[Irishman]

That's quite a change from your first carving you showed us. He sort of has a Jamican thing going on now with the large dreadlocks. Once you put the eyes in I'd say your pretty well finished. Well done.
Patrick

[Scott Hagerty]

I like the progress so far with the reshaping of the eyes. There is a picture of a side view of an eye in my tutorial on eyes. I tried to repost it here but alas, the infernal machine won't let me. I can't figure out how to rename it to make it work.

Try not to let the bottom eyelid get too low on the eye mound, it will look like he is eternally surprised. I don't know if the ugly guy in the pic will be much help. If you look at the dark circles around my eyes it will give you an idea of how low on the face the eye bags go. The mirror can be your friend.

[doris]

yes, these eyemounds look fine, i think you maybe could go even more touch deeper at the corners, but cant tell realy from the fotos. they really need look round, not a hint flat... trust your instinct here...then put the eyes. nice going. wonderful change in the carving

[BRIAN D]

Butch, First of all I think it's a good carving, the only thing I see is if you look at a side view of your first carving where the forehead, nose & eyes are height wise to each other, now go to your second & then study a family member I think you will see your answer. Hope it helps. Have fun! Were all learning. Brian D

[twoclones]

I agree that it's about time to wrap this oak-face up and seal it with something nice. What I immediately noticed in Scott's photo is his eye's iris is coalesced with both the top and bottom lid. I hadn't made note of that before but will from now on.

I tried comparing the carving profile with the profile of family members but it wasn't much help since all of my family members are wood carvings.

What I see is that next time I need to start by going much deeper when cutting that initial line from the tip to the bridge of the nose. I'm thinking this would help to get other details right on the first try as well. Today I'll carve the eyes, clean up some lines and hollow the back to reduce the weight for hanging on a wall. At the moment, he weighs 25#.

Butch
Great Heron @ http://www.woodhacker.com/heron-1.html

[twoclones]

Other things got in the way so I didn't finish Oak Face but I did manage to give him some eyes. Note the black mark below the eye on left side of photo... My Flexcut tools leave these all too often.

[doris]

yes, these are very nice eyes. great improvement :-)... what is this black mark, stropping compound ?i never get these with my tools

[twoclones]

Not compound. Flexcut tools come with a black coating, over the entire tool shaft, which leaves these marks. Guess I need to take my tools to the buffing wheel and clean off that coating.

I have made a command decision about my tools. I will soon buy all Dastra tools to replace my Flexcut mallet tools. Flexcut are good but they don't make the assortment of profiles I want and I prefer to have a matched set.

[Keoma]

well I'll tell you what! I loved this guy from the first picture! He looked sleepy and oh so exhausted! This wood spirit has been busy! He looks old and haggard...busy watching over new forest seedlings perhaps? Thank you for sharing your work with us - it is quite wonderful!

[Keoma]

P.S...I like your MOONS!