[Chevi54]

Hi folks, How do you know what size of eyes to put in your carving?
Or what size of a carving you should make? When I look at the catalogs for eyes I see one or more sizes offered, however there is no information of what eyes match what size of carving.
Chevi54

[markken5889]

check out the web site for The Duck Blind. They give appropriate eye sizes and colors for all types of full size duck decoys.

-Mark

[AlArchie]

If you are carving full size birds or animals check a taxidermy supply for scale. Carving miniatures, just find the size (scaie) of your carving and size the eyes accordingly.

If you are carving from a pattern, the eye size should be listed.

When I carve fish from a photo, using my own pattern, I enlarge the photo to the pattern size and simply measure the eye on the enlargement.

Good reference photos are a great help.

Al

[Paul_Guraedy]

A word of caution. If you are using taxidermy information, make sure of your measurements. I ordered some glass eyes for an eagle I was carving. Extra cost was involved as I wanted eyes with the limbus ring.

The company also supplies eyes for taxidermy and, even though I explained I was a woodcarver, they translated the 12mm eyes (overall size) I ordered into 12mm iris/pupil (the way taxidermy people order) and the things I got were huge (at least 50mm)!When I called and explained the problem, they sent me the size I wanted at no extra charge. Sure caused a delay and some concern, on my part, because of the cost.

[Chevi54]

Hi again, I found a taxidermist at Van Dykes Taxidermy Eye Reference Chart and called their 800 number. If chart shows one size number that number is the base size. If it shows two numbers the larger is the base and the smaller is the iris. Therefore these eyes would be life size so I just have to multiply the real size by the scale size of my wildlife carving. All good but what about tame animals?

[AlArchie]

This gets a bit too technical, but check this site. It has photos of eyes off all sorts of different animals, both wild and domestic. On the accompanying text, each set of photos will have a scale bar included and the text gives you the size of the bar. You should be able to aproximate the size of just about any eye from this set of data.

Pupil shapes and lens optics in the eyes of terrestrial vertebrates -- Malmstrm and Krger 209 (1): 18 -- Journal of Experimental Biology

Al

[Paul_Guraedy]

I would make sure that you and Van Dykes are communicating. I have ordered eyes from them and they may have been the company that sent me the "taxidermy" eyes. The problem is/was that the eyes that are used in taxidermy are more than simply the iris and thus they are interested in both iris and base size (on the same eye). The eyes that carvers use are "iris only" so there is one size only (no separate measurements for base and iris).

The other thing to check on when ordering eyes is the cost. It seems that the shade of eye that I want is never "in stock" and I have to pay some kind of "set up" cost. The last time I ordered eyes for a baldy, I wanted the more natural look of what they referrred to as "straw" rather than yellow. The yellow was available for the catalog price while I had to pay for them to make the ones I wanted....even though they were shown in the catalog. I did get a break by ordering several pair of the same size. Still, the eyes cost me around $15/pair rather than the $5/pair in the catalog.

[Chevi54]

Thanks everyone for your help. Probably the best thing is to get a book. That way you get painting instructions and full carving steps with photos. Then I guess when you have been in carving for awhile a carver develops a library of reference material.
Thanks for the support.

[Donna_T]

Guess I'll ask a silly question that maybe I missed...are you talking about eyes in birds, animals, or people?

The rule of thumb on people,when you're making a head, the head is five eyes wide and the equivilent of a hand's length (if the heel of the hand is at the bottom of the chin and the fingertips brush the top hairline.) The eyebrow is even (approximately) with the top of the ears and the bottom of the ear (unless you're doing caricatures with exeragerated ears) is even with the bottom of the nose.

You can go on and estimate the proportions of the body by other numbers of hands tall, etc., but I wasn't sure if you wanted critter or people eye sizes.

Donna_T