Fixing Common Beginner Woodcarving Mistakes -From Bad To Better

Hey guys Doug here again with another little video maybe a fun video today. I Rediscovered this fella right here Old little mr. Gnome from one of my earlier carvings probably. I don't know even six years ago and When I look at him now He's horrible. He's just horrible. He has so many mistakes in them and I Want to rip off a video idea. I saw Alec McCaskey who in turn ripped it off of Vic hood But they were called from good to great in this case We're gonna do bad to better because we can't do any more than that because he's maybe too far gone in some areas but there are so many beginner mistakes that I want to work through and show you how to fix them or just not make them and By doing that I'm going to I'm gonna try and cut a line down the center here And I just gonna work on a half of it so we can have the the bad to better So here's our little fella do a little cut line here not quite there because he's crooked Got a nick one foot here, and I got the nose off center, but that's okay, so First things I see are the eyes these eyes are just flat just flat flat eyes Can't when you look on the side the eyes disappear all right The beard is very shallow very straight lines look how thin the arms are all right So as we go the hair comes right down to the shoulder here the mustache goes way over there And his feet are as wide as his waist But we may not do too much with the feet, but anyway, let's just dig right into this fellow so Right off the bat these arms are super shallow, so I should probably put on a carving glove Just because I can and I got a new one in the mail today, so that's why Let's just cut these way and a lot deeper all right It's a good place to start a B-tool is a good tool for doing this, then you don't get double cuts As we go I'm gonna start taking some of the paint off too, and maybe this guy will be mostly Mostly unpainted by time we get done all right same thing on the bottom. I get a little bit more underneath here The idea is just to get enough that looks a little bit more realistic that that is a real-arm, not just a paper size paper thickness there All right, that's a good start What else we're gonna do here? Oh while we're doing that we might as well Then that cuff again All right Paint off here right up into the Hair right here, let's talk about this hairline hair. I have it going straight down all right You can see you're just gonna take a big Cut down there Now we're gonna go across here to Right into that mustache because that mustache is way over there Let's cut that out of there Now I can see the hair And here coming back As opposed to Straight down Nose very very flat like a nose look at that nose up here I'm gonna try and stick to one side here Little flat section on the bottom We can cut a little nostril in there It's very long very long nose too Much too long. I'd like to put a little nasal flare On there too we can but Pretty pretty thin a little bit of the point there as well as scoop it out All right, like I said not much we can do with the nose with a little wafer I left myself but But there again, you can already see the difference a little bit of detail makes big old nose But this face here you see how flat This face is so that's gonna take some remedying this mustache comes way over Which is not the end of the world, but it's not Not realistic at all I'll try and get these cheeks out a little bit, too A little bit more of a Cheek going but the real thing is I'm gonna take this little 10 millimeter number 9 this eyeball Yes scoop that I gonna make it disappear right out of there No more I When you have a cheekbone here, you'll know your temple comes way in like this too Right there again You're gonna just swoop that Temple from the cheekbone up. I'm gonna thin The top of the I see that just gonna thin that out and we'll do the same thing on the hair, too Look a little little beak out here Back here All right, we're getting there wise we'll take the paint off of here All right, we're getting there a little bit better a little bit better already just keep comparing these two sides we can even The mouth to I'm going to let's just take this mustache or the beard Right underneath there Like that mustache a little bit heavier by undercutting it Like I said, we're not headed for great we're headed for we're headed for better because Great was never here But we can make some subtle improvements and like I said, these are just little little things that Well, almost every beginner makes these mistakes I don't feel bad about it I just Can do better Now I want to come up a little bit of Antiquing there the side of the nose should never be a hard hard edge to have a little bit of a softer softer side of the nose But we're working with what we got here. So it's just trying to So basically my nose on that side is gone and now I can come across All right, no as far as the eyeball goes this wood is old and dry to Let's just put an eyeball Start a little dot here And you can already see from the side view you can still see that line already. So that's a good thing Let's just draw a little little eyeball here I'm not gonna go too much below the center line, but to do that. I'm just going to make a little V cut I'm gonna remove that inner V Right on that side Same thing over here doing little stab cuts Take that little V out of there. Okay I'm just gonna roll that Join those two V cuts top and the bottom I'm just gonna cut up there And down Okay Look at that, that eye to that eye From this side. I know it all looks white in there, but you can see the eyeball. No eyeball, very flat I'm going to take my little Little number 11. It's gonna be a little soft soft eyelid here Same below I'll take a little V tool just to make a little bit sharper all the same same around And up in I'm gonna bring this down a bit like so Let me get over here. I'm gonna carry that through Just gonna kind of come underneath that eyelid Now I'm gonna bring that back Right into that And I'm gonna take a little chip out of here a little bit of a shadow There we go What do you think? He's looking better already now to the beard Very whisper Beard a very very heavy chest. So I'm gonna take my V tool. I'm gonna go right in there Try and create some depth on that beard Same thing underneath not to the same degree People say you should always have your first carvings to look at and to learn and I think You should always learn from your first carvings All right, let's take all this off here Yeah, I just thought this would be a real fun fun little video like I said Alec did it on his Fundamentals of woodcarving school. I thought was a great idea This was in my daughter's bedroom in a box I'm just kind of rediscovered recently. So I thought perfect All right, I don't really care for a square bottom beard either but not too much we're gonna do with that. All right, we had a bit of a Lip going there. So we want to make a real happy happy fellow gonna become a bigger bigger lip by taking a Chip out of there for the mouth I'm just gonna make him a little bit happier with a bigger smile Remember his other smile was almost non-existent. It was so tiny you couldn't see it. This guy is Laughing I don't have to use It's a hard time breaking the habit of just using my knife We can use Other tools My goodness this guy's he's happy now So you know ideally I don't like this inside corner here at all even with this because It's doesn't really tie tie together very well She'd almost come right up in beside there, but there was no room for it. So We can still work with what we got So many little color color flakes here, I guess I'm gonna go around Might as well take the paint off the mitts, too because I Okay, so anytime we can to every time we have one of these little inside corners, we always like to give a little little shadow little extra shadow All right Same with underneath even There we go Like some this off in here give his elbow a couple a couple creases a couple extra creases You know a few We can go a little bit look heavier So the key is depth Even that shoulder it's a little bit funny When you're beginning carving always afraid to go deep. That's what I say like look how shallow My arm is look how thin the beard is flat face square side How it's got that kick in there. It can even go a little bit more if I wanted to Really just bring that temple area in Make such a difference in the face to thin up that Brings the cheek out and thins up the temple Compared to that flat square We can always give a little bit of room for another eyebrow up there and draw this line down here What can I say what the hat hat is is huge his head's not back here, but it's not the worst thing in the world We can get that hat closer These kind of hats sit the head is in the hat. It's not on head so we can Get that closer in thin up that hat Well, I went over my line no bother You Square square hair. I'm gonna get that hair on an angle back if it's gonna have hair that long It's gonna be come from inside the hat come sweep out All right fun Looks different already. I would never ever have a make that beard and mustache combo like that again, but It's what we got to work with Hmm you look so different We should there here Take my pencil Give him a little character put his soul and I'm giving the eyeball right away So now if I was to review that beard, what would I want to do differently I would take my gouge And I would just make You know little little s little turns and curls with the Splits little turns with the hair Same with the mustache a little bit using the far too big of a tool on this It's more detail with a smaller tool But yeah I am rushing this a little bit Little number 11 on there. I'm gonna run it right off of there and create some edges on that beard See how this is just square square edging. You won't be able to come off even even if you take your Your knife in a few spots and just a little little deep cuts Breaking up the monotony of that beard We've got some little shadows even on the side we can do the same thing on the side Little number 11 again here come right up Same thing on the front. We're just breaking up these little edges. I went all the way around like that and really it's just come All right Cheek is a little bit wonky there. We can run that a little little side action there Then that cheek Okay, I got that undercut a little bit too much or side guys say on the cheek over here, but Not much we can do with that Softening it up All right So what can we do now we can like I said these boots are Horrific, but I don't know that we're gonna get They don't want to start into them, but we can take them way back Legs can come up into the under the coat. You're not really level. They should be a lot thinner a lot Little bit narrower at the back Heel back in there Some of the back up here. I'm really just worried with the front for this video sake Here All right, I don't wanna get too carried away. I'm gonna bring that pant leg down a bit Now I'm gonna make a little little crease Then we'll put that sole back in the in the shoe. Oh, I took that right off oops well, I'm not using my V tool more, but Why don't I? All right I'm gonna V tool around the sole sole back on the bottom of the shoe Anyway, I didn't want to turn this into a real Super long video, but I didn't want to just go over beginner mistakes, so the main beginner mistakes are always Not deep enough eyes aren't deep enough The the nose is too flat Doesn't have any character. There's no there's no little nostril or nothing no side nostril flare The hair was straight straight without that even still You know what even still still come back Don't like I don't like how the This corner worked out, but it was already already done. I would have more of a sideburn area Yeah, what you gonna do? Okay And the mouth was look at look at the the lip the little piece of a lip that was left there Now we got a real big big lip the more Detail in the the beard and I they hardly scratched the surface You can keep going over that for a long time adding all kinds of extra detail smaller smaller Veiners and V gouges What not? Alright, just finishing up a little bit of hair here. I Think I think I have to paint it. I'm gonna have to paint it just to show the Difference side to side maybe even paint different colors just to really highlight the differences but a Couple more things and I'll be it like I said Not gonna be perfect. It is Bad to better and I Think it's better That's where we're at So give me a minute. I'm gonna go paint that one side. Maybe I definitely I'm gonna do different colors just to show the Highlight the differences. Well, there you have it. There's our little guy like I said, this video was just to encourage you to really dig deeper and Give more texture more contour, but don't be afraid to carve a little bit deeper and Make sure the eyes Can be seen from the side Yeah, so different kind of video. I don't know what you think about it, but I thought it was kind of fun and I had fun anyway, and it's a good a good lesson for all of us to just pay a little bit more attention and Don't be afraid to cut your wood That's all I got for you, so there you go. See you next time guys later