Tiki Candle Lantern

This past weekend I met a couple of fellow tiki enthusiasts. They encouraged me to post pictures of the tiki "lantern" that I'm working on.

I made this out of a piece of scrap redwood 4x4 that I had laying around. I brought it to round on a lathe and then bored out the center with a bowl gouge and a large (2 1/8") forstner bit. It's about 7" or so tall, so it's not what you'd call a large piece. But since this is my first real foray into tiki carving, I figured that I should start small.

The majority of the face was carved out with a small Xacto saw and a dremel tool.

It's currently unfinished. Once the carving is done, I'm thinking tung oil might be a good finish, but I'm not dead set on that yet.

Here it is off the lathe and with the facial features roughed out (you can get an idea of the scale):

Here it is in its current state, with a tea-light in the mouth:

Any comments or helpful critique is welcomed.

Welcome to Tiki Central Tai-Pan! I like him. I'm not a carver but it seems that smaller work would be harder to start with than something bigger.

Nice ideia !! It looks nice , i think you just could work it litlle bit more !
One day ill try do one of that too xD