[Bo Carver]

This I my 1st post in a long time... compuker died..lol.. I am looking for a pattern for a roadrunner.I have a cuz in tucson that is a coll. art professer and I'm going out on a limb by carving him a roadrunner.. can anyone help me with a PATTERN...
THANKS
bO

[AlArchie]

www.stillerpatterns.com will get you a road runner pattern.

Al

[Bo Carver]

thanks Al found it and ordered 1... any place to get different ones?

[AlArchie]

Bo, I haven't carved more than two birds, and not that well at that, but I do carve fish, and this tip might help with getting some different ideas for your road runner.

I purchased a book of basic fish patterns, about 20 samples, but each pattern only gives you one concept of the subject. I've taken photos of actual fish, and with an opaque projector made actual sketches of these fish from the side. Kind of lost for a top and bottom view, however, so here's where the comercial patterns come in handy. I use a full sized comercial pattern as a "target" to get my projected image the same size. Then I can use the other views of the comercial pattern as my photo sample has now been made to the same size.

You could do the same thing with slide photos.

It gets a little tedious trying to work around a projected image because you have to stand in the way of the light source to do the drawing. To get around this I got an old casement window (well a new one that wasn't up to standards for windows) and mounted that so it stands up vertically. I tape plain old freezer paper to the glass and project the image THROUGH the glass so I can sketch on the oposide side, out of the projector source.

I also made up a 40" light table that allows me to put the drawing on and then cover it with another piece of freezer paper. That way I can change some of the elements of the original drawing to suit my own design. It may be considered cheating by some, but hey, we all can't be design artists.

This combination of the opaque projector and light table allows me to take photographs of anything, transfer them to paper as a line drawing and them make changes to get what I want in a design.

Besides my fish, I have made a large relief carving of the old Ashland Wisconsin Soo Line depot and am working on the #950 decapod steam engine from the same line, by using this method, so the system can be used for just about anything..


You might try this with your road runner, too. If you can find some photos, just project them onto the Stiller pattern and make some adjustments to it to come up with your own individual pattern.

Al

[rick-in-seattle]

This is public domain:

http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/Gesnergallery.htm