More work on the lion

I decided that I wanted a little more stretch on the jaw of the lion so I wetted that area on the front of the leather, then used a large marble to push this area up from the backside. You can see that the putty while dry, is still flexible enough to allow you to form and shape it. The cavity is once again filled with the putty mixture.

Ok, now I'm ready to start the hairing. I started right above the nose putting in really short hairs with the multi blade hairing knife. The short hair is made by stabbing the tips of the blades into the leather and pulling up.

Then I moved over to the ear. The long hairs inside the ear are made by making long cuts with the hairing knife.

Then the scalpel is used to slice carefully under the cuts we just made with the hairing knife. This will allow the hair to be lifted up.

Then, again using the scalpel, slice between each individual hair. This will allow them to really stand up and be shaped.

Here you can see how the leather takes the shape of individual hairs.