Chester the Rooster - WIP

While the gaming front didn't see much action on my vacation, the weather was warm enough to get some work done on Chester the Rooster. My Dad finished the carving on this one quite a while ago, maybe as long as five years. This one is he carved, by request, for my Mom so I really want to blow it out of the water.

The painting will be done with a combination of enamels and artist oils but before I can get to the fun part the "canvas" needs to be prepared. Early on my Dad had put some primer on Chester but didn't go any farther than that. I spend one day filling and sanding and basically ignored the primer coat that he had put down. After I was happy with that work my first coat of primer went on. This coat is used to expose any flaws in the wood work. 

I let this dry over night and rolled Chester back outdoors for another round of sanding. During this I found some places that I had missed so another round of filling commenced. The idea is to make sure that the surface is as flawless as possible. Its a bit tedious but very much worth the effort.

Here is the point where Dad stopped

I did finish sanding back in September so Chester was ready for a coat of primer

If you look carefully you can see the areas where I have had to apply wood filler to fix blemishes in the wood work.

The band of wood filler around the neck is trying to hide the joint where the head is attached to the body. You can see that in a few places around the legs too.