A ? carving a nose

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Gene makes that look way to easy.

Dave

[schaf]

The link that dave has suggested is a very good reference.
Well worth a look.

Terry

[gtech]

YouTube - How To Carve A Simple Woodspirit Face: Part 1

[mpounders]

You can do several things on a "round" hiking stick. I have came up with some really neat carvings using a branch that sticks out, to make the nose. Stop or what?
You really get a pretty defined nose using that method. But you don't always have that option. You can use the carving on the corner method (which works well) but you will need to carve a section of your stick to give you that pointed corner. That generally needs to be done first, since the nose is most prominent. Lynn Doughty has some excellent videos for carving caricatures and you see some pretty good examples on laying out the face and nose in his videos on carving a cowboy head.
Out West Woodcarving Videos on Vimeo
You'll notice how the carving is roughed out so the nose is prominent and then everything else is carved back from that. Hope this helps! Just keep at it and sooner or later you'll get it!

[TimberFace]

If you you would like to see a very short stop-motion movie, feel free to visit my website. I have one under the heading "Movie". It is not the best carving but shows a progression of cuts. You can take the ball at the bottom of the screen and move it or stop it where you want. This started as an experiment but I decided to put it on my website. It was carved in a 2" x 2" pine block with a rotary carver. I pretty much start my faces the same way whether I'm using a rotary tool, chisels, or knives. I will do a better one when I have time. As others have stated, Lynns videos are very good. Just keep experimenting and you will see improvement.
Thanks
Lundy

[uvawyo]

Draw a triangle with the base where you want the bottom of the nose to be
make stop cuts on those lines you have drawn
make slicing cuts to the stop cuts
the nose is now started then hollow out around the slicing cuts til th nose is the size you want it
then stop cut the smile lines
smooth out between them
things should be taking shape
start the eyes
I hope I verbalised that so it can be understood

[Dicky]

Thanks Dave, Lundy and Herb. I have followed Dave Brock's tutorial on carving a wood spirit on a corner and I am quite comfortable with it. You Guys just confirmed my thinking that somehow I have to make a square corner on a round stick and go from there. For that I thank you. I'll give it a shot tomorrow. Cheers.

[Donsexton]

Good question and some fine experienced advice from our members. You got me to thinking how do I carve a face? First I round the head, second I rough carve the nose, third I rough carve the eye sockets, forth I rough carve the mouth, I then rough carve the chin and jaw outline, Then if the ears are shown I will rough carve them. Now is when you need to take a break, step back and make sure all the elements are in proportion. I can carve a life size Lincoln bust in hard wood in less than 4 hours with my method.