Are you new to carving, or are you just looking for a few fresh ideas? In Fall of 2006 I took hundreds of photographs of the face carving process as I created one of my Hittys. She turned out to be Hitty Coal, now living in New York with Julie Old Crow. Most of this tutorial focuses on Hitty Coal's face carving but I've also included some pictures and tips to help with the body and hair carving and the painting and varnishing. Each step has several images that can be viewed individually in much larger size. Please have patience with slow loading of large images. This tutorial is designed for printing so please feel free to add it to your scrapbook.

The process of carving a doll, like the production of any creative work, is actually very fluid, and your dolls will come out better if you learn to adapt as you go along to best take advantage of the individual piece of wood and of the portions you have already carved. This tutorial should be read as a guide rather than a strict, step-by-step process. Each step shows a general 'stage' of face carving but you will never really follow exactly the same process twice. I do not follow the same steps every time. Good Luck!