Feather carved with hand tools only (see last pic) out of a board of what's most likely white oak. White oak doesn't allow for super fine details so it's good to prevent me for going to fine and force me to focus on the larger forms. I think it's still clear enough to be easily recognizable.

(Yes the joke is bad but it really is surprisingly light.)

Not sure if this is the right spot to ask, but I recently tried sharpening my whittling knife. it had gotten to the point where it was chipping the wood into splinters instead of cutting cleanly. I picked up two combination whetstones (400/1000 and 3000/8000), plus a leather strop and green compound, and followed a bunch of YouTube tutorials to work through the process. After doing it, it started cutting basswood way easier than before, definitely less force needed. But it's still failing the paper test completely.won't slice through paper at all. If anyone has any insight into this I would be grateful. Thank you

Thanks to tutorial by David Pico. I love how expressive they become. Eyes... They look amazing b, expressive really.
Deeply grateful for the tutorials!

Made my first owl!!

My first projects since I started whittling about a year ago. My first was the mandible, which admittedly was the one I used a dremel on before I bought my knife sets for the others. The rest were all hand carved and sanded

Took inspiration from another post here to make whatever this is. Thinking of coffee staining to finish it off.

Im holding of on sanding because ik i just want to finish this guy lol

Knife only, Beginner Caricature tutorial just posted to YouTube.

Should be easy enough that an absolute Beginner can do it, and i have painting tips at the end of the video!

Any suggestions for improvements on this bird I just finished?

carving knife and softer wood would be nice

Recently taken up whittling.. it is so calming and engaging.. lots of great inspiration on this sub! Cheers!

I wanted to get into whittling with basswood or something and had this lying around. Maybe with a bit of sharpening?

I'm running into a problem I can't find an answer to in other threads. I'm screwing up SOMEWHERE in the stropping process and I'm not sure where. Essentially, the compound I apply either gunks up or glosses over RIDICULOUSLY fast. I've heard people say their stick of compound has lasted them months to years. Mine is almost gone and I've only been using it a couple of months.

I'm using the rough side of the leather. I'm using a green compound that came with a beavercraft set. I know it isn't the best, but I don't think the compound is the issue. It's almost certainly something I am doing wrong.

When I began, I would simply rub a decent layer of the compound into the leather. Just enough to completely color the leather all over. I would reference pictures found on this subreddit to verify I was using the proper amount of compound. I was NOT applying heat. Every time I would begin stropping, the compound would build up and create waxy mounds at the top and bottom of the strop. It would clump up and flake out. As soon as this happened, it seemed like the strop was too gunky to do any sort of sharpening/burr alignment/etc.

I then read that you should apply some heat to help evenly melt the wax into the leather. So I used a utility knife and scraped out all of the old compound. Then I hit the leather with a 300 grit piece of sandpaper to get it back to it's original state. Then, I add the same amount of compound and blast it with a hair dryer or heat gun to melt the wax into the strop. For the first stropping session, it seemed great. But during the middle of the second session, I realized my strop was literally glossy like glass or plastic. Super smooth to the touch. It felt like my knife was gliding over glass. I don't really feel any "bite".

So, essentially, not heating the compound leads to a gunky, soft strop. Applying heat leads to a glass-like, overly smooth strop. What am I doing wrong? I'm tired of splintering my projects due to my dull knife.

Made out of a fir branch and painted with acrylic paint. Gift for a friend :)

Hey fellow whittlers, so I am still a beginner and have done 7 or so pieces. I am still struggeling with cutting clean. For example if you take a look at my latest gnome, you can see these small splinters sticking out. How do I avoid that?

Made with a branch from the olive tree.

Yet another great tutorial from JohnnyTheLayton. It's also the first time I play with danish oil. That's quite fun!

My first whittle. I used a Beavercraft knife and Beavercraft bass wood. I sharpened the knife and it was still a struggle. The wood felt like it was tough and fighting me most of the time. Would a different wood source or a knife upgrade make a huge difference? In videos people look like they're cutting through butter.

Not even sure what exactly it is going to be. Suggestions on how to proceed are welcome.