Polylord
Super Freak
About 2 years ago I started carving stuff out of stone. My first project was a panther lying on a rock, and shortly after that, I decided to work on things from Lord of the Rings. At first, I started with a project making a relief from the Gates of Moria (click here for the thread with pictures)
A couple of months ago I started on a long-term project, carving the Argonath out of stone. As a reference, I'm using the Argonath bookend set. The eventual pieces will be twice the size of the bookends.
It all starts with buying the right stone. As I wanted the Argonath to be approximately 1 ft tall, the stone would have to be pretty large. Apart from that, I didn't want the stone to be too "firm" (like marble, which is very difficult to work with), and it had to be the "right" color (black/dark grey/dark green/brown, something along those lines).
Eventually I found a stone that has a beautiful color. Don't let the red layer fool you, that's just the outer layer of the stone. The green/grey color the stone has now will get darker in the end when the stone gets waxed.
On this picture you see how I use a saw to flatten one end of the stone, so it's possible to make it stand up.
Here you can see how the stone stands and next to it the figure of SSW.
The next step is putting global lines on the stone to indicate how the statue is gonna look. Then I know which parts to remove.
Here the stone is cut/carved in a rough shape.
Started to remove excess rock underneath the extended hand.
I removed pieces of stone on the other side, where there will be some rough rock later on.
I did the same to the front.
I worked some more on the arm, removed excess stone near the head and made a beginning on the foot.
The edge of the robe has gotten its final destination. Same goes for the foot.
Worked some more on the foot.
A couple of months ago I started on a long-term project, carving the Argonath out of stone. As a reference, I'm using the Argonath bookend set. The eventual pieces will be twice the size of the bookends.
It all starts with buying the right stone. As I wanted the Argonath to be approximately 1 ft tall, the stone would have to be pretty large. Apart from that, I didn't want the stone to be too "firm" (like marble, which is very difficult to work with), and it had to be the "right" color (black/dark grey/dark green/brown, something along those lines).
Eventually I found a stone that has a beautiful color. Don't let the red layer fool you, that's just the outer layer of the stone. The green/grey color the stone has now will get darker in the end when the stone gets waxed.
On this picture you see how I use a saw to flatten one end of the stone, so it's possible to make it stand up.
Here you can see how the stone stands and next to it the figure of SSW.
The next step is putting global lines on the stone to indicate how the statue is gonna look. Then I know which parts to remove.
Here the stone is cut/carved in a rough shape.
Started to remove excess rock underneath the extended hand.
I removed pieces of stone on the other side, where there will be some rough rock later on.
I did the same to the front.
I worked some more on the arm, removed excess stone near the head and made a beginning on the foot.
The edge of the robe has gotten its final destination. Same goes for the foot.
Worked some more on the foot.
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