I have been asked by several how I come up with my characters. I buy my wood from Heinecke Woods http://www.heineckewood.com/ornamentwood1.htm

The character you see here is loosely based on Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

I cut head shots out of magazines, take photos of interesting people and draw them. I start with my block of wood and find the center so I can make the head and body even. Once I find the center and mark it, I draw the outline and draw in features. I take it to the bandsaw and cut off the excess wood.

I make my first cuts called stop cuts under the nose and at its sides.  When I furst began carving, I lost many noses.  My problem was that I was trying to carve out the nose instead of taking away the excess wood around it.   

I carve a small upside down triangle just below the bottom of the nose with the tip of my knife.   As you can see from the photo, I still wear a carving glove and thumb protector.  You can also see that I occasionally miss by the holes in the glove.  The carving glove also seems to help me hold onto the wood.

Using a U shaped thumbnail gouge, I cut towards the stop cut on the side of the nose. When using gouges, ALWAYS point away from yourself!!!   I aim the gouge deeper towards the nose and the side of the face.   I take the knife and cut from the side of the face almost mid center of the eye socket.

I cut from that center point of the eye to the side of the nose.  I do this on both sides of the face.  

Even at this point, it is beginning to look like a face.

I begin to smooth down the sharp edges on the cheeks.   I cut down the nose to the chin to form the deep furrows to the sides of the mouth.

I carve the area from the center of the mouth area back to the smile lines.  This gives you the beginnings of the curvature of the mouth.   I also  carve the hollows on the side of the cheek too.

In a profile look, you can see his character shaping up.

I use the tip of the knife to cut a small V for the mouthline. 

I use the knife to shape the lips.  I leave the very center of the lips until last.  Cut on the other side also.

This photo was hard to make and still show me using the U thumbnail gouge up the nose at an angle to carve down the sides of the nose.

At this point, I don't worry as must about the "fuzzies" because I will use the Abranet sanding product from The Woodcraft Shop in Iowa http://www.thewoodcraftshop.com/

These are the U shaped thumbnail gouges from Flexcut that I use. There are lots of brands out there. I bought Flexcut because they were sharp right out of the box and they were the less expensive and fit my hands. 

After sanding with the Abranet and tiny hobby files, you can see the face.  I added some paperclay hair and pointy ears to this head.

The Mad Hatter must have a rabbit with bad timing.  And here it is before paint.  I tried a different idea for ball jointing the rabbit and it seems to have worked. 

I hope this photo blog helps you create your own characters in wood.






 

I just joined this site link and hope you will vote for my blog. I will be adding a pictorial tutorial on carving a manly face. I hope you come back for it.

It seems that Lynne has caused a lot of questions about how she moves. Lynne is the result of a lot of time studing many multi jointed dolls both carved and manufactured. If you have the ball jointed dolls you know they are plagued with several problems. Number one is discoloring and not being able to display them in the light. The biggie for me is the sudden knee jerk and inability to stand.

While competing at wood carving shows, I began to learn how to make better joints in my Santa's. Some of the judges showed me what they were looking for in jointed dolls. I have applied that knowledge along to my Hitty sized dolls. Combining that with ball joints I have been able to immitate lifelike movement.

The above doll is all ball jointed. She stands nice but occasionally kicked the other girls under the table. She is being restrung and possibly some liposuction. She was my first of many BJD's.

The doll that Gale chose to take home is a hybrid doll. Her knee joints and elbow joints are hidden when they are bent. I like my girls to have nicely formed behinds like my old Santa's were.

Some of my multi jointed dolls are still available like Dorothy and her little dog.

I am also letting some of the girls from my private collection go. These two Sycamore Sisters with find Heidi Ott hair are available also.

This handsome sailor was once a mighty Captain on one of Her Magesty's finest in the fleet. Now he pilots a small craft of his own and dreams of finding a nice Hitty to settle down with.

When you are out on the water it does get hot and this sailor has some mighty nice tatoo's.

Oooooopppps ! he must have thought he was all alone on the water and went for a dip!

A mystical dragon and Merlin adorn his masculine body.

The smallest doll I have made so far is pegged like the original one.

I am completing several carving videos for those thinking of carving to seasoned carvers looking to do multi jointed or even ball jointed dolls. I will also discuss how to deal with problems and am seriously looking for Boo boo dolls to give a face lift to while recording their surgery. If you have such a doll and are willing to let me use her, just contact me via my doll email wildharestudio@yahoo.com

If you follow the blog, you can be first to receive notice of the carving videos when they are available.

Comments are always appreciated.

Just as every person is different, so is every doll. Gracey is one of those. Her Mom dressed her in her finest clothes for the first day of school. Gracey was not happy at all in all the clothes.

She didn't mind the color so much but all the lace and her hair. She looked like all the other Hitty's and she wanted to look like herself. She longed to be different.

Different was not something her Mom embraced. So each day, she would walk thru the woods to get to school and dream.

She began collecting different fabrics and fibers that the other girls at school didn't want. She secretly worked on her new outfit and hid it in the woods on her way home from school.

Gracey smiled as her Mom layed out the same ol' dress type that everyone else had. She knew that today would be different. She walked to the woods and changed into her new outfit and carefully stored the outfit all the others had. She added one more item and she was done. She was different than all the others. No more sausage rolls in her hair and no frilly dress. Ahhhhhh, she was herself. She was different now than all the rest.

Gracey enjoyed the wind in her long hair. She also liked the shiny short skirt.


"Hey, what are you doing here?" a tiny voice called.


Gracey spun around to see a funny looking rabbit standing there.

"You look different than all the others!" the rabbit squeeked out.


"Good. I don't want to look like all the rest." Gracey said.


"You like being different looking?" the rabbit questioned.


" Yes, I do!" Gracey said. " I am Gracey."



" I'm Sally," she said. Wanna go sit on the log over there?"

" Your hair is even different." Sally said. "Can I touch it?"

"oh, it is soft." Sally said.


A single sound echoed thru the forest. It made Sally leap high into the air.

"Oh, I have to get to school and see what the other Hitty's think of my look." Gracey said and off she went.




While she was happy with her changed looks, I hope she is ready for the opinions of others. Some may like it and others may hate it. She will have to decide if she truely wants to look that different from the others. Only time will tell. Some of us follow the crowd while others step out into the light and walk a differnt path.

Almost a whole year has gone by since I last blogged. I have been busy with real life and of course making dolls. I have also started my own dollsite www.handmadedollsandfriends.com So I am going to try to take a little time to post more often. I have a Sweetgum doll named Abby (after one of my favorite characters on NCIS) Sweetgum. She was an odd one on the tree, much darker than the rest. The other kids made fun of her and she slipped further and further into the shadows. I brought her in and showed her a little kindness and she seems to be coming out of her shyness. The kids used to call her evil but she seems ok to me. Anyway, here comes Abby to tell you her own story about finally getting a home of her own. I found a suitable container for me to live. It says CSI on the case, which means Crime Scene Investigator. Me, I like being the crime scene instigator. (Evil laughter). I drug it away from the dump site. My person helped me take it to her studio to paint it and clean it up. It had a few things still inside of it that I think have potential. Some spent bullet casings made wonderful table legs for my lab. My person also made me a bed and nightstand to put in my loft. Queen Whodunit loves my loft and my bed. She lives in the forest with some of the outcast gnomes and fairies. Her name is really Sarah but no one would be leary of a Sarah. She caused a lot of mischievous in the forest and everyone asked who done it so she adopted the name, Queen Whodunit. While she was doing that, I made a couple of acquired fence panels from Lester's garden to make a bench. I used some chunky brass for legs. I painted them purple but oh my, it was too cheerful so I used a secret formula to mingle black onto the purple for a less bright color. My stairs and door are still bright purple but I may keep it that way. My person being cheap, made a chandelier for my tall ceiling. She used silver and black beads with a purple glint and even found some fat birthday candles to go in it. I wouldn't want ot gush, but she did do a good job on it. My lab is coming along quite nicely but I have to be careful and not let my person see everything in the lab. I have some rotten Easter Eggs I managed to acquire from those silly Hitty's last Easter. They have been fermenting and I just dug them back up. They are almost ready to give back to them. (evil laughter) But that is another story. I salvaged some bloodwood boards fromt he back of Lester's old barn and made a shelf for some of my experiments and collections of oddities. Queen Whodunit brought me a wonderful mirror trimmed in black. She said I needed to check my scary face before I opened my secret door, just in case anyone was near it when I snuck out. Queen Whodunit loved looking thru the CSI magnifying glass that was left in the kit. It isn't quite a microscope, but that will come later. I am not finished but it is beginning to look really good inside. I think I will drag it out to the forrest into the deep shade away from those clothes hogging Hittys.