Shirtman's third Tiki is done! Sept 30.

Its been a while since I posted any new work. Been super busy but I managed to start a new one last week. I bought 4 new gouges. What a difference good tools make.

Anyways here's my progress thus far.

Where he stands tonight.

Here is some eye candy from San Diego.
It almost looks fake. I feel privileged to have witnessed it.

i'll post more pics as I progress.

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More pix pls!

After seeing your last two... I have a feeling I'm going to love this guy~!!!
I love how straight and clean your cuts look.. really nice..
Looking forward to your next pictures..

[ Edited by: Beachbumz 2010-02-26 22:38 ]

Thanks Beachbumz. I made a little more progress and started in on roughing in the head dress.

I managed to do a few cuts with my chainsaw Saturday buty had a little mishap. I was getting ready to dig in for some detail work and stropped my gouge to sharpen it up a bit. Moments after I sat down to get to work I managed to insert the corner of my #2 gouge into the tip of my middle finger. It happened in the blink of an eye and although it wasn't too painful, it was deep and I must have hit a vain or something because I started bleeding like a leaky faucet. Once the bleeding stopped and I was able to clean it up it didnt look as bad as I thought it would be at first. It probably could have used a stitch or two but a butterfly bandage worked I think it will heal up reasonably quick but I'm bummed because I didn't get to carve for the rest of the weekend as my finger is pretty tender.

This is about as far as I got before sticking myself. I think he has potential to be pretty cool but I'm second guessing myself on how to do his back side.

Dont click link if you're squeamish and remember to be careful with sharp objects.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p204/sdshirtman/IMG_7957.jpg

Lono looks Great now that it's been fed! You need to feed your tikis more often but something Other than human blood. They might get addicted to that an you will find soon that carving with no fingertips is difficult! :o

"Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever" :lol:

Nice progress shots Shirtman, looks like it will be a beaut.

Man! That is looking smooooth. It's worth it.

SHIRTMAN!!!!! this ones lookin sweeeet!!!! smooth as a babys ass on a summers day!!! looks like a nice log too!!! cant wait!! p.s.hold on to them fingers!!!! cheerz!!

You are the perfect example of measure once and cut,Oh wait whatever> I wish I had the patieance and a knack for spelling. looks awesome!!

Its been two weeks and my finger is healing nicely and is good enough to spend some more time on this guy.
Here's the latest.

His top is pretty much done minus some serious sanding when he dries out a little more. I ran into a bunch of pink moldy
sections on top which kind of sucks. I've been spraying it with a bleach solution to try and kill it and prevent it from spreading any further.
I'm thinking I should have done this on a taller log but no turning back now. This was kind of inspired from a few different tiki's I've seen here.
I was wanting to do something a little more traditional but think I kind of wound up with something a little more modern. Whatever.

Teeth are finished. I was thinking of trying to carve a little curl into the sides of his tongue but I didnt think I had enough room. We'll see.

Cancer log. I think it will be OK once its stained.

Here's the side view. I have a sketch I'm working from but its not really working for me anymore now that I'm seeing it in the real world. I cant decide weather to do just eye slits of carve something a bit more detailed or just leave the eyes the way they are.
I'm also really kind of puzzled as to how to do the sides to the back now too. Maybe a triangular shape sloping back and tapering down.
Anyone want to weigh in with an opinion?

Thanks for lookin.

sdshirtman this guys lookin great!!! Way to go deep on that headress!!!!! Wow!!! As for the eye details don't do any thing till you get further along he will tlk to you eventually! As for transisting fro side to back I changed my design 3 times on my most recent guy!! The only good way of helpin yah wld be yo tell yah how I doit. I draw w a thick pencil or just sumthin easy to erase sand it off and try again till I see sumthin that trips my tiki!!! And lookin at lots of pics of others to get ideas. Good luck my friend!!! Cheerz!!!!!!!

I say keep carvin' some detailed stuff. I have one where I let the lower part just be, and have always regretted it. They say, do the BEST you can do on all your pieces. In the art world, your portfolio, you're only as good as your worst piece!!
Awesome so far, your after my heart with the nice rounded, sanded look. Too bad about the rot, he looks like he's got the measles. :)

Nice work for the hairdress...

J.

Looks great, so tight!

Yer stuff is always smooooooth as a baby's but. Really nice.

Way Excellent Stuff Shirtman! Great crisp detail. Nice sanded smooth contours and a great fullness makes this guy Incredible.

THE DRAMA!
Nice one, Shirtman!

Bowie

Very nice! You have put allot of work into this and it shows.

Well its been a while since I've updated because I haven't done much carving lately. I lost my Father to cancer on April 29th and I just haven't really felt like it.

That being said you cant grieve forever and life goes on so I've picked the tools back up and I've finally made a little more progress. I plan on finishing this guy in the next 3-4 weeks if possible.
I managed to rough in his body. I still have to do some fixing on the sides and come up with a back design before I can start sanding and finishing. I think some of you guys have completed 4-5 carves since I've started this one.

I really wish I wouldnt have carved the back of his eye the way I did. Its putting a serious damper on how I want to finish him now.
Oh well. I'll just have to work around it.

I cant wait to see how he turns out after I do some details around his headdress.

I hope to do some work on his feet this Sunday. Thanks for looking.

Nice clean carve...I think the eyes are gonna look just fine!
Sorry about the loss of your father....thanks for posting an update.
Nice Tiki!

Outstanding carve! I'm going to hold you to this quality from here on out.
That headdress is no easy feat! Well done.

Still looks as good as new, your doing a great job. My condolences.

Congatiki, Seeksurf, Drasticwagon, thanks for the positive comments. Cant wait to get him finished.

Outstanding!! Looks perfecto, so far. And you're gonna do more to improve it? Yikes, it's gonna look awesome.

That's quite impressive, I must say.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-07-10 16:57 ]

I like it! What I like about it (not that you asked), is that it's so smooth, and different, all the while being very traditional and the same

Very sorry for your lost, sending you a lot of Aloha. glad you are carving again, you are talented that's for sure.

great carving, looks great

Wow shirtman, Excellent detail on this one. I'm amazed at how clean and crisp you have this guy.

Thanks for all the comments. They mean a lot to me.
I've been a little distracted from my carve lately as I've taken on another project I've always wanted to do. Building a guitar.
Its sucking up all my free time and I can tell already that its going to take over my tiki carving career. At least for now. For me the payoff in the end is going to be better. I can spend 100+ hours on a tiki and its not worth nearly as much monetarily as a guitar with the same hours in it. My wife is starting to ride me about ignoring my tiki carving though so I'm going to try and get some work in this weekend. The end is near though. I just have to finish the back and carve in some detail on his feet (and a few other things. I'm looking forward to burning this guy and staining him though.

I should have an update soon.

Get back and finish the fella! Im siding with your wife here.

Hello all Its been a few months. I was hoping to meet some of you at Tiki Oasis. It was in my own backyard but I couldnt make it. Maybe next year.

I managed to find some time to work on my fella a bit more. This one is taking a lot longer then I expected. I hope to have him done by the end of September though. We'll see. Pics were taken with my phone so excuse the quality.

I'm starting in with some details. He ended up troll feet. Kinda weird.

With feet like that, he looks like a Menehune, the Hawaiian Trolls! :lol: Great job so far!

Beautiful carve, great details, I like the way you "re-worked" the eyes.

Really looking Great Shirts, Love the facial details and the diamond eyes. This one is gonna be Killer.

After some minor finishing set backs my third tiki is finally finished. Boy did he take a long time.
I did some sanding and touch up staining to fix some of the really bad parts of the spar accident I had.
In the end I said the hell with it. He's just going to sit in the back yard and weather anyways.

I stained this one a little differently using a coat of golden oak minwax then going over certain spots with
different colored water based wood dyes.
I know some of you are going to say I should have left him simple like the he is in the next picture.
This is after the first coat of stain.

A little colored dye. I was kinda second guessing myself here.

I ended up using semi gloss spar vs. satin this time.

With this one complete I think I'm taking an indefinite hiatus from carving tiki's.

Ya know what, I LIKE the different stains! It's not garish or anything, the colors all work together. I think that guy came out great, especially considering the problems you had. Good job!

What's up with the indefinite hiatus?

Clean design,great finish,very nice work!

You had me scared for a minute with that yellow dye but the varnish really toned it down beautifully. I LIKE the feet, especially after they were defined with the stain, a little different take from everyone else's tiki. Overall I'd say it's first rate!

wow, that is awesome work. I can see you must put a ton of time into snading and the fine details. Very nice!

Excellent work Shirtman, I'm Really impressed with the whole design and the amount of detail you put into it and Mostly how you took the extra time to clean and finish all the little nooks and cranneys everywhere,, Impeccible work!

I just realized I capitalized "LIKE" just LIKE 4WDT did and now I feel LIKE a DORK! :lol:

Wow, such clean lines, fun design, and really nice finish. Troll Tiki turned out great. GROG hope your carving hiatus isn't too indefinite. GROG looking forward to seeing more of your carvings.

BEAUTIFUL!

Atomic Tiki Punk, MadDogMike, claq50, Benzart, GROG, drasticwagon:
Thanks for the compliments. They are always welcome and you're all awesome.

4WDtiki;
The hiatus is because I've got myself into building guitars and I'm hooked. Thats where most of my free time is going to go now.
I thoroughly enjoy carving, I just dont have enough time for both and I think I have more talent for building guitars then I do carving tiki's. Tiki's are cool and all but you cant play em when you're done.

I have thought of maybe trying to collaborate with someone here on a cool tiki guitar someday. It could be really cool fun project.

On 2010-10-02 18:09, SDshirtman wrote:

I have thought of maybe trying to collaborate with someone here on a cool tiki guitar someday. It could be really cool fun project.

Looking forward to seeing that, your tiki carvings are all great, I'm sure the guitar would be just as awesome..

Stunning!!!!