Whittling The Wee Leprechaun #2

This step involves making a stop cut between the bottom of the beard and the top of the body.  Use the knife to cut down and up to this stop cut.  After doing one side do the other.  Keep checking your cuts and the center line to keep things in symmetry.

Draw lines that define the sides and the bottom of the nose.  Make a stop cut at these lines.  Try to angle the nose sides stop cuts to slope out to the sides from the nose.  Make these stop cuts deeper at the top than the bottom.  To achieve this, push your knife tip into the wood at the top of the nose, then "rock" the knife down towards the nose bottom along the line.

Next draw lines at the top of the eye area, that define the top arch of the eye area.  These lines may be straight, angles down, or curved.  Then make stop cuts on these lines.  If making a straight cut, push the knife tip into the wood where the top of the nose meets the stop cut of the eye area and bring the blade down along the line.  If making an arch, rather than making a continuous knife cut that may cause the blade tip to break; make this cut with a series of connected "stab cuts".  Where the stop cuts join at the top of the nose and eye area, it should be deeper.

With your knife, make a push cut from the bottom of the eye area up to the top, and remove the chip.

Next make a stop cut where the elbow and the forearm meet and remove the chip.  When making the stop cut, push the knife blade tip into the wood fairly deep where the arm bend is, and then "rock" the blade away from the elbow joint to make the stop cut.

Next, draw a line that defines the top of the shoulder.  Check to make sure that both shoulders are at the same height.  Make a series of connected Stab knife cuts on this line.  Make sure these cuts are made perpendicular to the wood surface.

Use your knife to cut down to the stop cuts that define the top of the shoulder.

Next, draw a line in front of the ears, and make a stop cut on this line.  The purpose of this line and stop cut will be to begin to shape the head and face to ensure that the ears "stick out" a bit.

Slice into to the stop cuts in front of the ears and remove the chip, this will isolate the ears and make them begin to stand out.  Be careful not to remove the ear.  Keep checking each side of the head for symmetry.

Begin to round the hat brim and the hat top.  Begin to thing the hat brim.

Start rounding the chest area.  Begin to thin and round the cheeks.  Thin the neck, by cutting up to the neck.  Remove a chip from behind the ears to establish the hair line, on the neck.

Shape the nose.  Oh oh, the example is beginning to look a lot like Richard Nixon.

Draw in the mouth and the beard line.

That's enough for now.  We'll wrap it up in the next posting.  Sorry for so many steps, but as I remember trying to follow instructions there never seemed to be enough steps.