Post #538709 by BigAndyB on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 11:25 AM

hey again tiki headz! thought i'd share my newest tiki and another work-in-progress :D

made this guy for my lil sis's birthday over the last couple of days. he's carved from a gum tree log, i think it's eucalyptus.. i have quite a few of these left over.. i noticed that before i started carving the log had started to split like crazy, so decided to use it for practicing with the chainsaw.. the features have ended up a lot smaller than i originally planned, due to my lack of control with the chainsaw, and trying to balance his face out again with the chisels after, but i think he has turned out pretty cool :D
so once i had him carved, i designed a maori-style moko and burned it on with the soldering iron, then set a bonfire going and rolled him around in it for a while to give him a smokey old look to him.. the cracks that have formed from the log drying out help give him the old look too, which i like :)

i wanted some contrast between his different features so i used some stain on his body, nose, mouth and eyes.. the stain turned out a lot darker than i anticipated, i wanted to keep it quite subtle colour contrast, but my sister said she really likes it with the high contrast so that was a relief.. :D im very glad she likes it :D i do myself now, he just ended up a bit different than i had in mind..

i'm thinking i will need to treat the wood to keep some moisture in, so it doesn't split too much more.. any advice on that would be appreciated :) anyway, here he is:

heres a couple of progress shots of another carving i've been working on..,

i've had to keep gluing bits back on which is a pain, but he'll get there..