Environment / base questions

[Jammy]

Hey all,

This is my second attempt at carving. My first was a rainbow trout, second is a grizzly bear and my attempt/idea is to have it looking into a stream at some salmon.

I got the bear shaped and textured and started burning the fur before my class ended. I haven't purchased a burner for home use yet, so at the moment I'm working on the base/environment.

Being that my class is over until September, I hope that some of you may have references or ideas on where I can look for ideas regarding the base.

I need to figure out, or find some photos of, how to carve the grass on the side of the banks of the stream.

I can see it in my head and I believe the wood wants to let it out too .

Any links or suggestions in "environment" books I could look into purchasing that explains how to carve things other than your main subject?

Thanks for any suggestions you might have.

[Orygoner]

You might try searching the photo sites like Flickr or pbase to pull up the bewildering array of available bear photos (brown or grizzly). They will show lots of habitat in addition to the bears. Another site is naturescapes.net (go to the wildlife forum).

As to how to actually make the habitat you decide upon, I'm not sure I've got any really good help. I subscribe to Wildfowl Carving Magazine and they have good articles on creating habitat from time to time. I've seen several books on carving that have sections on habitat, but have not seen a book dedicated to habitat. Try searching this forum and/or a Google search. Check the carving and taxidermy supply stores online for habitat materials.

That said, rocks are fairly easy to create...any shape you want from smooth river rock to ledge-type bedrock. I've seen some nice grass done with finely split bamboo. Depending on scale, grass/leaf material can be made from brass sheeting, brown grocery bags, etc. Stems, branches, small scale logs can be made from brass rod covered with epoxy and painted. At toy and hobby stores check out the toy Railroad depts for the store bought habitat making materials too.

Anyhow... that's about all the ramble I can come up with right now. Gotta go take some photos of a bunch of wigeons I discovered yesterday.

[Jammy]

Thanks for the suggestions Randy! Much appreciated.