One of Gene's Bears... Almost!

[Eddy-Smiles]

I received my CD's from Bob this week and decided to try one of Gene's bears as my first lesson. While similar to the other bears that I carve it is different in that not only is it 1/3 the size but the entire shape is roughed out using only a knife whereas I usually cheat using a scroll and hand saw. I felt like I was going to school and learning from scratch all over again...as the results may indicate...

The first mistake that I made was that when I went out to the shed to cut the blanks (I only have 1-3/8" x 8 and 10" boards) I made each of the 14-blanks that I cut out 4" instead of the 4-1/2" long as specified by Gene in his video. Chalk it up to my selective hearing, my wife says that I'm deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other.

Anyway, the resulting bear will from this point on be nicknamed "stubby" or perhaps, "shortstuff" because he's all belly and has no legs! No big deal. I still managed to give him a tail and two feet!

Gene's tutorial is a great teaching tool and having it play on the computer while I carved really worked out well because I could pause or back up or just let it run and repeat itself depending where I was and how long it took me to do a particular step.

Here is the bear prior to painting... Gene, if you've got any comments or suggestions I'd love to hear them! Be honest...I've got thick skin! I can tell you that for as many bears as I've carved what I was doing sure didn't look as easy as what you were doing!

I'll post the finished project painted when I get it done.

[carvedbears61]

How do I get a cd of Genes.

[Joy]

I like the way the tail and back legs are formed. That's neat. Cute bear. Of course, if it was me carving I would have every plane rounded.....my brain just can't keep from sending rounding impulses to my hand.

[Eddy-Smiles]

Carvedbears.... Check out this thread. All the info is there. BobT is a Saint!
Gene Messer DVD or CD Videos

[Eddy-Smiles]

Joy.... Don't be fooled. My knife has a round spot on it also. If it looks flat plane then the photo really doesn't do it justice. It's very difficult for me to leave something angular...I'm trying but........

[gene-messer]

Eddy .. you did good .. maybe round the back off a little bit .. it's hard to tell .. but from the photos.. the back looks a liitle too flat .. but it's hard to tell in the pictures ..

otherwise .. he looks good .. you did well on the face ..

Thanks for trying Eddy ..

Gene

[Eddy-Smiles]

Gene...

I wondered about that and the cupping of the ears. How do you round the back off when you only allow 3/16" for the ears and the back is actually the flat part of the stock. I'm not sure whether it's my eye sight or perhaps some degradation in down loading and coping your original video to a CD but it was hard to see some of the finer details. That's why I made the request that I did in my PM. Fortunately, you verbal directions are crystal clear and as you can see I think I was about 90% successful... now all I have to do is find out where I put my hearing aid batteries and get that hearing aid working then I'll have no more excuses!

[Sharon of the Dell]

Another cute one, Eddy! Like his fat little gut and stubby legs! Looks like a few people I know!LOL

[Eddy-Smiles]

Thanks Sharon!... I think I need to sign him up for Jenny Craig!

[Eddy-Smiles]

We'll, here's the finished product... To tell you the truth it looks better in real life, but then I guess that's what all us guys say! Anyway, I deffinitely see where I can make some improvements and with 13-blanks left I've got plenty wood to work with.