Pebble Tiki Carvings

Hi, I am roru, and I carve tikis out of pebbles. I was inspired to do this by seeing the incredible work done by paipo. This is my first post, enjoy the pictures and please give me feedback :)

This one is inspired by some of my favorite tikis: cannibals! and I really like paipo's skulleater tikis, I hope he is not offended by my adaptation.

please post any design suggestions, my pool of inspiration is somewhat of a small one, and I am afraid my designs are inbreeding... I have about 4 recurring remixes of certain features :)

Oh, and I also carve hei mautau, although not directly tiki related, I think I'll post a picture anyway:

Roru, The stone pendants are wonderful works of art. It would seem at this level of carving that there is a lot more photos of your work. Sure would like to see them! You asked for feedback so I say this, would like to know more of who you are, where you are, where you get the stones, what you use to carve, how long you have been carving, do you do this full time (job/work), do you do your own cording, things of that nature. I will be stopping here often to see what's going on and new. Good Luck with your new Tiki Central time !!!

I am 19 years old, and I work as an apprentice cabinet maker. I have no intentions of attending a university because I really want to try to create my own business and live in Hawaii or Costa Rica. I went to Hawaii last year by myself and I really liked it. I would like to live there for sure!

I get my rocks from a local beach. I live in Michigan, there are many rocky beaches here. Between working as a cabinet maker and my computer work, I do not have much time to carve lately. maybe one carving a day, I will post them as I make them :)

Before I worked so much, I had a preference for carving bone. I had large quantities of cow bone available to me. Here's what remains of those carving, these were carved prior to the onset of my tiki madness...

these guys are in an untangleable snarl..

In order left/right earliest/most recent:

notice that i started by carving the same way you would draw the tikis. I sort of scratched their features in.

I was starting to get the hang of using the shapes of my burs to their advantages, and avoiding situations where the shape was awkward or crude.

the one on the right is the one I carved yesterday. I am getting a lot better at carving within the limitation of my burs, and also using a wide variety of shapes to get what i want.

this is my work area:

I use a foredom carver and I have about 3 million burs :D

This is yesterday's carving and today's carving (#13 & #14)

today's was a very small one

Roru is really ripping thru the hard stuff, sounds like that's some pretty quick carving...knocking them out everyday...pretty cool !!! The next step is to post them in the Marketplace with prices....by the look of this body of work Hawaii is not that far away !

Thanks for the encouragement, hottiki! It would be really cool if I could sell these :)

I have an interesting box of saltwater shells given to me by my aunt+uncle, they collected them while on vacation. I really like the opalescence and outside textures of certain shells, an I wanted to incorporate one of these strangely textured shells into tiki. Here's # 15!

He is actually very symmetrical, but these photos sort of skew him due to the angle.

a hui hou kakou,
-Roru Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

[ Edited by: Roru 2012-06-28 17:38 ]

Awesome

I made number 16 today! This one has a very interesting tongue, and a new method of attaching the tiki to the cordage. Pretty much exactly the kind of holes you see in netsukes.

The tiki in the post above is now for sale in the marketplace for just $35 USD
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=43276&forum=12&start=last&

Great work Roru, I sent you a pm a few days ago.

Roru, very nice. Keep up the good work and follow your dreams as much as is realistically possible.

After a few long days at my regular job put me out of the carving mood, I finally managed to make #17 and #18!
Enjoy,

I'm really loving this clam shell. It's cool that is looks like nothing interesting when you see it on the beach, but carved up it turns out pretty awesome.

These are exceptional pieces. Really - REALLY - nice work.

-Whystler

I am surly your target market, and would love to wear one of these. I love the inset bits especially. The pictures are very nicely composed as well. If you were to cut a hole right through one of the stones and stick a skull in that, not even poverty would stop me from wearing it. I feel stylish just looking at pictures of your work, very nice.

Hey Fish Canoe - Be prepared to get excited - look up a bit, there is one with a skull insert!

-Whystler

Sorry I disappeared for awhile, I have been carving though. Here's 19, 20, and 21!

TikiVato custom ordered the skull one. If anyone wants a custom tiki, PM me your e-mail and I will send you a paypal invoice. Depending on the design, $40-$45 will cover it.
I have a 'creating tiki' thread about the custom tiki, you can get more picture of the process there:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=43347&forum=7&start=last&0

Very nice job. Can hardly wait to start wearing it.

#21 is here, and I finally got around to making a website for my carvings.
Check it out!

http://www.rorucarves.com/

a hui hou kakou,
-Roru Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

[ Edited by: Roru 2012-07-13 15:17 ]

Number 23, and this guy has some crazy eyes! I think I will name him "Skulldom" :)

These are awesome! Nice work!

I agree with all. Those pendents are really nice work. I like your incorperation of the skull in the Tikis mouth. Very cool!!!!! :D. Keep up the good work.

Thanks! The skulls are inspired by paipo's work, the credit for that design goes to him :)