Part 3 Carving the Archer’s Torso A Carving Tutorial by Brandant Robinson Now that our fine yeoman has a nice friendly face and a keen Robinhood hat, we need a way to show off our hard work. We could of course use the head to do a full-bodied figure, but since this is my first tutorial, I decided that we would carve a bust only. So, since we are carving a bust, we will need to carve a suitable torso for our archer. The way I see the finished torso in my mind’s eye is clad in a forest colored shirt with a collar and some buttons going down the front. I think we should give him another layer by also adding on a vest that will add interest and give us another opportunity to add some contrasting color when we get around to painting him. So, now that we have an idea of what we are going to try to accomplish, let’s get started on “Carving the Archer’s Torso.”

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Here is a picture of the blank that we will start out with. The measurements are 4” tall, 3-3/8” across the widest point at the shoulder line, and 1-5/8” at the bottom. Don’t worry too much about getting these dimensions exact; after all, I’m sure that archers come in all sizes, fat or skinny.

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Here’s the side view of our blank cut from a 2” piece of bass wood. To make carving easier, make sure that you orient the grain vertically with the blank. When I cut out the two profiles on my band saw, I started with the side profile first. I cut the three curved sections starting at one point where I enter the wood, following my patter line, and I stop cutting just before the blade breaks through the surface to free the piece. I then back the blade out, leaving the cutoff section attached to the main piece. I continue doing this on the other two pieces that need to be removed, cutting along the line and backing out the blade before completely cutting through. Leaving these pieces intact will allow us to cut out the front without having the piece wobbling around dangerously. Once these three cuts have been made, I turn the piece around and cut out the front profile, removing all of the waste pieces. Once the front profile is cut, I simply snap the side waste pieces off from the blank with my fingers. You can see the little lips on the picture above where the pieces were snapped off. You can also cut out the side profile completely and tape the pieces back on with some duct tape to cut out the front profile. I have done this many times with good success. Use whatever method suits you. 3

We need to drill a hole in the top of the blank that will accept the neck post of our archer’s head. To do this I simply hold the head with the neck post centered on the top, and draw a line around the post to show me where the hole is to be located.

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Now using a 3/8” drill bit, I drill a hole straight down into the wood.

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With the same drill bit, I ream out the hole by swirling the bit around in a circle to create a slightly conical shaped hole. This will all us to fit the conical shaped neck post securely into the torso and will allow us some slop in the fit that will allow us to play around with the positioning of the head.

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There, that’s not too bad. It doesn’t set down quite deeply enough yet, but we will accomplish that with our carving knife to get that perfect fit.

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In this photo you can see that I have used a thin-bladed knife to ream out the hole beyond what the drill could do.

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Now that’s the fit that I’m looking for. Just keep reaming out the whole until you get it just right.

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I begin carving the torso by rounding off the edges. Pay attention to the grain here. If you carve against the grain, you can easily split off a big chunk. If this happens, don’t panic. You can either glue the piece back on, or just carve a skinny archer.

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I do the same on the other shoulder, rounding off the sharp edges.

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I work my way around the shoulder line carving away each of the top corners. This is a view of the back of the left shoulder. I like to use my 3/4” #3 gouge for doing this rough out work, but a knife may be more comfortable for you and will do the same thing.

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Here’s a picture from the back with all of the corners of the shoulders rounded off.

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Here’s a view from the side. Notice that the chest is rounded more than the back is and that the neck is slightly back of center. Take a look in the mirror and you will see that you look like that too.

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Now we can start to shape the bottom of the torso. Here’s a view from the front. You can see that I’m rounding off the corners to get a more barrel shape. We aren’t looking for the exact shape yet, just for the general shape of the body. Remember that we carve until we get the rough shape before we start with any detail.

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Here’s another angle of the torso at the same stage. Just continue on around the torso, rounding off the sharp corners into a cylindrical shape.

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Here you can see that I have continued around to the back, knocking off all of the sharp corners.

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Now we have the rough shape of the body with a center line drawn down the front to help us keep the body somewhat balanced. When you get to this stage, make sure that you take off enough wood. I have seen many carvings that are blocky and kind of square looking. This is usually due to the fact that the carver didn’t remove enough wood, where if they had just kept on going, it would have turned out much better. Don’t be afraid to take off some wood. I would rather err on the side of taking off too much than not removing enough. In my opinion, it’s better to have a skinny looking carving that looks like you meant to carve it that way than to have a blocky carving that looks like a beginner who didn’t take off enough wood. Ok, getting down off my soap box now.

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Here’s a view from the back with a center line down it as well.

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Here I’ve drawn in the outline for our archer’s shirt collar. Even though we will carve away most of these lines, we need them for a guide when we raise the top of the collar off of the shoulders. You will see what I mean shortly.

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You can see the full collar penciled in from this top view.

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I begin by removing a “V” shape chip out with my knife along the lines that we had drawn.

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Using my 1/4” #7 gouge (remember, use the tools that you have), I carve around my lines to raise the collar off of the shoulders. Be a little careful here, it’s easy to carve a little too close to the hole that and take a chunk off the top of the collar.

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Here’s a view from the back.

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I’ve taken some time to round off the shoulders a little to bring the line down to our new collar height.

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Now we redraw the lines for the collar back onto our rough out. Sorry about the picture here, it’s a little out of focus. Santa didn’t come through this last Christmas.

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Using my knife I cut a stop cut around our collar line. Go straight in, but not too deep here. I would say maybe about 1/16”.

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With a knife or a shallow gouge, carve to the stop line from below to relive the collar all around the outside.

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Here you can see that I have carved away the tops of the shoulders once again to bring them down to the new level. Notice how we just keep pealing back layers of wood until we get down to the final level.

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Here’s a view from the back.

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Cut some stop cuts along the two lines that remain on the front of the collar. Make these cuts go in angling back under the collar slightly so that we can undercut them and make them stand out. Make two more stop cuts straight into the wood that intersect the first cuts to form an inverted “V”.

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I have removed one of the chips by cutting up and in to the stop cuts to remove a triangular chip. Don’t try to do this with one cut, make several cuts until you get the shape just right.

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Here’s our progress with the other chip removed.

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In order to make the collar look finished where the two edges of the shirt come together, I remove a small chip from the right side of the collar so that it looks like it tucks under the left side.

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Hey, that looks pretty spiffy.

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I sketch in the seam of the shirt down the front of the chest. You could draw this line straight, but I think a slightly curved line looks more interesting.

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I make a stop cut down the pencil line and relieve it by cutting down into the stop cut. I used a 3/4” #3 gouge to do this work, but a knife would work perfectly here.

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Although the shirt alone would look okay, I think we will stick to our original plan and give him a vest. This will give the torso some texture and some interest and will really pop when we get it painted.

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Here’s a look at the vest lines on the back. Sorry again for the quality of the photo.

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I make a stop cut all around the pencil lines, getting ready to lift the vest off of the shirt.

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Here he is with the right side of his vest relieved. I used a combination of a knife and a small, shallow gouge to relieve the vest.

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Here’s a look from the back corner.

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Here’s the progress with both sides of the vest relived. That’s going to look really nice.

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Here I have worked on tapering out the relief cuts into the shirt to smooth things out.

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Here’s a pretty good shot of the progress on the torso. Notice that I have given some extra texture to the collar. I have also given some wrinkles to the shirt at the shoulders. I used a curved detail knife to do this work, but you could use a small gouge too. I just like the way the knife cuts a little better over the gouge cuts.

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You can see that I have undercut around the collar edges to clean them up and make them stand off the vest a little better.

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Here’s a view from the back. Notice that I have made some small, shallow cuts along the section that had not been previously carved.

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Here you can see that I have cleaned up the exposed edges of all of the stop cuts. By undercutting these sections it makes the edges look crisp and clean as well as gives them a nice shadow line. You can also see that I have given the vest some wrinkles by using my 1/2” #7 gouge and carving vertically to give it some texture.

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Here’s a picture of the back. I have given the back some wrinkles as well at the bottom. I used a combination of gouges to do this work. I first used my 1/2” #7 gouge and then follow up with my 1/4” #7 gouge and carve down the same line to deepen the cut and give it a little more wrinkle.

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Now it’s time to add the final details to the torso. I have drawn in some buttons down the front of the shirt and a pocket on the vest.

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Here you can see that I have relieved the pocket. To accomplish this I make a very shallow stop cut along each pencil line. I then relieve the flap of the pocket by cutting up to the stop cut from below. I then relieve the outside of the pocket the same way. Looks pretty good I think.

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Now it’s on to the buttons. I make a shallow stop cut around each of the buttons with the very tip of my knife.

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Using a very small 1/4” #5 gouge I carefully relieve the buttons off of the shirt but cutting in towards the button to lift them up.

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Now to make the slits through the shirt I use a small 1/8” V-tool. I carve from the outside down to the button creating the buttonhole.

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With the details of the torso finished up, we need to clean up and “carve” the “uncarved” areas. To do this I decide on a line just below the vest. Everything below the line will be carved away, and everything above the line will be painted and finished. You’ll see what I mean soon.

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Here’s the line on the back side of the torso.

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Using my 3/4” #5 gouge, I remove some material from my line down to the bottom.

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I do the same thing to the back side.

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Here’s what it looks like from the side.

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Here you can see that I have taken my same gouge and scooped away the saw marks leaving a dished out shape at the shoulders and continued removing wood on down to the very bottom.

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Here’s the left side.

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Here’s the bottom all finished up from the front. We will actually cut off some of the bottom to fit him to a base after we finished up with some add-ons that I’m planning to attach.

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Here’s the back.

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And here’s a picture from the bottom showing the circular shape of the carved away section.

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And here’s the final product after some finish sanding with some 220 grit sandpaper.

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Here is a final picture of the torso from the left.

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From the back.

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And the right side.

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Now that looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself, and I guess I just did. I hope you are carving your own Archer Bust along with me. I would hate to think that I’m going through all of this work for nothing. Please drop me a comment or send me a picture of your progress to let me know that someone out there appreciates my work. For the next part of this tutorial, we will make him look more like an archer by giving him a quiver of arrows on his back and possibly a bow as well if I can figure out how to pull it off.

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