Drawing wings feathers on birds

how do you draw feathers on bird before you carve them.

[Colin-Partridge]

Ed,
I usually use a pencil LOL . All kidding aside I dont think that a bird or any other carving is any different I usually draw the lines on with a fine pencil but then I am not a bird carver. With my carvings I find with pencil I can either sand them off once I have finished or as I like to do is use a knife and remove them on the final phase as I seldom ever sand any of my carvings.
Colin

[Donna_T]

Ed,
I'm not an expert bird carver, but rather a wannabe. Â*From my experience, a pencil is a very useful carving tool. Â*When carving a bird, I'm constantly redrawing the centerline and major feather groups---then working the markings away as I refine the body. Â*I've learned however, that most of my hard feather groups are not carved in, but rather burned in so that the depth of each 'step down' to the next feather is so small that it is hardly observable. Â*You do that by drawing the feather lines on, the lightly burning around them. Â*The on the lines separating feathers, turn your burner tip nearly on its side to compress (taper) the edge of the wood on the next feather. Â*Yes, you can shave some of the wood away, or sand some of it away, but you want it to be a VERY SMALL grade change.

It's hard to describe. Â*But it works. Â*When I first started trying to do birds, I carved each feather. Â*And some were much thicker than I wanted them with thick edges. Â*I took a couple of intermediate level classes and this is how they cured me of carving the feathers.

Try it! Â*It's an awesome effect.
Donna T

[santagibbs]

Thanks Donna for your detailed instructions on the bird feathers. Curtis has a lot of birds that he has finished except the feathers.. even has the eyes put in. Maybe I can try and burn the feathers now... Charlotte

[jamesfa]

do you have a pattern you are using,if so photo copy it several times and then cut out the major feather groups by placing the major groups on your carving you can transfer these to the carving. 'with a pencil'.you might have to play with the feather lines as your photocopy is flat and your carving is rounded.another way is to photocopy major feather groups to transperant film and then use to copy lines to your carving .once your satisfied with the results you can then carve or burn each individual feather.

[David_Aaron_Sercel]

Ed,

I usually draw them in with a pencil prior to carving or burning.
In addition to the feather layout, I draw in splits and shade in
the contours and any other details that I may want. This helps
me visualize more what I want. On my website, as part of a larger
demonstration, I have some photos and a discription of how I put
in feathers. If it would be helpful, here is a link to the page where
I start the feathers(it is about half way through the demonstration).

http://www.jaminmark.com/das/process8.html

On feather layout: All birds have the same feather groups no matter
what the species, varying only in size and shape of the individual
feathers. For instance, all birds have three tertial feathers.

You will have to look at reference for an individual bird to get the
specific feather size and shape, but here are a couple of sketches
I have done of the feather layout of a folded wing and an opened
wing.

Folded wing:


Open wing:


Notice that the middle secondary coverts are stacked in the oposite
direction from the greater secondary coverts.

Hope this helps,
David

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Great info Dave! also an excellent tutorial on your site, thanks! Dave (ps good name! lol)

[Kenny_S]

Great step by step tutorial Dave S. Thanks for sharing. Great Bird also. Like the drift wood or as I call it found wood..