Step 21: Working the wing feather tips in the front wing
Free the front wing feather tips exactly as you did the back wing tips. Bring the space between the wing tips down to touch the level of the belly.
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Step 22: Rough shaping the cattail cluster
We have already rough cut the pattern into the board by depth levels, now it is time to rough shape each element in those levels. As you watch these steps progress you will see that I prefer to rough shape all of the elements in a design before I go to developing more refined shapes or adding detailing. By rough shaping first I can work each area in relationship to those near it – making an area a little lower than the original rough out steps, perhaps a bit more narrow, or I can decide to undercut or tuck an area under another without worrying about losing all the work from detailing one area first.
I am moving into the background area of the pattern to work the cattail cluster. With a stop cut along the cattails I can free the leaves to begin tucking them towards the background. During these next steps I will rough shape the leaves and cattails and I will cut several areas behind the leaves to free the leave from the board.
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My medium round gouge makes a nice curved profile cut for the underside of the turned leaf. Once the underside of the leave has been worked with the round gouge I use my v-gouge to make a clean, neat angle on the underside where the leave folds over itself.
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Using my straight chisel or wide sweep I can slant the leave towards the lowest level next to the cattail, the v-gouge cleans up this intersection.
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The cattail is shaped using my straight chisel or bull nose chisel and rounded at the top and bottom with my bench knife. A small, tight round gouge makes the small cup shapes in the cattail bodies. I have taken the rough shaping steps into the remaining cattail cluster.
 Ringed Neck PheasantsFeaturing four Extra Large designs of the Ringed Neck Pheasant, heavily detailed. |