[fathermenas]

I am trying to carve an eagle. The talons of the feet, however, have turned out too close together. Please see photo attached. What is the best way for me to "undo" this? I do not want to carve deeper (taking away the current feet and recarving them into what is now the base), because I feel the legs will be too long.

A couple options have occurred to me. Any feedback would be welcome:

1) use a little bit of the wood that is now the tail feather located at the outside of each ankle/foot as a new talon, and carve away the middle talon on each foot. Then just carve the tail feathers back a bit on each side. Would the talons look too far apart then, do you think?

2) rebuild around the feet with some kind of plastic wood or epoxy and recarve into that -- if you like this idea, what material would you recommend using? I've never tried to carve any of these. (The eagle is going to be gilded at the end so the color of the material used is not important.)

Any other ideas are also welcome.

Thank you very much.

Fr. Menas

[fathermenas]

I am trying to carve an eagle, but the talons have turned out too close together. Please see attached photo. What is the best way to "undo" this? Carving away the feet and recarving into what is now the base is not an option for me because the legs would be too long. Apart from that, I've had a couple thoughts about what to do. Any feedback you have about these would be welcome.

1) take from the wood of the tail feather which current touches the side of each ankle/foot and make a new talon from it, then carve away the current middle talon on each foot. Do you think the talons would look too far apart then?

2) rebuild the area around the current feet with epoxy or plastic wood or the like and recarve into that. This piece is going to be guilded in the end so the color of the rebuilding material is not important.

Thank you very much for your reaction to these thoughts or for any other suggestions you think would help.

Fr. Menas

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Looking at the pic, the longest talon on the right side (left foot) looks to long and might change the whole perspective if that was made a bit smaller to match the others.....not sure about the feathers alongside the legs, first impression is that it would look better without them, or with more of them? Wait for a real bird carver to come along....lol

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I responded to the author questions post. I should have responded here..as that post is in the wrong place, this is the appropriate thread I think....

[MDWine]

The picture shows up here tho!

[Paul_Guraedy]

I saved your photo onto my computer and then blew it up so that I could get a better look. At first I though of possibilities for changing toe/talon positions. Then I really got to looking at it and used a couple of pieces of paper to cover up the wood on the outside edge of each foot. It looked ok to me. I think that you have a perception/composition problem here more than a foot position problem.

Try printing a copy of the photo and then covering up the wood (I believe it must be in the background) on the outside edges of the feet. Then take a look at the possibility of removing this wood to allow the viewers vision to stop at that point. The toes may be a little close together; but, in reality eagles stand with their feet and toes in a lot of different positions.

Hope this makes sense.

[fathermenas]

Dave and Paul, Thank you both very much for your responses. Both are very helpful. No pun intended, I think they dovetail (by removing some more of the tail feathers it may help eliminate the perception problem Paul notes....). Gratefully, Fr. Menas

[mark yundt]

I have seen many of these on the front of a pulpit or lectern,,,and have carved several myself. Considering the style of the piece,,I don't think you are too far off the mark. True,,the center talons are always the longest,,this can be cured quite simply with some two part putty. As far as anything else goes,,if you do push back the tail feathers as others have suggested it will give greater depth to this areas and make it appear more three dimensional.