Rapa Nui Ron's First Large Tiki Carving Project

Last year, I had to have two trees in my front yard cut down. They were old Chinese Elm trees. I asked the men who came to do the job, to save me a couple of the logs from the the largest of the two. I let them sit a year to help remove the bark and to hopefully let the wood season a bit. I started carving my first log last month. No special plan or design, just wanted to see where we could go with this. Here's what I've got so far;

This is from June 27th, 2014.

The above image is from July 1, 2014. I used chalk to outline some ideas as I went ahead using a 16" Remington Electric Chain saw, and a reciprocating saw.

July 3rd, 2014
A 1.25" chisel was used to carve out around the eyes and relieve other tight areas of material.

July 7th, 2014
An overturned bench helps hold Tiki allowing me to get at odd angles with the chisel.

July 7th, 2014
Full frontal view of Tiki...

I plan on posting more photos as the work progresses.

Looks like a fun carve and a cool design. I really like the bottom jaw. Keep carving and posting. Nice job!

That's the way we do it.

Starting to take down some of the roughness... Looking better than I expected, but still needs a few more details carved in. Needs teeth, lips, maybe some ears... not sure about that. Undecided about upper lip area- I was going to carve a "dog bone" under his nose, but I think I may have left to much of a gap there. It could easily be turned into a mustache... ala Tiki Groucho!

Anyone have any ideas on hollowing out the inside so that I can perhaps fit a light inside to illuminate the eyes and or hi-lite areas?

Roughing in the teeth...

He's pretty cool, I think you should look into carving the eyebrows in deeper maybe even the lines on sides of eyes.

Look up drum making to carve out the inside.

looking good.... cool pic of you carving...it gives off a good vibe as if you are in a good place and are enjoying yourself (that is only my interpretation!)

Thanks Badd Tiki and Grand Poobah for the comments and suggestions! I'm learning a LOT from this project! This is probably the greenest wood I've ever worked with and it does present some challenges.

Here are some shots from the latest session. He needs some more work around the top of the head. I carved down the sides to help realign the side cuts, also trying to cut in more emphasis on uni-brow... (Thanks again for the suggestions Badd Tiki!)

OK... I'm gonna call it on this guy. I'm constantly trying to correct things that aren't really wrong and doing more damage! It's time to shoot the artist and sell the damned painting! I've learned quite a bit on this project, one of which is that I don't own the proper sized tools to work on projects this size! I'm working on that...
Tonight I sanded down most everywhere I could get to and threw on a coat of stain to see how it would look... Here's what I ended up with;

[ Edited by: Rapa Nui Ron 2014-07-24 20:42 ]

Nice job! Keep it up...

Sometimes half the fun is buying new tools...