Monday, October 10, 2005

Progress after a hurdle

For some reason that I don't understand, sometimes the photos just refuse to load. That is why it has been so long between postings. I managed to get this far before it froze up- so I'll add more photos later.
Had a problem with the tail. I'd left it too fat and the ends of the feathers looked very strange. Ruminated on the problem for a couple of days. Looked through all my reference books on technique and figured out how to fix the problem. First, needed to straighten out the tail. Used a compass to orient the tail in the correct direction, then fixed it.



Then I needed to thin the tail a bunch-
loosing all the previous hard work in
the tail area- top and bottom.
But at least I had a good clean slate
and a good idea of how to proceed.
It is a good feeling to feel that I've finally gotten it right.



I used my usual feather definition technique- using a wood burner instead of a power tool. It felt much safer to me. Here the tail feathers have been layered, with the proper overlap and continuity from the top to the bottom sides.




Whew! Glad to have that out of the way- meanwhile, three days had gone by. Time to get serious.



Here some of the 'lumps and bumps' have been carved into the wood. One of the ways to get a lifelike animal is to break up surfaces with various textures. First some major muscle groups were defined, and now the feather groups. the holes have been drilled- a very anxious time- and the legs temporarily fitted to the bird.

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