Curly Hair

[Alice in Wonderland]

We have talked about this before "how to carve hair" but the hair I would like to carve is curly, we have talked about straight ,soft and wavy hair, but I would like to carve a tight curl,not Afro either, a chignon of firm curls.
This is about as good as it gets of my explanation, did I say this right?lol
Any suggestions how to go about it?
Thanks in advance
Alice

[doris]

like this
http://home.arcor.de/berzelmayr/riemenschneider2.jpg
or like the beards in this
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/...ider-Altar.jpg
??
if not, can you give a picture, then i can try explain, or show how i would approach it

[Coffeeman]

Doris,

an explanation of either of those two curly hair examples would be much appreciated by myself and i'm sure a few others. Bill

[Alice in Wonderland]

Hi Doris
thanks for the pictures ,both are pretty close I would say if you take the Riemenschneider and put the hair into a chignon it would look alright "my girl " is holding her hair back with one hand and it sort of falls from there over her shoulder in that type of curl.
Thanks for your reply ( I knew you would help) :-)))))
Alice

[doris]

ok, i see what i can do for explanation, i think i will carve a sample and show steps, give me a day or so...

[doris]

hi alice, i made some fotos with text how i approach carving such curl... the images and explanation i will give, show my process for every thing i want carve and not know how to do it, so maybe the sequence is of more general interest too... i will try to work more organised than i usually do, in order to make the single steps more clearly ,,, (btw, i have carved similar curls, but not these yet, so its really fun to make them :-)

the most important in project is the first step : first step is do research to get the knowledge how it really looks what you want carve... so, we want carve curls like on those two riemenschneider pics (i have seen the altarpiece in real ! the curls are simply wonderful !!), and we want them appear as they would come out of a chignon ....

pic 1 : ok, first for learning how these curls are carved, i look the 2 images closely, and copy some curls in simplified way, this gives me idea, that the curls are build of 2 parts, namely a cylinderpart at the bottom, the actual curl, and a wavy strip like part leading to curl. this simple object is turned into a curl, by carving (or drawing) grooves along the length (and optionally) round off the single strands then... so, we now know what a curl is.

pic 2 : now that i know the basic structure i make a sketch how the curl would fit in my project. i drew the backside of head, the hand reaching into the hair, and only 2 strands of curls flowing out of the hand (or chignon), i indicated that i would carve the hair leading into the chignon into a wavy pattern, as to indicate the hair is made of strong curls, but in this area thightend to waves... if i were carve it i would make more strands of curls, but for the demo i chose to make just 2...

pic 3 : formerly, i would have made several detailed drawings of what i want carve, but now i do a quick clay model. i roll several thin cylinders

pic 4 : and form them like in the drawings : the left is more like riemenschneider carved the curls, i made it by first taking 5 rolls and put them flat together and pressed them a little together so they form a long flat ribbon made of 5 rolls, then i shaped it into the curl...the right hand one is simply 2, and in lowerpart 3 strands, and should be easier to carve. also, i made the curl area somewhat different to add a little fun ;-)

pic 5 : arranged the 2 curls together on a ball of clay (=chignon) as indicated in the drawing in pic2

[doris]

pic 6 : sideview showing how very deep this curl is !! as we want carve it, we will do some simplifications, we dont want do undercuts that deep in difficult to reach areas, but we only want give the impression of a curl...we will do undercuts when it is absolutely necessary to give the desired illlusion, but otherwise avoid them, as they only weaken the wood then

pic 7 : i draw directly on wood the curls, i use the model as guide, but not attempt to copy it really, ,,, and then outline in red where i want carve away wastewood. ... on the head, i would have left a boxy area on the back of head which contains the curl, and on the top of that boxy area i would draw the curls...

pic 8 : cut away the outside waste wood in the depth needed (which i measured from the model) instead of cutting down all the way the marked red area, which is pretty tight i do so :

pic 9 : i marked in black which areas need be considerably lower and about how low, and i will remove that first. i marked 4 points of the red curve that is the right side of the small redmarked area, and noted horizontal distances from the lefthand side curve. using these, i will later be easily able to redraw that curve

pic 10 : i have cut down the area marked in the previous pic, and redraw the red curve (you see 2 crosses which i found with the distances i mentioned in pic 9. and i marked how to cut the sphere on top

[doris]

pic 11 : shows these cuttings done.... i made a beginner mistake : i have not checked previously if my dessign can be carved exactely as i wished with my tools : i have designed that deep curl, from which i now have removed the inner circle wood, but i cannot go as deep as i need, since i have no bend tools to clean the deep floor...so, i leave it as that, it is pretty deep, and maybe later when the surrondings go down more, i can carve it to the depth i wanted originally....

it does take longer than i thought it will (as laways ;-)), so the next installment will be tomorrow ;-)

oh, btw,alice, if there is something you want see in particular, please let me know so that i can make fotos when doing it...

[schaf]

Thanks Doris and thanks Alice for asking the question.
What a great lesson in carving. Good text with good photos make it so easy to follow and understand.
I am looking forward to the next installment.

Regards
Terry

[Alice in Wonderland]

Doris as always you are coming through with an solution Thank You.
I will print it out so I have it in front of me, but it is excactly as I visioned it, now I have to follow through with it. The wood is Poplar and the piece about
45+45cm and about 10cm deep. I really appreciate the time you are taking to do this and so accurate, I can not even draw a straight line?lol
Right now I am just sitting here and hold my breath since we are in a midst of a blizzard I hope we are not losing power ,since we live totally on Hydro and it means ,no heat or water and it is right now 25-.
Talk to you tomorrow
Alice