First Carving Attempt.Greetings from Greece!

First of all, nice to meet you all!I have been visiting regularly the site and i can surely say that there is a lot of dedication and passion in here!

A couple of months ago i tried carving my first piece which decided to be a moai.
I finished carving it with a set of a relatively cheap but effective set of chisels.
I stained but recently i bought a dremel so i decided to get rid of the old stain and sand the surface again to be done correctly and to look better as it should (in the first time hand sanding didn't help that much or my patience was not enough :))

So...here the result for the time being.Just thinking about the stain right now.I do have searched numerous times in the forum but you know i have found more than enough information to just choose one.I think experience would help.
ANyway, i am thinking about using 3-4 coats of teak oil to get a darker look.

I forgot to mention the wood i worked on was a piece of Eucalyptus which is easily found in my region in Greece (contrary to palm tress haha).Notice that the moai has a huge crack which i covered somehow because my enthusiasm could not make me wait until the wood drained completely.

SO..
I am waiting for your comments and really really nice to meeting you all.

Welcome glad you wrote in. This guy is great!
Im impressed for a first carve.

Don't fret the crack we all have cracks.

Sweet carve shishead. btw, what does your name mean?
You could try linseed oil as well.

Aloha friend!

You have carved a very nice Moai! I like the lips on this fella. It is a very good interpretation of the Moai.
JT's right, linseed would look nice, but so would teak oil. Eucalyptus has some very nice grain patterns in it and they will become more pronounced with staining.

I'm impressed you got such nice deep cuts with the Eucalyptus, especially for your first carving . Euc. is a hard wood that eats up your chisels! I'm sure you got pretty good at sharpening them! You may be able to find some softerwoods to carve with.

Eucalyptus also has a tendency to crack - so you may see more as it completely dries out. I think cracks add age and character to a tiki, so I wouldn't worry about them to much.

Nice job and welcome to TC. Be sure to post a pic when you get him all stained up and finished!

wow great piece for a first time. cracks happen all the time, just the wood telling you that you hit it to hard. don't think there is a single piece i've carved that isn't cracked either from my carve or from the wood on it's own. keep it up.

bd