About Me

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My name is Sean Syman, and I grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, nurtured by the Kiwi "mate, do it yourself!" culture. I love making things, playing guitar, hiking and camping, sailing, playing hockey and travelling. 

I'm currently living in Toronto, Canada, doing my overseas experience - travelling as much as I can, living in a tiny 450 sqft apartment and putting woodchips all over the floor. In my real life I work as an Acoustic Engineer, working with architectural and environmental noise, sound and vibration being my other passion apart from woodworking.

FAQ

When did you start carving?

I started taking my carving seriously in the last couple of years, but I've been making small things like pendants and figures for probably about five years now. I always had a love for hand tools and shaping things, and I first started getting into carving when I was making pendants for my girlfriend early in our relationship. It was my girlfriend who first challenged me to carve Pokemon - first with a Bulbasaur which was a good first try, and then with a Pikachu that I was much happier with.



How did you learn to carve?

​Most of what I do is entirely self taught, or transferred from other areas of woodworking. I grew up helping my Dad in our basement workshop, fixing boats and making small things - when I was 18 we made a guitar together in the most hacked together way possible and it still plays great to this day.



What tools do you use?

I use pretty much entirely hand tools - I'll occasionally use a dremel to drill a hole for my joinery but the noise and dust from power tools doesn't work well with my tiny apartment workshop. My go-to tools are chisels, knives, gouges and v-tools and japanese pull saws.



Do you take commissions?

Not at this current time.



How can I buy your work?

My work is available when completed (in limited quanities) on etsy here. To get updates on when pieces are available for sale, be sure to sign up for my mailing list here.



What are you making next?

See my upcoming projects here! I'll try to keep this updated.



Are you planning on carving all the original 151 Pokemon?

No way! I'll be carving my favourites, and what I deem practical to carve from wood - and I haven't been limiting myself to the original 151.



How long does it take you to carve a Pokemon figure?

About 20-30 hours for most figures - this depends on the carvings, size, complexity, wood selection, detail and any joinery involved.



What types of wood do you use in your carvings?

I mostly use basswood, walnut, cherry, butternut and maple for figure carvings. For pendants I use a wider variety of more exotic hardwoods due to the small size, such as ebony, rosewood, koa, zebrawood and more.



Who's your favourite Pokemon?

It's got to be a tie between Bulbasaur and Dragonite!



I love your Cubone/Pikachu/Eevee/etc, when will you make more of them?

I'm focusing on carving a wide variety of Pokemon (and other things), and for the time being I'm not making many repeat works.



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© 2019 by Sean Syman