Carving Queen Anne Doll - Forked Wooden Hands Tutorial

I started carving dolls about a year ago. I couldn't find anything online about carving Queen Anne style wooden dolls.  So I decided to make my own Queen Anne pattern based on photos I have found in books and online.  I am making this tutorial so if any other artist wants to make a doll at least they might find this technique helpful.  This is my process of making the forked style hands. It is actually easier than I thought. But challenging none the less if your not use to working with a bandsaw.

I have designed the fork style hand with

 several versions.  I posted two profiles here . . .

the one on the right is harder to make but what good

is making art without a challenge.

 I am making the simple version in this tutorial.

 Hopefully it will help someone else along the carving journey.

I am using a 2 inch by 2 inch block.

It will cut 2 pairs of hands.

I traced the back of the hand pattern.

Making sure to make the 3 cuts that form the fingers.

Place a dot with your pencil as a place to stop when cutting on the band saw.

Turn the wood block on the side and trace the side profile of the hand.

Cutting to dot on the block of wood with your band saw.

This is what the block looks like after cutting on the band saw.  The blue line indicates where to cut the wood .....will later be used  to cut the wood into 4 pcs(4 hands

Cut between the index finger and thumb

Cut off the corners, then the inside curve between the index finger and the thumb. The blue line is where to cut the thumbs to length . . . don’t cut thumbs too short. . .it is better to leave them on the long side. . .just in case you get carried away with sanding. . .LOL Notice: the Red line where the thumb and index fingers are cut at the same time. This makes it easier to remove wood from the palm of the hand while leaving the thumb intact.

This is the hand with the wood from the palm removed. Now all that needs

to be done is refine the shaping of the hand.
Good Luck!