Shih Tzu portrait sculpture

Hello and good morning all,
Today I'd like to share a custom piece I carve for a good customer in New Jersey.
The Shih Tzu in a hollow..

Here it is in the raw with focal points detailed.
There was an issue though, it had a pretty bad bark inclusion in its right leg.
What to do? Cut it out...

And replace it with good wood.

Then carve it again...

Here it is all fixed and ready for the torch..
Sorry I didn't get any footage of that process this time..

Then I painted it all except for the whites in the eyes.

After varnish, whites on the eyes..
Boxed it up and shipped it to NJ..

Got a call a week later from the customer saying it arrived in pieces. Apparently the shipping service mishandled the package. Of course they blame it on packaging but I've been doing this for 17 years and the only way you break a piece like that is by dropping or mishandling it. Luckily wood is forgiving and I was able to fix it. She sent it back.

Fixed like it never happened..

So instead of throwing it in a box and taking another chance of it breaking. This was around the time of my NYC job carving an angel. So I delivered it personally to NJ to a very happy customer.

I hope you enjoyed seeing what I saw, if so feel free to upvote and reblog. I love what I do and I'm happy to share here on Peakd. Please do stay tuned as I have much more to share on this awesome platform.
Thanks for looking,
Jon