Galactic whittling – shaak

After thinking about other possible pieces of pocket trash, I eventually decided that my partizan and archeologist personas could use a little memento of home. Enter the noble shaak, Naboo’s tick-like ‘space cow’ (meant to be designed as a sheep analogue).

Shaaks are apparently filled with a buoyant gas to make its backside light, but when carved in wood (even lightweight poplar), the design is very backheavy! To make him stand up without tipping backwards, I had to imitate this strange fact of biology. I split the wood in half and used my Mora spoon-carving knives to hollow out the rear end, and then glued the two halves together. After a few thin coats of acrylic paint, I scraped the back end to create the lighter veining seen onscreen, and then burnished the rest of the shaak to produce a smooth, polished finish.

This was a fun little project. What other things from the Galaxy Far Far Away should I whittle for a future installment? Leave your suggestions below in the comments!

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