Fast Face Tutorial 2.1

 I originally published this tutorial online in 1997 on the New England Wood Carvers website and recently I have noticed versions of it missing the attribution.  The tutorial was removed around the time I turned the site over to the person who maintained it after me.

Since the original posting, golfball carving came into vogue and this technique works with those as well.

It's added here for the benefit of anyone to use.  

Cut a 1.25" long piece of 1x1 in half diagonally for your blank.

Use a coping or bandsaw to first remove the corners then to make two stop cuts to divide the face into thirds.

From now on we will use only the carving knife. Take your knife and cut up to the stop cuts: First from the bottom of what will be the nose to the eyebrows, Second from the mouth area up to the nose.

Now remove a chip from the forehead and the chin.

Remove a chip from either side of the nose to define the eyebrow.

Remove a chip from either side of the mouth to define the top of the mustache.

Make a V cut from the end of the eyebrow to the middle of that side of the mustache.  Do the same on the other side.  This is accomplished best with a v-tool.

Make a curved V cut to define the bottom of the mustache.  Again, a v-tool  would make this easier.

Define the fur rim of that  hat with two more V cuts and round the top of the hat.

Two more V cuts one on each side to define the nose.

Take a triangular chip out of the bottom of the face where the mustache, nose, and beard meet.  Recess the eyes a bit.

Surface the beard and the fur trim on the hat and you're done!

Copyright Robin Edward Trudel, 1997, 2023