be loose on the shaft. That's a variation of the "plunger". The plunger shaft will terminate into a ball in the cage.

There will also be a ring on that shaft (inside of the cage) as demonstrated in the following photo:

This piece has both cages loose on the main shaft. The rings inside of the cages are also loose and free to move about.

...The cage will then take on a 1/4 twist and the lower portion will contain 2 balls in a cage inside of the main cage. Another variation of the ball-in-a-cage-in-a-cage.

Here's a new photo of the last piece I was showing you that wasn't quite done, except, now it's completed and clear-coated. This piece measures 26 inches long at its shortest and 32 inches long when fully extended.

This picture is to give you some sense of scale with respect to the two pieces.

Stay tuned: lots more to come.

I'm sure I'm starting to sound like a broken record with all my : "Awesome cravings!" and "Oh, that's makes me really want to try it, too." But those are the first things that go through my mind when I see your things.

Did I thank you for sending the info on the knives? If not--thanks. I still haven't gotten anything, but I plan on it.

This piece is made out of pine:

This is a piece I did many years ago. As you can see, the possibilities for the concept of things in cages can potentially go on forever. This won me a 1st or 2nd-place ribbon somewhere around 1992-94.

When I do these types of things in cages (that is, things where I pretty much just keep the same shape as the cage itself, rather than rounding them out to be balls), I just refer to them as "slugs".

One of the themes I'm trying to get across is that sometimes all it takes to make a piece more interesting is to simply alter the shape of the wood you start with.

And, TS, you don't have to thank me. Trust me, your interest is thanks enough.

Wow...I have never seen anything like that. I love it! It's so perfect.

No wonder it won....

Originally Posted by Twoshadows

Wow...I have never seen anything like that. I love it! It's so perfect.

No wonder it won....

Well, thanks. I thought you'd like that one. Funny thing is, no matter how fancy it may look, it's really no more challenging then a simple ball-in-a-cage. Actually, on some levels, it was less challenging because I settled on slugs rather than making balls.

With a piece like that, your main concern is the grain. Notice how large portions of the cages are against the grain. The cross-grain sections are much more delicate than cage bars that follow the grain.

And that piece is about 6 inches in diameter. I simply cut the ring-shaped "blank" out of a board, using a jigsaw. Someday I'll make more things like that but, of different shapes.

I made this one out of butternut. Butternut is a great wood for this type of carving. It's not too hard or too soft and the grain is perfect, holding detail nicely. It's got more examples of ball in cage variations. This was made somewhere around 6-8 years ago.

The pointy end on the right side is the "top". The top has a dome-shaped 6-barred cage sporting a ball. Below that is a twisted cage, similar to what I'm doing in my current piece. This one has a 1/8 twist (the one I'm doing now will have a 1/4 twist). Below that, you see a junction of two interlocking 4-barred cages (That feels so cool in the hands. I wish I could let Twoshadows hold this one). That's a bit trickier to do than most of my other elements. Then, of course, there's some standard balls in cages. The piece is clear-coated with probably 10 coats of clear spray lacquer.

This guy is done in maple:

As you can see, eyes are not my strong point. Part of the problem is that, in most of my carvings, I do everything with straight blades. The proper way to carve eyes - the way that looks right - is to use curved gouges. I guess I'm too stubborn to "cave in". So, as result, my eyes consistently look bad and overly stylized.

The wood's grain actually dictated the position and shape of the chin. You can't really see it from either of those angles but, there's a knot there so I had to place the chin in that very spot. The knot is surrounded by curved grain so the chin simply follows the grain. It would have been nearly impossible to do otherwise.

It took me forever to figure out how to compose a single picture from multiple images but, I finally figured it out.

This is my skeleton Guitarist. It's made of pine and this picture is pretty close to actual size. I wanted to make him have hooves but couldn't decide which type I wanted so I gave him two different types. His right foot is wearing a horse shoe. He's part of a 7-piece set I made. Oddly enough, the set won me a ribbon some years back (probably 2nd place but I don't remember). The set consists of 7 completely different types of characters, all tall and thin. They are in 3/4 inch stock and range from around 5 1/2 to about 6 inches tall (they're buried so I don't feel like digging them back out to measure right now).

Originally Posted by Oneironaught

This is my skeleton Guitarist.

That is frickin' awesome!

#asher

Oh, man. I just thought of something completely awesome. For those of you that understand how to view those Magic Eye-type 3-D pictures... This is going to be cool as hell... The next time I have a nice clear weekend day to take pictures, I'll take some at slightly different angles and paste them side by side so you can see some of these things in 3D.

If you don't understand or know about viewing 3D images - like those made famous by the Magic Eye trademark - then you may want to look it up and learn the "cross-eye method". I'll stick to that (as opposed to the "parallel method") so I can post a large one or two if you guys like what you see.

Oh yeah, you're in for a real treat

These are great!

The detail is incredible on the skeleton guy. I like how you did his mouth.....and everything else.

But I also really like the style on the first face. I enjoy things that are carved into a piece of wood with some of the natural part of the wood left.

I'll take some at slightly different angles and paste them side by side so you can see some of these things in 3D.

Wow, can you do that? That would be so cool.

Wow man, those are incrdible. Sorry if this has been asked, but how long have you been doing this?

Originally Posted by Led

Wow man, those are incrdible. Sorry if this has been asked, but how long have you been doing this?

I did my first one in mid 1991 and sliced my palm wide open doing so. Actually, I made a wooden airplane when I was about 8 or 9 (1981 - 1982 or so). I still have that plane and it still amazes me how perfect the propeller turned out. I mean, the curvature and pitch is splendid. Come to think of it, I sliced a finger open making that thing, too

But I'd say I actually "became" a woodcarver in '91. For some reason, I always think I've been doing it for 20 years but it's more like 16 years.

Wow, on your first time you hurt yourself and you weren't discouraged? That's real passion right there. If I were you on that first time, it probably would have taken me a lnog time to try to make another wood carving [I might not have even bothered to finish the first one!].

PS- I love your skeleton Guitarist! He's so cute and looks pretty spiffy.

Originally Posted by Lucidbulbs

Wow, on your first time you hurt yourself and you weren't discouraged?

Not only that but my palm was wide open and all I did was wash it, stuff it with a wad of toilet paper and wrap my hand closed with bandage tape. I changed the toilet paper every hour or two for about the first three days. After that, about three or four times a day. I probably should have gone and gotten stitches but, c'mon; I'm no wuss! Though it did make me rather queasy at first.

PS- I love your skeleton Guitarist! He's so cute and looks pretty spiffy.

He's definitely my favorite out of the set. Here's a few more from the set:

The Witch

I accidentally broke off the fingers of her right hand while working on The Witch.

The Rabbit

A friend of mine had a novelty Easter pen bearing this rabbit. When I saw it, I loved the way the ears were done so I asked if I may borrow it and this is the result. It's not exactly like the pen I copied but it's very similar.

The Wizard

Before I made the Skeleton Guitarist (the final piece in the set), this one was my favorite piece.

Alright, if you understand how the Magic Eye pictures work, this is the closest you'll get to actually seeing any of these in person. If you don't then, well, here's two slightly different views of the current progress on the piece I've been working on. The angles aren't perfect but you get the idea:

In glorious 3D!

View this using the "cross-eye method" in which you focus on a point between you and the picture. The two images should double into 4 images. When they spread far enough, the two center ones will merge into one - giving you 3 images. Focus on the center of those three images and you'll have a 3 dimensional glimpse of the carving

What you see there is the forming of a combo element. It'll be a combination of a ball-in-a-cage, a plunger and a ring-in-a-cage. The shaft from the original set of cages up top is being tapered. That shaft is protruding into the cage below, through the ring in that cage and will terminate into a ball. The ring will be loose in the cage and the cage will be loose around the plunger shaft. In other words, you'll be able to rotate the two cages on top and the ball will rotate along with it. You can also see more clearly how the twist in the cage will take shape.

If you look closely, you'll notice a few dents on the cage bar nearest the camera. Those dents were in the wood before I began but they shouldn't affect the final product because I'll be rounding out the cage bars. I've also done some rounding off of the second cage at the top. The bars of the top cage (the one having two balls) are still squared but they, too, will be detailed before it's all said and done.

Who's your Daddy? That's right...

Man.......the skeleton guitarist........holy shit.
Outstanding. That would be impressive, in pencil, alone....but carved into wood? ...Damn.