Creative Wooden Gifts to Share: Toucan wooden figurine
Hello everyone, this blog will share an idea designed by drawing software, a lazy looking toucan. Once the carving is completed you can punch holes right above and add hanging strings as wooden gifts. There is not much instructional content in this post, but more creative inspiration for the beginning wood carver. You can use your iPad and Apple pencil to design your own shape for the front view of the wooden figurine, just add its side view to make a unique piece.
Step 1: Design the front view of the wooden figurine of the toucan and determine the proportions.
Designing a rough sketch is not all about imagination but requires a basic level of artistry to ensure that the proportions are reasonable and can be sculpted. As you can see, the beak of the toucan takes up a large percentage of the figure, but not 1/2, which would make the weight uneven and unattractive.
Step 2: Draw the design from the previous step onto the basswood block.
We still prefer basswood, which is a harder wood compared to balsa and the most widely used wood when carving wooden gifts. If you want to carve a wooden figurine that is not very miniature, then you can use a thicker marker when drawing the draft.
Step 3: Saw out the shape of the toucan wooden figurine based on the drawn outline lines and cut away the excess wood.
A small wood cutter is best if you have one, as it is less labor intensive than a saw for simpler shapes like the toucan. However, for complex and smaller humanoid wood figurines, a saw is still the first choice.
Step 4: Carve the sides and round off the corners.
Since the shape of the piece is very simple, its sides are basically made up of curved lines, but note that there are still several places where you need to dig deeper, namely:
- The perimeter of the wings needs to be dug deeper.
- The tail needs to be dug in.
- The body parts beyond the eyes need to be dug in.
- The long beak needs to be dug in deeper than the body and a line carved out.
- Finally, the whole thing will be sanded and rounded off with a carving knife.
Summarize
In addition to using images readily available online as design drafts, drawing your own pictures on your iPad or computer is a great way to make wooden gifts. We hope you enjoyed this post of toucan ideas.
