Carving from Scratch

Carving from Scratch Complete carving newbie. Whittling my way through the learning curve one chip at a time. 🪵 🪵 🪓

12 of 52 - Pawn Prototype ♟️One if the bigger projects I want to potentially tackle is carving a chess set. This week I ...
23/02/2025

12 of 52 - Pawn Prototype ♟️

One if the bigger projects I want to potentially tackle is carving a chess set. This week I started the initial planning of this project to get a better idea of what it would require.

Here you can see my initial prototype for the pawns. This was a very rough attempt to validate my design. I specifically attempted a design that accentuates the facets of the piece to make it stand out from traditional wood chess pieces that are turned on lathes.

I will have to scale the piece a bit and as always work on better symmetry, but overall pretty happy with how this pawn came out and very excited to start planning the other pieces!

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil
🎨 - None

11 of 52 - Flower 🌺An attempt to improve my previous Tulip carving by trying make a more elegant stem, as well as improv...
17/02/2025

11 of 52 - Flower 🌺

An attempt to improve my previous Tulip carving by trying make a more elegant stem, as well as improving the multi-dimentional aspects of the flower itself.

Not entirely happy with the paint job, I struggled to get the correct purple pantone that “pops”. As always though, a great learning experience!

Thanks for the inspiration for this one!

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil pre-paint and finished off with some Antique Wax from
🎨 - Acrylic Paint

10 of 52 - 🌷With Valentines Day coming up, I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon! As always, multiple lessons learned and ...
11/02/2025

10 of 52 - 🌷

With Valentines Day coming up, I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon!

As always, multiple lessons learned and already looking forward to re-doing this one. A lot of room for improvement in the leaves and the flower petals that will truly turn this into something special!

Thanks for the wonderful tutorial as always!

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil pre-paint and finished off with some Antique Wax from
🎨 - Acrylic

9 of 52 - Deadpool 💀“Maximum Effort!”My very first carving that is NOT from a step-by-step tutorial. A lot of things did...
06/02/2025

9 of 52 - Deadpool 💀

“Maximum Effort!”

My very first carving that is NOT from a step-by-step tutorial. A lot of things did not come out as expected and loads to improve on! However, proud of the risk I took to attempt this guy!

Thanks for the inspiration on this one!

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil with a Antique Wax finish.
🎨 - Acrylic

8 of 52 - Cartoon Bear 🧸Another tutorial for this one. Enjoyed this one a lot and overall pretty happy with how it turn...
02/02/2025

8 of 52 - Cartoon Bear 🧸

Another tutorial for this one. Enjoyed this one a lot and overall pretty happy with how it turned out.

I still need to work on eyes in general. Both the carving and the painting are still a bit sloppy (as can be seen in on this little guy). Nonetheless, little by little we learn!

Experimented a bit by finishing this bear with a bit of Antique Wax. Definitely made the colours pop a bit! Also tried to improve my photo setup a bit to try and get some consistency in positioning and lighting.

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil (Before paint), Antique wax (after paint)
🎨 - Acrylic

7 of 52 - Penguin 🐧One of the first whittling projects I tried when I started out in December 2024 was this pocket pengu...
29/01/2025

7 of 52 - Penguin 🐧

One of the first whittling projects I tried when I started out in December 2024 was this pocket penguin from . I repeatedly made a mess of the carving (swipe to see evidence) and decided to park it until I improved my skills a bit.

This week I tried it again, and although far from perfect, the improvement is significant and I am proud of the progress I have made over the last month!

I had to redo the penguin flippers a couple of times as I struggled immensely to tidy them up. I seem to struggle quite a lot with curved cuts that go along the grain. The cuts seem to produce a lot of chatter or grain splitting. Any advice would be appreciated here….

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil
🎨- Acrylic

6 of 52 - Grumpy Old Man 👴🏼Another one from a tutorial. Such a cute and simple carving. I need to work a bit on getting...
25/01/2025

6 of 52 - Grumpy Old Man 👴🏼

Another one from a tutorial. Such a cute and simple carving. I need to work a bit on getting my proportions a bit more symmetrical, but other than that, pretty happy with how this one came out!

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil
🎨 - Acrylic

5 of 52 - Baby Groot 🌴After seeing a baby groot carving by , I simply could not resist to try one myself! I made a lot o...
23/01/2025

5 of 52 - Baby Groot 🌴

After seeing a baby groot carving by , I simply could not resist to try one myself!

I made a lot of mistakes on this one with various elements having to be re-done, but overall pretty happy with how it came out and had boatloads of fun!

When I get around to doing another one of these, I think making the eyes bigger, using a slightly lighter shade of brown for the body and better proportioned arms are areas I can work on!

Can’t wait to try one again and hone my skills! 💪🏽

Thanks for a fantastic tutorial that was easy to follow!

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - C15 Detail Wood Carving Knife supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil
🎨 - Acrylic

4 of 52 - Another Basic Wizard 🧙🏽‍♂️For this project I attempted another “faceless” wizard following a tutorial from .la...
19/01/2025

4 of 52 - Another Basic Wizard 🧙🏽‍♂️

For this project I attempted another “faceless” wizard following a tutorial from .lacasse with a inspired paint job.

Basically a repeat of my previous project, practicing the basics! As an added benefit, I transformed this little guy into a fridge magnet!

I am very happy with the progress that I made on this project, the quality of this week’s wizard is much better than the previous one (albeit far from perfect).

I also experimented with using mineral oil before painting as opposed to sunflower oil which I used on the previous project, but to be honest I found it to be much of a muchness when compared to using the sunflower oil for this specific project.

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - C15 Detail Wood Carving Knife and a 2mm V-profile chisel supplied by
🛢️ - Mineral Oil
🎨 - Acrylic

2 of 52 - Angry Bird 🐤For my second carving I tried another tutorial. I am not particularly happy with the outcome (esp...
12/01/2025

2 of 52 - Angry Bird 🐤

For my second carving I tried another tutorial. I am not particularly happy with the outcome (especially the beak), but I am still posting it in the name of transparency!

Some lessons from this project:

- Learn when to stop tinkering. I initially carved a very decent beak, but destroyed it while trying to “perfect” it and had to salvage what I could.

- “Fading” colours into each other is much harder than it looks. I will have to work on this to improve the quality of my paint jobs.

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - C15 Detail Wood Carving Knife supplied by
🎨- Acrylic

1/52 - My very first carving! 🪓 🎅🏻This year I decided to take up wood carving as a hobby. As a complete newbie, I am cha...
12/01/2025

1/52 - My very first carving! 🪓 🎅🏻

This year I decided to take up wood carving as a hobby. As a complete newbie, I am challenging myself to complete 52 small projects this year.

I started off by whittling a Christmas tree decoration from a tutorial. This was a lot of fun and it turned out better than expected! The eyes were particularly challenging and I completely botched them, but managed to save the carving to a certain extent (just don’t look too closely 🙈).

For this project I used a piece of jelutong wood, a C15 Detail Wood Carving Knife and a 2mm V-profile chisel for the beard texturing. These tools are from and were supplied by .

I used acrylic paint and experimented with adding water to the mixture to create different effects. Definitely a skill a will have to work on!

3 of 52 - Basic Wizard 🧙‍♂️For this carving I attempted a simple “faceless” wizard by following a tutorial from .lacasse...
12/01/2025

3 of 52 - Basic Wizard 🧙‍♂️

For this carving I attempted a simple “faceless” wizard by following a tutorial from .lacasse. The paint job was inspired by and his use of multi-layer painting and dry brushing. I am very happy with how this project turned out, a great improvement from my previous project!

What did I do differently?

- Attempted a simpler carving project that is more in line with my current skill level.

- Finished the carving with sunflower oil and let it dry completely before painting. This helps that the paint doesn’t get absorbed as quickly and provides a bit of forgiveness when painting the figure.

- Added a lot of water to the paint mixture, turning the paint into more of a stain which provides a much nicer finish than a solid colour.

🪵 - Jelutong
⚒️ - C15 Detail Wood Carving Knife and a 2mm V-profile chisel supplied by
🛢️ - Sunflower 🌻
🎨 - Acrylic

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