A coping saw is an excellent choice for roughing small carvings. If you are going to do somewhat larger carvings, you may want to look toward a "bow saw". I doubt if you can buy them any more, but they are easilly made, and there are still blades available for them. Or you can do what I do and use broken bandsaw blades in the bow saw I made.
Here's an interesting site with some instructions on making a bow saw.
http://userdata.acd.net/chesbrog/bowsaw/bowsaw.htm
Here's another with saws (guess you can still buy them) and blades for all different sizes and uses.
http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com...p?cPath=37_126
Al