Squirrel Fur
When I put hair on wildlife sculpture it is more of an effort to simulate the hair. Carving actual hair would be impossible. A solid material will never look like hair or fur no matter how it is carved. Wood is wood, and hair is hair. So the challenge becomes in creating the illusion of hair. There is one thing I have in my favor in accomplishing this and it is a major factor. People expect to see fur/hair on animals. In fact I could fail to provide any texture to the wood at all and viewers would still see the surface as hair.
But for the sake of realism it is important to provide the details. Animal fur does have grain (direction), and the grain changes depending on the location on the body. Sometimes the changes in direction are gradual and other times abrupt. The abrupt changes are the more important to distinguishing the realism of the animal. They are the ones that lend themselves to the realism of the faux fur. Second to that is the variance in the structure of the hair. If too many repetitive “strokes”, that are the same length and depth, are carved in, the simulation will look contrived, and consequently, unconvincing.
Hair on Hair Off
I am not necessarily locked into the result when I am carving hair texture. If I don’t like the way the pattern is developing I have some room to correct. I can actually erase what I first devise as a pattern and start over. But only once or twice, before it begins to change the form of the body. Generally the erase is not full body, but only those areas that concern me. So the process is to carve a little of the texture, see what it looks like, carve it back off and then carve the new pattern back on. Hair on, hair off, hair on.