COMPLETE Step By Step Guide To Carving A Face || Facial Features 101

we're going to be doing a facial features today on a one by one and a half by 12 stick of Basswood and so we're just going to be working on facial features only today so hopefully this will be informational to you and help you and again if you have any questions why please leave us a comment and uh in the comment section all right so what we're going to do here is we're going to take our bench knife and we're going to make a cut here about half inch down piece of wood here foreign carving away here we always want to remind ourselves about the 90 degree angle if we were to hold this um piece of wood here and we were to draw a line here from that corner to this this is our Center Line right through here and really if we turn it from here from here it's about where your ears would be at on the on this piece that we're going to carve but we're not going to do ears today let's be for another time so we're going to start here again with our with our cut about half inch down make a swooping cut and then we're going to come in now with our knife and make the eye planes okay and again keeping everything in Center um draws a line right here just for for you to see and then I'm going to take my tip of my knife start here and my knife's going to wind up here at the outer edge of the eye hopefully and this is going to create the bridge of the nose for us here in just a little bit same thing here except we're going to start right here and this part of the knife is going to be coming down toward the outer part of the of this eye right here so clean this up just a little bit okay all right and then we're going to come right here this is going to be the point of the nose and we're going to come right in here and make it what we call a rocking chair cut this is a lot safer cut than trying to come across because the wood grain could give away and uh and bad things could happen there maybe but anyway so we're going to undercut that now and you'll see that we have a nose and that's the furthest thing that sticks out on your face and so we are at this point now where we're going to take a u gouge and this is about a number three or four and we're going to come about halfway down the nose and create the bridge and we're going to push straight in and we're not going up we're going straight in just like so take a knife and remove that waste there that was created by the U gouge then we're going to start right here where we start with our u-gouge and we're going to take this part of this waist out and you can see that opened up our eyes more plain for our eyes okay I'm going to turn my wood here and we're going to do the same cut here starting out here and working our way toward the outer edge of the eye and cleaning up this here all right so there's the two planes for the eye here's your nose now we're going to come in here and clean off this roughness of the wood and right right about here we're going to put our smile lines on each side of the nose now we're wanting to create three planes here for the mouth because if you don't get your mouth right your carving is going to look flat and so we always want to make sure that there is what they call a dental Mound it's a roundness of it of the mouth so I'm going to take the tip of my knife and I'm going to start right here at the end of my small line and work my way up to where I put the stop cut and that stops me from going up into the nose and uh so we don't want that so again we're putting a stop cut here taking our knife and plunging it in and coming up to the bottom of the nose all right so this has created there's one plane two and three and so we can come in we're gonna continue to round this a little bit more because when I first started carving my faces were very flat they look like they hit a parked car um and so I asked a friend of mine why is my face look so flat and he said well think about this what is behind the upper lip and well of course we know it's our teeth and the teeth is what shape is the shape of our face and so we're going to continue here with the small lines to extend these up into the nose and again I always come back and visit this Dill Mound quite a bit and tweak this as I go to try to help balance things out all right let's work on the nose here a little bit and making this a little rounded and cleaning up and this is where your knives our souls needs to really be really sharp get these nice crisp clean cuts in here all right so um now we're going to come out here with our U gouge and we're going to extend our to create the crook of the nose just give you more better of a look at it here taking our V tool coming in like that creating that little crook [Applause] okay let's leave the nose alone for a while now since this is going to be a man's face we're going to create the eyebrow area and what we do here is we cut this wood back just like we did on our very first cut and we're creating the eye bone the eyebrow area and creating this Ridge that we all have us men that have we have that bridge there and then we want to now take our you gouge or a soft v or whatever it is and split the eyebrow we don't want them to have a unibrow and we're not doing a werewolf so that kind of gives you an idea of what the basics so far looks like on the face all right then we're just coming in and cleaning up these areas here now let's do before we do a mouth let's let's put in some eye placement let's put an eyelid and taking on our pencil here or a pin or whatever you want to use and so those are going to be our eyelids so take your V tool here that will start right out here on the edge of the outer eye don't go any deeper than what this tool is made for create that first cut for the eyelid below this cut will be where the eye ball is all right so let's jump across the nose here and let's go over here let's do the same thing I'm using my thumb as a pivot point as I'm turning it gives me control and it just really helps out and keeping control of your V tool and again you'll see how my thumb is placed I've got my my thumb right on his nose okay now let's do the actual eye ball and we're going to take our our knife here and we're going to do six Cuts six cuts to each eyeball so there's gonna be it's gonna be three Cuts here on each corner and so it's kind of like a like a chip and a triangle and all we're doing is making a little triangle Cuts in each corner of the eyeball so I'm going to take my knife here and I'm going to make a cut here and here and then I'm going to angle my knife because I don't want to come in straight because that could cut into the cheek area so I'm going to angle my knife and out comes that chip for this particular corner of the eye all right same thing come over here to this side of the eyeball do the same three cuts doing the same three cuts and there you have an eyeball now that eyeball again is sticking out a little too far out so let's take our knife and make it cut right on top of that eyeball right under that bottom lid and using the very tip of your knife and then come in this is where your knife needs to be really sharp and that way you'll just take out that little sliver of wood and and that sets that helps sets that eyeball back into the socket there kind of cleaning out there all right so that's an eyeball now after a while we'll come in and put the the eye bottom eyelid all right so let's jump across the nose here let's go across here and do these three cuts on this side I mean learn to turn your wood make your triangle cut here one and two and three there's our second eyeball all right again sinking our knife in on top of that eyeball control is important taking your time and then taking the very tip of your knife and create that eyeball right there all right I'm just coming here to make this a little deeper and so now let's come in and put in the eyelid the bottom eyelid and I start from the outside I work my way in I give this a little again don't go any deeper than what your V tool is made for and it creates that little lid there and so we'll come out here and extend our happy lines or crow's feet whatever you want to call them and that helps out on that particular side of the eye same thing starting on the outside here on this other eye working our way in creating that eye lid there for the bottom of this eye [Music] okay now let's come down here to the mouth area and let's work on this and the mouth really has a lot to do with the facial expressions um foreign and we're going to just take our V tool here and make a cut right here and write this away see all right it's kind of got a mischievous grin there and even though there's not much there's no bottom lip or anything so and so anyway that's to be the top and again that's our one and two and three planes and then we're going to take a soft v and we're just going to do a normal mouth just a standard and when you are relaxed that is the deepest part right there in the center is where your uh most relaxed and that's the deepest part and then we're going to start taking it and tucking it in and as we get closer to the corner of the mouth we're getting closer to that corner with our soft v and that gives us a bottom lip now we're going to take our knife here and I'm going to stick with my old this knife right here and we're going to make a score or a stop cut between the upper and lower lip I'm going to do this a couple of times and just using the tip only because if you try to go any deeper the rest of the blade is going to cut into the wood and bust out your mouth and and all that so just use the very tip and again I'm going to try one more time because we're cutting the fibers of the wood in there foreign I come in here now I'm going to start right here and make a cut and I'm turning my knife and using this thumb right here to push that knife and hopefully that's going to open up open up the mouth for us a little bit and go in here and clean that out get your stiff brush that sometimes just helps just as good and then come in here and we're going to soften the features we're almost done with this guy here I don't know getting close to the finish line and so soften up this area get rid of these little edges right here and um let's see I see a spot right here where we need to kind of clean up here the eye area all right okay now we're going to have to give him some nostrils so I turn my carvings upside down and I get a hold of him and I place my U gouge here I call this the nose picker and we go straight in just like so trade in like that and then I turn him over and I take my knife and clean out his nose again we're picking his nose and then we have this little indentation in our right below our nose that's called an angel kiss but here in the Ozarks we call it this not trough and just put that little Shadow there okay so that's the basic face now the only thing we got left to do is put in the eyebrows you can paint them on or but I like carving them the more you but the more you can carve on your character I think the more better off you'll be and because the paint will um do its job but let's try to put as much stuff as we can and we'll use a v tool so follow this upper line right here where you carved the upper lid and so stay on that line right there if you can and make short Strokes all right if you can and gives and follow down and turn them around come this way follow that Top Line you carved in for your eyelid and then I like to come in and add some exaggerating features you know some some aging cuts just using a soft v here I absolutely love this tool and it does so a lot of stuff for you and of course you know you can come down and and and put some different streaks that's run down through here you know whatever you like to do and uh and then if you're going to paint the guy you paint your eyeballs white but for a demonstration purpose today we're just going to take our pencil and have your carving looking up or down left or right don't have them look like they're staring out into space um so that just really helps with your carving so as we wind up this uh this facial demonstration today just remember practice practice practice and uh next thing you'll know you'll be doing a lot more than just open eyes you'll be doing other things and carving all kinds of features and we'll just look forward to seeing you at the next video please like us and subscribe and also uh tell everyone you can to tune in next time and thank you for uh being here today

Channel: Van Kelly Woodcarvings

Views: 17,441

Keywords: wood carving, woodcarving, wood face, face, facial features, carving a face, how to, tutorial, guide, hand carving, hand made, van kelly

Id: rSLIYeRuZi8

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2023