VISUALIZATION AND TYPES OF CUTS TO USE CONTINUED
 

Now it is time to detach the carving from the scrap piece of wood and draw the positions of the stop cuts on the other side. Simply run your knife blade underneath the carving and up towards the extra, attached wood and it will come loose. Position your tracing along side the un-carved side and draw reference lines across to the piece of wood from the carving like you did in the first step of this section. Then draw in the details. It will be a little tougher since you are actually drawing the figure the opposite way that it is shown on the tracing. With the help of the reference lines, however, this goal is achievable.

Next, glue the excess wood back to your blank in the same manner that you did in the first place. Then, make stop cuts where necessary and start to clear wood out from the same places that you did on the other side.

Next, just as with the other side, cut down places on one side of the stop cuts that need cutting down. Then round off edges.

Next, take the scrap piece of wood out of the vice and then turn it on its side and clamp it down again as you did in the first part of making cuts. Round off any corners that need it on the front face such as the eyebrows, legs arms etc.

Since our drawing suggests that there is a face on the socle and other sources do as well, we will now carve a face in that area. Make stop cuts in the shape of a head in the middle of the socle and carve the wood down around it. Then make stop cuts for the nose and eye sockets. Leave the forehead and nose alone and cut the rest of the wood away. Much like you did with the figures face but now just in a smaller scale.

Now add details such as the figures eyes by poking them out with a thin nail or awl. Other details such as wrinkles in the figures skin can be added with stop cuts and cutting down very subtly on both sides of the stop cut.

Other sources can help you tremendously with other fine details. This is discussed later but here is a page in one of my books that talks about the carving that we have been making.

Now, separate the carving from the scrap piece of wood again. Cut the excess off the top, remove any extra wood that is undesirable, and finish it however you would like. I simply dip mine in polyurethane, wipe off the excess if there is any, allow it to dry, and the carving is finished.

Using this method of carving, and with a little practice and patience, it will not be hard for you to turn out quality sculpture. You will also be able to be very consistent if there is more than one carving your model that are of the same dimensions and artistic style. As you can see in the picture below, there are no two carvings that are exactly alike and making your own sculpture for your model ships will help you approximate that unique character that every carving has and had on the original ship.

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