duck decoy carvers

Any out here done it? So you know needing another hobby, lol. I've been in the Graphics business my whole life and even started to major in college for art (till I decided I needed money to live on).
Anyway I'm a perfectionist to a fault and just playing around with the idea, I've never carved anything in my life but have a lot of the dremel tools and a couple machines?

I'm a wanna be. I know a lot of guys carve with pink foam glued together.

I've made my own corks years ago, including carving the heads, These were working decoys, As good as they were, plastics work about as well, weigh a lot less and are relatively cheap.
I don't have the patience anymore and have zero interest in making works of "art"...but YMMV...

I take it this will be for artwork for your home or are these decoys you want to create for working decoys? I had a brother-in-law that bought a lot of carved ones from a carver somewhere in one of the plains states. These where so real and well done it was almost unbelievable anyone could do that much detail looked like a real duck. I know he paid a lot for them, but they held there valve well. The artist died some years ago now.

If you're really a perfectionist and want a challenging hobby then work in the hyper-realistic style. Pick a subject, work out the details in your mind's eye, surround yourself with as much good reference material as you can find, wherever you can, (pics in books, magazines etc) Then make a clay model to work out balance, proportions etc. I always like Tupelo wood (holds detail good and is light weight) You'll probably outgrow the Dremel if you keep with it. I like copper for the branches, leaves etc, you'll want to anneal it before carving it. Decoys are cool, but they have alot of wiggle room, if you're just going for the carving aspect then super realistic (to the thousandths kind of thing) is more demanding

Yeh I may start out doing some to use as hunting decoys, duck dekes aren't overly expensive but boy goose are. I just think it'd be cool to hunt over dekes I made. Then I can perfect some nicer ones to gift or set around my cabin. Anyway, just seeing if anyone else is doing it, I may have some pics waaaay down the road.

I'll be starting soon. First attempt will be xps foam.
Check out the refuge forum for some great ideas

Curious what is xps foam and why are you starting with that?

Those minis are very nicely done, Tatiana. I once drove next to a delta filled with Pintails, had to pull over and admire them.

Like the Huey in the photo too. My favourite chopper.

XPS is the pink or blue foam insulation. It's a commonly used material and some folks can really turn out masterpieces.
I just assume it's easier to learn on. It's definitely easier to access for me than cedar or basswood

I 'll have to see if I can find some pics tomorrow. I have a bunch still around the house I can take pics of, but a lot of them were sold as I carved them. Either cork or canvas over wire eastern shore style. I also do fish spearing decoys.

Here are a couple of fish spearing decoys:

Warpaint Shiner


Brown Trout

And a couple of duscks:

Drake Widgeon canvas over wire:


Drake Redhead high density cork:

Tatiana & AnthonyT very nicely done!!!

Great hobby, I have been carving for over 30 years. You will probably have to get a foredom flexible shaft setup for the large kutzall burs for roughing things out, hard to do with a dermel tool. Then when it comes to detail work, you will probably want a smaller high speed motor tool that is not so hard to hold.

If you are going to power carve, dust collection is a must. I have a box with an old furnace blower inside pulling air down through a pegboard top through furnace filters and also a couple where I sit to carve.

Facebook has some great groups and there are some amazing carvers on YouTube.

I carve ducks, songbirds and mainly realistic fish. I started with cumbersome tools in a plastic tent in my garage with an electric heater and made things better as I could.

I did these 6 gunning style Canvasbacks for Christmas presents the year before last.

Boy they are all awesome but the bluegill really stands out to me. Very nice

Flipper 56 >>> beautiful work!!! What kind of material do you use to carve them from??

Thanks, I use tupelo, basswood and pine..

The Bluegill was tupelo and my last commission piece for Zim from Patrice. I am retired and playing a lot now.

I've carved a few and always have a wildfowl carving project going. I'm working on 6 canvasbacks to add to my hunting rig now and a drake shoveler with an exposed wing.

Uncle Dave

Nice! I have a couple loons roughed out and I have carved several woodies.

man guys some beautiful work

Ha! He sure does stand out! In fact, he's looking right at us in our living room right now!!!

I love the trigger fish. Everytime I want to start carving Decoys someone post some carved Fish and then I want to do that. Those fish carvings are top notch, love the triggerfish.

Thanks, it's big, 29 inches tall and took a long time to do the coral and the texture on the fish's skin. It was the last piece I took to the world fish carving championships and my Wife made me keep it because she loves tropical fish. She loved scuba diving when we were younger.

Don't wait to start learning, YouTube has made it easy for you to learn it all. I used to go to competitions to learn and now you can stay home and carve.

Very impressive everyone. Did a few in my time but never came out like those posted

Ha! He sure does stand out! In fact, he's looking right at us in our living room right now!!!
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Good thing that was not a crappie, or Patrice would have eaten it by now.

There has been some brilliant artistry displayed in this post. Amazing work, guys and gals!!

Nice job Flipper, I have to agree that blue gill is great ! I hope to try a fish some day.

Great work everyone, this is the reason I used to go to carving shows and competitions. It's nice to share ideas and techniques with others.