Chow Dog Carving

[James Nugnes]

This carving has been pretty popular. So I thought it would post it up here. He is a big chunky Chow with plenty of coat.

[James Nugnes]

Sorry about that. Can't get the photo to upload for some reason. Will try again later.

[James Nugnes]

Chow Turn_2 2 copy reduced.jpg

Success....had to reduce the heck out of it. Hope you like him. You can click on the image and get the size up where you can see more detail.

[James Nugnes]

Chow Turn_2 5 copy reduced.jpg

Another upload success. Here is a front view of the same carving.

[bernard feinerman]

Very nice. What kind of wood did you use and how did you finish it off?
Bernie

[James Nugnes]

These are basswood. Hand carving with this sort of detail at this scale can be a challenge. But I just can't do Tupelo and power carving for customers. Tupelo is so light that I just don't feel like I have provided them anything of substance. So its basswood at a minimum and manual carving in my case. I do them from photos they send to me.

I like to use DEFT as a finish if I can get away with it. The thing to remember about DEFT is that unlike Poly it actually wants to dissolve the paint!!! So you really have to be careful in the application and then I do a few things that vary from carving to carving in order to take the "glimmer" down a peg or two. Even DEFT Satin and Poly Satin for that matter will take the glimmer up more than I like. But I need the durable finish. So it then becomes a matter of taking the glimmer down while keeping the durability. Poly does not want to eat the paint but the depth of color (if you can get the paint to survive) is better with DEFT and the clarity is better. I have learned to know just from the characteristics of a given carving whether DEFT is not going to work and in those instances I will use Poly.

I will post up a couple more in this thread when I get a chance.

[James Nugnes]

Dach_S 9 copy reduced.jpgDach_S 16 copy reduced.jpg

This is a female Dachshund I just finished for a customer. The pedestal in this one is actually separate from the carving itself. She carries a bit more weight and her lines are not as defined as they would be for a male Dachshund. All of my carvings now are carved with facial characteristics that show the animal interested in something...whether a person or another animal. This is a head up pose. The neck is stretched forward, eyes are up and the chest is not quite as proud as it would be otherwise.

Basswood again.