[Juhani]

Here is a pic of my first attempt at a chickadee. Feel free to let me know what you think.

[Hugh]

Hi Robert, that is a very nice Chickadee. You have done a clean neat job of presenting the bird. For your first attempt your to be commended. When carving any bird, the best tool you can use is reference. My own preference for carving a bird, is to have it looking the viewer straight in the eye. Its what I like best about people, and have tried to do that with carvings. Good job.

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Nice carving. My only suggestions would be to repaint the feet to a more natural looking greyish brown. Those light colored claws look like it's been to the nail salon. ALso, put it on a nice base. Although it looks fine without one it will look a lot better with one.

[squbrigg]

Well done on your first Chickadee! Hope to see many more of your carvings in the future. We learn by doing so practice, practice, practice.

Bob

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I think you did a good job, but think the eye should be bigger, maybe almost twice that size? In colorado, we would go out the back door and chickadees would land on our finger wanting peanuts lol....love those little birds!

[Juhani]

I thought I would let you know my thoughts on the comments so far. Positioning of the bird was made as it will be displayed from a higher shelf....dont know if this is good reasoning or not but thats what my rookie idea was. The eyes where bought as the recommended size for a chickadee. Maybe the bird is a little big...I do know that it looks a little fat in places! As for the legs and claws I for some reason totally forgot to look at anything in regards to them and didn't even think about them.....next time I will be more diligent in my studies! They are easy enough to change now so I will do that. Base wise....I fought with this and finally decided to leave it as it was...I couldn't figure out what would be the right size to make for the base....as in how big is too big and how small is too small...circle...oval...and so on. I just never came up with anything I liked so I just left it. Thanks for the responses as it does make me think a little more about the next one which my wife claimed already before its started. This one goes to her grandmother as a belated christmas gift.