I bought my wife a moose bird feeder from one of those Chinese reseller catalogs, I thought it looked pretty cute but it's only 12" tall. I think if a live bird landed on it, it would knock it over. A tree trimmer buddy of mine said he had some Elm logs on his trailer and said he would drop off any of the pieces I wanted. I got them last week.
I don't have a tractor or skid steer so I cut the section I wanted and used my plow truck to move the sections in front of my woodshop.
I squared the log section and took photos of my subject from 2 directions, traced in my CorelDraw program and sized to fit my block (19" x 14" x 30"), printed and then traced my patterns on two sides of the block. Started whacking at it with my chainsaws.
The above right picture is after the first afternoon.
Though I should have been working in my BodyShop Monday afternoon it was almost 50° so I did some more roughing on the moose with some grinders.
I've got a bit more roughing/grinding to do outside when it warms up again this weekend (8° F today) then I'll move it into the woodshop cover with a garbage bag when I'm not working on it (the wood is pretty green) and work on finishing it up inside. The other antler (bird seed holder) I'll carve from a separate piece and attach later. I've never done a chainsaw carving on green hardwood before (always been from dead standing pines I've harvested) so I have no idea how badly this will split and crack in the drying process or how long it will take to dry. This may all end up being for naught.
Again if I shouldn't be posting non-carvewright work, I apologize and hope the moderators will pull this stuff.
Anyway what do you think of my re-sized reproduction so far?
Thanks ~Mike
By the way if you want to see more of the progress photos: Here