The Birdman

On 2007-09-15 21:55, T_birdman wrote:
Hey, don't you all love weekends?? I do, I got to finish the mask I started at Oasis

Way COOL Stuff Birdman. I Really love the finish detail on this first one. EXCELLENT!

myspace

[ Edited by: Benzart 2007-09-19 12:09 ]

Thanks HB Tiki, and you're right about Stand by me, I forgot that one.

Benzart, again praise from one as talented as you sir can't help but motivate me!

I did this little orangewood guy while at work today, everyone suggested i put a "fatty" in his mouth


so I clipped a piece of branch for the overly enthusiastic smokers!

The piece of Rosewood under him was for tomorrows idle time, but I found a crack running through it enough to scrub it till I figure out what to do with it. So tomorrow is a Cocobolo handle blank instead. Wish me luck!

birdman your work is fantastic my friend keep it up

BTW HB Tiki, I liked the one you posted last time and did a lil variation on him with a small piece of Basswood, except I gave him a Bandana and a ponytail too.

Hey folks, I haven't posted anything for a while due to work schedule, but It's not for lack of carving. While on set I found time to pick up various pieces of tree branch, and whatever wood caught my eye. I would carve small tikis just to pass the time, and before too long folks caught on! "Hey Birdman, can you carve one for me??", and the next thing I knew, I made this dumb-ass promise that I would carve one for everyone on the show! Well, the writers strike sort of saved my ass, for now, but I managed to hand out many to folks on set. What I did was carve small tree branches, drill through the center, and string it with leather or hemp rope, and give them away as car mirror tikis. Here are a few examples

I gave away all of the ones done before the writers strike, but still owe the rest of the cast and crew, but can't follow through unless the show gets picked up after the strike is settled. I did give them away on 1 condition, they had to let me take a picture of them with the tiki & they had to make a face that closely resembled the gift! I knew dispensing them out had to be as random as possible, and tried to be fair, giving them out to various departments as evenly as I could. Here are a few examples:

Brendalyn our 2nd-2nd AD

Johnny our Construction foreman

Giovanni our PA

Jimbo a fellow driver

Natalie or Props gal

Rick our Greens guy

Tousant another PA
And many more, but I also did a few masks for some of my Boss's

This is Toni, my Transpo coordinator, she bugged me about everyone else getting tikis but her, so I made her a "Tiki with a 'TUDE".
But one of my favorite co-workers is Danny Rowe, he is the co-captain of the department and one of the nicest dudes I've worked with so he got a lil tiki and a mask that I just finished.


That's all for now, but with the strike putting shows out of business, at least I can make it to a few "Chops" while it lasts, so Buzzy & Billy...save me a few logs! Looking forward to chopping at the Hot Rod gig, if you guys will have me!

The Bird of many excuses!

Hey Birdman, Really happy to see you have been busy carving while you have been away from us. These are some Really cool tikis and masks and the new owners seem to really enjoy them. Hope all goes well with the writers strike for you. Keep up the great work and NICE to see you back..

All right Birdman! Way to make 'em happy. Give them a Tiki! Those are a lot of fun! Hope to see you at the Hot rod Chop next month.

Thanks Ben & Dave! Muchos Gracias!

Haven't put up anything in a while so here are some of the things I've done besides putting the finishing touches on my addition. My son asked me to make one of ME, so here's my attempt at myself, everyone's into the little head thing so I made this one tiny.


And here is a lil collection of the lil' guys from some small tree branches and half pen blanks.


And this Basswood dude got a tat for mom,

the end for now

:lol: Unmistakable!!

Birdman, I love the little keychains.

The pictures of the people posing like their new tiki's put a big smile on my face.

Keep on keepin' on.

That Tiki-Ro-A is freakin' nice! The glasses are wild!

Is that all woodburned detail, paint, stain, or WHAT?

Thanks all, Cam the flames on the glasses were done with red, orange and yellow Sharpie permanent markers and spar varnished over, the teeth with a white acrylic hobby paint I had laying around, the sides were carved lightly and burned over, and the beard is a fine tip on the woodburner. I had to hurry to give it to him because the strike was about to put us out of business, or I might have carved detail into the beard instead, but he loved it, that's what mattered to me at the time. Just an FYI, the palm wood SOAKED up the sharpie ink really well, and made blending the flame colors very easy!

Man you have a ton of great little guys going there
Nice Job on them. Making people smile.

What a fun tour of your work. Very nice.

What's happened to the Birdman? Did he get a new job?

"Habius corpus!"

Where ya at, Bob?!

LOL! Dave, you funny! But not too far from right,I've been on 3 different pilots, 2 features, and recently on a show that spends 6 of 8 shooting days on location, so I've had my hands full and have reverted back to "LURKER" mode due to the need for sleep. Sorry for my absence, it's not for lack of wanting to go to the chops, more like trying to find a balance in work life, family time, carving and poker (not necessarily in that order, but close!). But just to show you I haven't been that much of a slacker, here are some I have in my lil guy stash box.

of course, my trademark "Tiki's with a tail"

this pic has a walking stick to the left that I carved for my 9 year old son who has taken several hikes with his friends in the Sierra club.

and I took this past week off to spend some of the dough I made over the past 6 months, but did find some time to strip some logs I've been trying to dry out over the past few months, and carved this lil log for a friend (who has been bugging me for a tiki!)

it's not done yet, still some sanding, tats, paint, and a finish but working on it as I'm playing in a freeroll tourney and watching "Rio Bravo" in my garage! Just call me Mr Multi-tasker!

And as a side note, I'll be trying to figure out if our shooting schedule will allow me to make it down for the Oasis, but can't make any promises. Anyway, I have been scanning through all the TC e-mails everyday, but haven't sent out any flowers because I use the "Columbus" method of typing (seek and find) which takes forever to try to reply to the sea of postings here, but rest assured, I'm lurking!!
The Birdman!

Yay Birdman! Those lil' guys are great! Good to see that you are still carvin'. Don't be workin' too hard now!

OK, out of the shadows, I sneak out again to post a few lil' guys for your opinions and scutiny. I apologize once again for being a lurker here, but when you're working 19 1/2 hour days it's hard to balance "Life", which by the way is the show I'm currently working on, Wednesdays on NBC, please watch! I have 3 lil' guy offerings today, all to be gifts for fellow co-workers on the show, one was a request by a co-worker to parody another fellow Teamster. I didn't do any progress shots of anything, my camera fell out of my backpack and did a header down some concrete steps so I'm using the wifes camera.

Here are the first 2 which I'm giving to the Captain & Co-captain of the show for being so very cool and allowing me to work on the show.



These were carved during down time on the show, mounted on some slabs of various rock I cut on my tile saw and polished, then drilled to screw the tiki to the rock base with felt buttons below. Hardly a fitting gift for the amount of work they have given me but it will at least let them know I apprieciate it. Of course they will have to pose with the gift making the face on it in order to receive the lil' guy, that will be tomorrow.

But the third one was a request as I stated before, to parody our Production truck operator, Donny. It was to look like him with tiki-like features, and to have, Ahem, certain required appendages, intended to embarass him. I found a small stick that that had a smaller branch pointing outwards that looked so natural I couldn't see looking any futher. I was hoping to finish it up quickly, but as I was carving into it I found it had been under attack by termites! No problem, just use a little wood filler here and there, good to go! But as it went on, I wasn't happy with how it was turning out, and how to cover up the wood filler properly. I found I had to use more paint than I wanted to, but it was needed to cover up the filler, so I used flesh color for skin areas, gave it panties, a garter belt, and stockings! The Pictures are crappy, but there is also a small tattoo on the ass "T-Hunter" because he likes to hassle the tranny's on Santa Monica Blvd when they have been on location there. So, here it is, lil' Donny with his acceptance pic from the other day.

That's it for now, I've got to be at Universal @ 4:00 am so I'm out! Hope ah kin' make it to th' trailah chop, sho have missed yall! Bye!!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Birdman, Do you have time to breath within all that carving going on:)? The last one's "face" is a perfect match he looks great. Keep up the great work. Happy Carving! (Just a suggestion, color on the base and figure conflict. A dark base would bring your eye back to the figure instead of fighting for attention. Maybe dark walnut with a flat or satin stain?) He is funny though!:lol:

Dave, glad you approve (I think?).
Tikilizard, thanks, the rock base was used on that one due to time constraints and the other ones matched the wood much better.
Here are the acceptance pics from today, Guy the Captain has chosen the wide-eyed skull dude...

And Paul (PJ) the co-Captain has chosen the tight-faced grin...

That's it for now!

More Col stuff Birdman, Don't be such a stranger'round here, you KNOW we Love yer stuff

On 2008-11-04 17:05, Benzart wrote:
More Col stuff Birdman, Don't be such a stranger'round here, you KNOW we Love yer stuff

What Benz said!