December 14 work in progress

Okay, oh my goodness, December is a really busy month. No, I'm not getting much scrimshaw done lately, I'm afraid I just have 4350934850983 other things going on at the moment. But there is at least a little progress. Actually I have more done than what's pictured here tonight, but it's at an ugly stopping point (no worries, I just mean one wing is half-shaded), and besides the camera is in the other room AND it's after midnight and all I can think about is flannel sheets and the cat that's already curled up on my bed.

Anyway..

If you're one of my readers who visits the studio in person sometimes, you'd maybe notice I have the desk set up a little different than usual. Because the knife is so very large, I didn't want to use my vise for it, but feel MUCH safer keeping it on the tabletop. So I've pulled the table forward up over the top of the vise stand. Works pretty well that way! And I'm remembering how much I like keeping my elbows on the table when I work. Maybe this will become my default setup again, I'll have to think about that. Working on a piece of this size can get pretty awkward, and that's part of the reason I keep it thoroughly padded and taped, so as not to skewer body parts that I would rather not have skewered.... I was going to post a photo to illustrate this, but it seemed like a pretty gratuitous boob photo (I'm sure at least one of you would have enjoyed that though) so you'll have to use your imagination....


So yeah, some progress! As you can now see, this side features the F4U Corsair. There will be a very full background. What will it be? Well, just wait and see!



And I would just like to say that putting the border on the curved upper and lower edge of this knife was really hard. I'm feeling very happy to working on a mostly-flat surface though, unlike the pistol grips which required me to constantly refocus the scope every time I moved them!