Wolf Kiessling
10-31-2003, 12:13 PM
During Steve Jenkins' bar-b-q, I was asked several times how I carved the fur on the bear. If I can figure out how to post pix, I will show two methods. The first is creating fur on a very short haired animal, such as the dachshund I am currently working on. The carving has to be completed carefully as any imperfection will show thru the woodburning. As you can see, it is simply a series of burns using very light heat and being careful to follow the fur pattern of the animal in question. The second picture show the process for creating fur on a long haired, or shaggy, animal. This process takes three steps but is really a quicker process than for the short haired animal because you can move much faster. Also, the carving/sanding does not have to be as carefully done because the fur process hides a lot of faults. The first step consists of carving the initial fur pattern, being careful to follow the natural pattern of the animal in question. The second step consists of burning the valleys of the fur pattern with a high rate of heat and burning fairly deep. In the third step, the heat is reduced to a lower level and short strokes are burned into the peaks of the carved fur. These three steps are demonstrated in the bear pic starting at the grizzlie's hump showing only the carving, the rough burning moving down and the finish burning near the leg. It is possible to completely color a dark haired animal, without using any paint, but it is a very time consuming task. That's why I now complete my animals with a separate color source.