Angry-pillar

For him, I tried a trick my friend TJ told me that made a ton of sense at the time. She said to carve out the MIDDLE of the little places (like his eyes, teeth, and spots) first, before carving away the edges, so I tried it. 

And he came out pretty cute. But see the spots in his eyes and how uneven his teeth are? TJ's trick didn't work for me at all. The only reason I can think of is because this is a super soft medium and she carves linoleum blocks and she really likes the much harder Speedball rubber. I much prefer this substrate to the pink stuff from speedball, and next time I'll do it my old way - outline everything and then gouge out the little parts. Even though it's probably the "wrong" way, and I could get better at this way if I practiced, sometimes there's no reason to change what we're good at!