Dolphin - Bottlenose

[Patrick]

Re: Dolphin - Bottlenose

Thanks for that Larry and good to see you.

[Sharon of the Dell]

Re: Dolphin - Bottlenose

It got great advice already. Just wanted to let you know it looks really good!

[Patrick]

Re: Dolphin - Bottlenose

Thanks very much for that Sharon. Will be starting on the bottlenose and head this coming week and will have my fingers crossed.

Made it into beautiful Eureka in another life and one of the things I remember most was taking a trail into the redwoods. The peace and quite was almost overpowering. I felt that I was in one of God’s cathedrals. Marvlous!

[Patrick]

Re: Dolphin - Bottlenose

The bench top portable dust collector arrived and I spent some time with the Dremel and a Dremel drum sander attacking some scrap basswood. The collector works good and I'm pleased. So, hopefully back to refining the bottlenose with edge tools tomorrow.

I've located some Swiss Sandpaper and cushioned sanding drums so will be making an order tomorrow in prep for coming advanced work. Fun.

[Patrick]

Re: Dolphin - Bottlenose

Well, I think I'm into what has been the toughest part of the carve up to this time. As I worked trying to get somewhere close to what I think the bottlenose should be looking like I became more fustrated and decided it was time to stop and regroup.
Then loading the two following pictures I suddenly realized I had set the mouth line wrong. The line should be from approx. the upper third of the nose back on an angle that terminates just under the eye......... doh!

There needs to be more stock remove on the bottlenose which may give me a chance to remove the mouth gouge line and make the correction. Fingers crossed. I sure wasn't paying attention when I made that error.

So, heres the error of my ways.

P.S. That's my sidekick LT who fell asleep and let me mess in my nest. Just kidding. He's a good gent and is not happy unless he can be almost in the middle of things.

[Patrick]

Re: Dolphin - Bottlenose

Well, after removing the poor definition gouge line I made to show the separation of the upper to low part of the dolphin’s beak I ground to a halt. Looking at my pattern sheet and reference book on marine mammals I decided I couldn’t determine enough detail of the head and beak area to proceed.

My Foredom arrived in the mean time so I have been into familiarization and practicing some on scrape wood. Also, watched Frank Russell’s DVD ‘Fur, Feathers, & Fins’ twice and his comment about the importance of reference material finally got the old MK I computer going to do some searching for photos of dolphins, especially any that had good examples of the head area. Bing-go, the following two are examples I found and I now feel comfortable returning to the dolphin’s head and beak. Thank you Frank Russell for the great tutorial included with the Foredom kit!

These photos will now be at the bench as I proceed.

P.S. Don't know who took these two great photos but many thanks.