Feathers all outlined; detailing begun; feet

      Today was a beautiful day to work outside!  I spent about 5 hours out on the picnic table, working away at a variety of tasks.  First, I refined the feet to look a little more like the osprey feet in my reference photos.  I sanded down the toes to make them thinner, accentuated the pads, and gave the feet some texture.  The photos show that the feet are covered with reticulate bumps, and I experimented with ways to add this texture.  None of them were successful, so I resorted to a trick I have used in ship modeling.  When the hull of a boat or ship is plated with copper (of zinc, in the case of the model I did a few years ago), the rivets are often simulated by running a pounce wheel along the edge of the thin metal plate.  This produces a series of regularly spaced indentations that the viewer’s eye interprets as rivets, even though the heads of rivets would be raised above the surface of the plate, rather than indented.  A true “trick of the eye”.  For my osprey feet, I simulated bumps by using a small diamond ball to make indentations on the surface of the feet, which the viewer’s eye would likely interpret as bumps because of the uneven texture.

     I drew in the remainder of the feathers on the breast area between the extended feet, and used my small diamond ball and a flame-shaped blue stone tip to outline the feathers, simulate the feather overlaps, and round off the sharp edges.  I then proceeded to texture the contour feathers with an inverted cone stone tip,  adding lines on the feathers to simulate the vanes of these soft feathers.  This took most of the time, especially because some of the feathers were hard to get to because of shape of the carving.  I got most of them done before I got tired and was afraid of making some mistakes.

     All in all, a very productive carving day.  Now it is time for  Moxie’n’Morgan while sitting out under the canopy, watching my real-life feathered friends perch on the feeders and fly in and out of the birdhouses. 

     Up to a total of 78 hours, approximately.  Here I am, hard at work!