The Plains Warrior – 06/2015

June 4, 2014:  This carving started out at our small carving group meeting at the Grove, OK community center.  I can usually rough out a head in the two hours we meet while still swapping jokes and hearing all the gossip since the prior weeks meeting.

– June 6, 2015:   Here’s my progress so far.  Naturally, the remainder of the hair needs to be added and there is still a lot of detailing that needs to be done….feathers, burning, etc.  Unfortunately, the head is out of scale with the body and the feet are too large.  I’m going to have to give those to things a lot of thought cause I started out for this to be a realistic piece.  What to do?  Anyway, I thought you might like to see it in the rough stage.

–  June 25, 2014:  With the carving finished it’s on the paint table and getting some color.  I spent a few hours this afternoon painting the shield and attaching the feathers.  The design comes from a combination of several shields I photographed while at the Prairie Edge store in Rapid City, SD last fall.  It really turned out nice.  On the breast plate it was kind of boring so I made a small decoration out of a carved circle and then, using wire and beads, added some flourish to hang from the bottom. That did the trick.  There is also a knife in a beaded sheaf that hangs from the belt.  Thats next on the list to be painted.  

–

July 03, 2015:  I put the final touches to this one just a few minutes ago and believe me when I say that I’m glad to see it move out of the shop.  Someone asked me just how long I’ve spent on him in carving and then in painting.  Who knows?  All I do know it was long enough.  Doing some of my carvings I reach the point of saturation to where I can no longer really enjoy the process as much as looking forward to the enjoyment of completion.  This is one of those.

–

There is one thing that I was going to do but at the moment thought better of it.  The leggins are kind of plain.  I could have ran beaded strips down each leg but I think that would have been just too much.  I also could have painted on black stripes on each leg to indicate counted coups but I think that too would be just too much.  Seeing it now I think I made the right decision.

–

I added some horse hair decorations to the ends of the bow and arrow cases and the tomahawk handle.  As they swing freely they add a little motion to a static figure.  I used low domed brass tacks for the decoration on the belt and added a leather strap to the shield.  With the base the figure measures right at 21″.  An impressive carving.

–

Wrapping things up I think this turned out to be an example of my best work and the collector who has spoken for it will have a really nice piece to add to his growing collection.  I know it will have a good home and lots of old friends.  Hopefully, they’ll get along with each other.

-Comments welcome.