Poll: Dragonstaff; Burn, Carve or both?

[dproman]

I know that this project is a long way from the "details" stage, but I was wondering if I should carve or burn or a little of both. Details meaning: (1) Scales, (2) Muscle Structure, (3) Claws & Teeth. I don't want the staff to look "busy". I am leaning toward a little of both, but I'm not sure which should be which.

Thank You for any and all suggestions!
-Dave

[AlArchie]

Dave, there are just so many ways to go with an answer to your question, and a lot depends on exactly where you want to go with this walking stick, aside from down the trail!

You can, of course carve away to your heart's content. Now, about the burns......especially on walking sticks, which generally have fairly small diameters, burning in your stop cuts instead of going at them with a knife or gouge can prove a lot more easy and effective. The downside??? is that you ar left with a burned stop cut edge. I put the ??? marks there, because if you are going to paint or stain, these burned areas create little "dams" to stop color bleed over.

Then whichever route you chose to go.....paint or not to paint, pyrography can be used to enhance the visual effect of the entire carving. This can be judiciuous or bold, but be sure of which way you want to go before barging ahead in either phase.

You can use the burner to give you very subtle shadings or use it to boldly emphasise element of the carving.

If you use the burner to outline specific areas, you can apply thinned acrylic, watercolor or even oil or water stain and feel safe that they will be contained within the burned perimeters.

You might try some of these techniques on a sample board before you go ahead, but any one of these can give you quite spectacular results.

Al

[squbrigg]

The more shaping you do will show up when you detail and burn, I have found. When you decide on the shape of the surface scales, they will jump out more if they are both carved and burned. It is a lot of effort, but worth it. The more dragons you do, the better you'll get at them. Have fun with it.

Bob

[dproman]

Thank You Al and Bob,
Great minds think alike. The suggestions you made, I had thought about, but I wasn't sure that they'd work. Thank you very much for the encouragement and inspiration. I will post picture updates from time to time to help you monitor my (albeit slow) progress.
Thanks again,
Dave