I have been wanting to carve this figure ever since I saw the tutorial in Woodcarving Illustrated Fall 2022 issue. In fact since I bought the issue which was only last year as I haven’t been whittling that long! I just never seemed to get round to cutting out the blank. Until yesterday.

I went to cut something else out (more on that another day) and decided that today was the day to cut him out.

Typical me, although I had screen shotted the outline given I had not written down the measurements of the block to be the same as the tutorial. So I just went for a likely looking piece of timber and worked out the proportions on it. It’s massive! It’s waaaaay out of my comfort zone, not sure I’ve carved anything that big before!

So I had to grab another piece of timber and cut the blank out at my more normal size.

Except it was too deep. As I sliced off timber to get to the thickness I wanted I realised I had a lovely flat template to work with. Fab!

Now the question is which one do I carve first?

Thing is I’ve had a little idea about this figure and how I want to change it. I know I haven’t even whittled it once yet but that’s just how my brain works!

I’ll have a bit of a ponder and then get going.

Oooo can’t wait for this!