Carving a Lion Head from the Royal warship Vasa

The carving in this video is a copy of the majestic lionheads on the gun ports of the Swedish royal warship Vasa that was built in 1628 commissioned by the king Gustav II Adolf. The lion head is carved in real size (1:1) and is approximately 50 cm high, it is carved in Lime wood and then placed on a back piece made out of Oak. First I started out by making a half of the head in clay, to get an idea of the thickness and the diffrent levels of the head before starting to carve to avoid unpleasant surprises along the way. The pictures that I had to my disposal was not so clear in all the details that I had to make the model to figure out all the features. I also made a quick visit to the Vasa museum to cross check my clay model with the original before starting to carve. The piece is then composed of a back layer, as thick as the mane , and the actual head ontop glued together. I used a bandsaw to cut the outer contours of the lion to make the carving process easyer. The carving was then made by the means of the pictures and the clay model. The gun port itself was made out of oak (not as thick as the original though) and both the head and the port was distressed to get the surface of an item that has been on the bottom of the sea for 300 years and then colored in the same manner as the original pieces appears today at the Vasa museum. Carved by woodcarver Christer Björkman at Stockholms Förgyllning & Bildhuggeri, www.stockholmsforgyllning.com The music in the video is made by Adrian von Ziegler