Carve Your Face Off: A Makeover

Happy New Year everyone!

I covered quite a bit of new ground last year and looking forward to even more in 2012. I decided to look back over some of my not so successful pieces and see if I could do anything to "fix" them. Normally, I would leave what I've completed alone and chalk up the less than successful ones to experience and a reminder of where I have been. But, in this post, I will explore what maybe can be done to fix a carving I'm not happy with and maybe offer up a video show how I did the makeover.

So here is the original pattern and a photo of a finished carving by Will Hayden.

Here is a photo of one of two of these that I carved. It's really not that far off from the original design, but the face isn't right. At least i did not like the way it came out. And no one else did either, judging from the fact that it did not sell over two Christmas seasons on Etsy.

So I decided I didn't have much to loose if I tried to give him a bit of a makeover. I felt the body and feet and skis were fine, so I just wanted to fix the face. Since I left him with quite a large nose, there was enough material to work with. I also decide, since it was to be a Christmas ornament, I could simplify the face by carving the face smooth, simplify the nose and paint on the eyes and mouth.

And here is the result. A very much improved and cuter version of the skier. I now have the confidence to give one or two other carvings a makeover. of course, I'll still leave some of my older carvings alone. It's good to look at them and see how much I have improved in a year.

As I mentioned, I had made two of these and the other one isn't to cute either, so i plan to show the makeover in a video post. later...