Hillbilly Checkers Project

After watching Gene Messers’ video on how to carve the famous, Harold Enlow character “Rufus”, I tried my hand at carving and painting one.  My wife thought it would make a really cool game piece for a checker set.

So with that encouragement, I have set out to carve a complete checker set of Hillbillies carved in basswood.  I plan to make one team of 12 just like the above picture and the other team of 12 Hillbillies with green pants and yellow sleeves.

I have carved 2 others like the one above, without the paint so far.  If I can just get a chance to sit down and carve some more, I plan to get the entire Hillbilly Checker set carved and painted by the end of summer.

Although each Hillbilly turns out to have a little bit different personality, they should all be fairly close to the same.  I have made them from a 1″ X 1″ X 3″ piece of basswood and then use a scroll saw to do a little bit of roughing out before I start using a carving knife.  I use a carving knife for the entire process except the texture of the beard and notched of the shoes and folds of the sleeve at the elbow.

Let me know what you think of the project and check back for more pictures of my progress carving additional pieces.