Turning Pinocchio Into Pinocchio!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my little workshop.

I'm just a novice, but probably like yourself, love to be creative and make things.

My inspiration for little Pinocchio, actually came from being too lazy to re-string the original puppet that his wood came from. I had the broken marionette dismantled anyway, and went a little far when I decided to reshape the face 'a little'. With all the whittling and alterations, he went from a 12cm high head, to just under 5cmH.

I used a pocket knife, retractable craft knife, paints, sand paper, dremel for drilling and sanding, and a few band-aids for the "whoops" moments.

Now stay still, Pinocchio. This won't hurt a bit.

First step - remove the old paint & varnish.

The dremel really helped to carve notches into the larger areas, allowing easier removal with the pocket knife. It wasn't easy to get a good grip with the knife until I made the surface areas smaller with the grooves.

Once the wood was free of old paints, the shaping was a lot easier. His face changed quite a lot during this stage. I am a first timer at this whittling thing, and found out that knives are pretty sharp! Also, that little wafer you think you're taking off, is a chunk. Of wood. Off his face. Huge.

This is where I learned that a knife works much better when sharp.

It's getting there...

Decided not to go with the acrylic eyes. They wouldn't sit right to get that cross-eyed expression he needed.

Beginner here. I glued his legs into his torso.

The knees are joined with a picture hook (the circle one with screw end). See pic 16

Shins & feet are one piece of wood.

Hands and arms are joined at the elbow, using a pin. See photo 15

Once painted, assembly was just a manner of screwing on his arms and gluing his head to the body.

For scale, I have a needle threader beside his feet. Jiminy Cricket was very small but really fun to make.

The smaller wood was much easier to handle, and easier to carve.

Painted. His hat was carved separately and glued. Because of his upturned collar, it was too hard to cut into the gap between brim and coat, so did it in two pieces.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my little part of the world here on Instructables.

Have a lovely day.