Shamo Chicken Carving Process
The pictures below show some of the steps involved in the carving of a Shamo chicken out of an old spalted log. The series focuses on chainsawing the rough contour. Afterwards further detail is added using a Foredom Rotary tool. The finished Shamo chicken carving is shown at the end of the series.
Above: Start with an old log, usually from someone who has cut a tree down and put the logs out front of their house for disposal. Then wait a year or two to let it soften and spalt. There’s actually a branch coming out of the backside of this log that will be a tail. It can be seen in the next picture.
Above: First few cuts with a chainsaw to start to look ‘chickeny’ with head, body, tail.
Above: Bit more definition.
Above: More cuts. Chainsawing is an irreversible process, one step away from firewood.
Above: A bird, is that a bird? Is it a snake, an otter, a seal, a fire hydrant? Is that a practice carving?
Above: Starts to look like a bipedal chicken. Just look at those legs.
Above: Then a bunch of steps done with the Foredom Rotary tool and various Saburrtooth burrs are skipped because I start to get involved and forget to take pictures. Most of the carved sculptures in the gallery are also done using the Foredom tool. In this chicken piece the dark and light coloration is due to how the spalted wood happens to absorb the finishing oil, there is no choice involved with that.
Above: You can only make one of these Shamo carvings. If you make two they will fight.
Above: Two views. Searching google images for ‘shamo chicken’ shows real Shamo chickens. I very much like their upright look. They walk a bit like people do.