This is the sculpture I was working on in the video (in the post below). Using the Arbotech Mini-carver, I roughed out the shape in old oak that had been eaten by boring worms creating holes, tunnels and trenches. I think the worm-wood adds an interesting texture to the sculpture but because the wood was so bad this was really a practice ‘sketch in wood’. Meaning I just made it up as I went. As a result, I decided to keep the texture created by the mini-grinder on the top of the whale to contrast with the smooth belly.

The photos below track the progress beginning with how the sculpture looked after being roughed out by the mini-carver. After that I used the Dremel, files and sand-paper to refine the shape. I used a dark stainer and semi-gloss polyurethane to give it the shiny finish.  I still plan to make a stand and add bone eyes for this piece so I will post those pictures later on.