May 23

Pounce, Daniel D. Brown, PhD, 2021

“Pounce” – red fox wood intarsia built from chakte viga, mahogany, wenge, walnut, ebony, maple, holly, and basswood.

Downloadable templates for building your own version are now in my shop!

I grew up with red foxes on our property in Arkansas and have loved them ever since, seeing many over the years in NC and now PA. A family of them, including two new kits, live up the road in a nearby cemetery; they served as the impetus to create this piece, which I’ve had bouncing around in my head ever since I picked up this amazing orange wood.

Apr 15

Cad Bane, Daniel D. Brown PhD, 2021

Meet Cad Bane, one of the coolest bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe (voiced by Corey Burton). This piece is roughly based on an artwork by the extraordinarily talented @daztibbles. I’ve taken a lot of liberties with it – his level of detail is impossible to translate to wood with high fidelity. Most of the piece uses only the natural colors of the different wood species, with the exception of the face, eyes, gums, and tongue. I additionally added a bit of my neighbors weathered pine fence in an attempt to give it a slightly “Western” accent.

As with almost all my Star Wars pieces, it will now adorn my tiny, dirty Star Wars-themed “shop bathroom”. 😂 I think we’re gonna need a bigger bathroom…

Species used: regular and curly maple, mahogany, sapele, mesquite, padauk, walnut, Lombardy poplar, wenge, cherry, mulberry, holly, yew.

Jan 25

Salty, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2021

“Salty”, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2021

Jumping spiders are my favorite spiders. They’re cute, they’re floofy, they’re incredibly observant, and their athletic abilities are astounding. They also dance to woo the ladies like I never could.

The name comes from their family name “Salticidae.”

All pieces cut on scrollsaw, in this case exclusively using my scrap wood collection. Species: maple (regular and curly), walnut, mesquite, ipe, katalox, ebony, holly, cherry, & rubber tree (reclaimed from a cheap old jewelry box).

The main image upon which this is roughly based is “Come Closer, Jumping Spider” by Diaz Gio (@godzaid@giochimitsu), who has some amazing photography and an art account).

Dec 29

Boba Fett, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020

“Boba Fett”, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020

Boba Fett is complete! It only took ~6 weeks!
When I started this thing, I had no idea Boba would suddenly become big news again (no spoilers, aside from the fact Fett is back, which I think is safe since they’ve announced “The Story of Boba Fett” series). I had just read a really cool panel by @john_cassaday in Marvel Star Wars (2015) and instantly decided it would make for a cool wooden intarsia piece.

I wanted more “comicy” colors in this piece than I can get with natural wood grains, so I dyed the pieces with alcohol dyes. All 270 (!) pieces were cut on scrollsaw from a single storm-felled sycamore branch I picked up nearby.

Note: You can see the entire creation of this piece HERE in my Instagram story highlight.

Boba Fett, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020