carving noses

[justanick]

Hi all! I have been perplexed many a time when I try to carve a nose on a face. How the heck do I make the nose stick out more? My noses are always flatHead Bange I am not sure if I am taking enough material off or to much.From the front they look fine, profile flat. Any help or suggestions are most welcomed. Thanks

[JIM QUILICI]

if you are having trouble with parts of faces (nose's eyes mouths ears)may I suggest a book by "Pete LeClair called "carving caricature Heads and faces" and if you go step by step word for word with him I will almost garentee your face parts will improve. I started carving 2 years ago and I can tell you that the 3 books that he has written has helped me more than any thing else . there are no clubs anywhere close to where I live ( that I know of) so this was the only help that I had. I did the simple heads over several times till I got his system in my mind . now everything just falls in place without thinking about it.Hope this helps you.

Just old Jim

[AlArchie]

Only done a few, but here's what I've found.....If I start with a squared off block, and have a side profile cut from one of those flat sides, and a front profile cut from another, I am most crtain to have a flat looking face. Now, if I turn that block of wood 1/4 turn, and use a Corner for the front of the face, when I cut back the forhead and chin, the nose AUTOMATICALLY sticks out! As an added advantage, the resulting angle on the side of the face then resolves itself and does away with the flat looking face.

Might work for you, too


Al

[Ashbys]

Without the book, one thing I noticed when I first started doing faces was the same problem. How could the face look so right from the fron and so wrong from profile. The answer is really simple.

Look at the cheeks, The problem is most likely there. The sides of the face are really elongated and fall away quickly. Also if you look at how we age, the cheeks drop the older we get the more we get a droop below the jaw line. The cheeks become more of a con-caved effect where as when were young the are more convexed. High cheek profiles give a profile of a low nose.

The second point is the eyes themself, they really are not as deep as we often make them in the nose bridge. Few noses are really move than a half inch in height from the corner of the eye to the top of the bridge. But in Carving we want shadows and the strong shadow comes for making the bridge higher. This higher bridge also reduces the angle of the nose.

Hope this helps

Ash

[Mitchell]

The sides of the nose do not connect to a flat face. Get your face correct and the nose will be correct. This is also one of my biggest problems.

Make sure your rough the face with enough angle to begin with. There should not be a flat surface at the front - you should carve the face on the front of a sphere.

[Colin-Partridge]

As you know I carve a lot of faces and when I started all my faces were flat. The problem is when we first start to carve we are worried about taking away too much wood. The trick to carving a face is to realize that the tip of the nose is probably better than an inch from the cheek. A good way to do this is to look at a profile of someone even look in the mirror at your own face. I have set up a mirror from time to time when carving it really helps. I agree with the comments of everyone here and using a square block of wood is the best way to achieve good results. Dont be afraid to get into the wood remember it is only a block of wood. If you screw it up get another one practice will definatly make the difference.
Colin

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

There is only two ways, that I know of....Al has it right and the easiest, use the corner of the wood....or if you are working on a flat plane, you have to draw out your basic nose and remove wood from what will be the face until you get the nose to protrude as far as you want. One carver I watched carving eggs used a gouge and made a pass on each side of the nose, (deep passes) until the nose was out where he wanted it.

[kaiserb]

This may be a little gross for some but if you look at human head cross sections you get a pretty good idea of the anatomy involved:

http://www.vh.org/adult/provider/ana...ction/Top.html

Sections 24-27 involve the nose area.

As you will note the head in that area is quite pointed.

[Old_Gord]

This question was covered quite well in the Beginners forum question by Ashbys under "Question about carving frontal Face view" on 06-03-05.
I posted a sketch at that time showing how the nose projects out from the face by using a 90 degree set square as a guide.
Carving a face "on the corner" produces the nose projection automatically, carving the face on the flat portion means you must carve that corner or point of the nose starting back near the ear locations out to the nose tip.
Many caricature carving books show this, some good books have already been suggested already, nothing like a good book that you can continously reference.Smile.
Hi Ho suggested the same thing in his message.
Cheers.

OG

[Mitchell]

Here's a link to the message Old Gord refers to:

http://woodcarvingillustrated.com/forum/t6235.html