Help Me Design a Labrador Retriever

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12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
Bulldogs, fine. I have a couple.
But really, wouldn't a Labrador be cool? Help me design a Labrador pipe. I have a block of briar.
I'll work with general descriptions, no problem. Be nice if we could form some consensus about things like what would a Labrador pipe's
- stem style be?

- shank?

- chamber dimensions?

- Length?
How do we get a pipe shape to abstractly represent my favorite breed? (My nick is actually a tribute to one of my most gentlemanly studs, "Piper Cheyenne Twelfth-Pup." My favorite Lab right now is crazy with energy, but extremely smart. "Shyper" was dignified, serious, and dedicated. I may have only had one other dog who was a better hunter, Dakota Sun Catcher. IMPOSSIBLE retrieves! Genius retriever! But she was also a stubborn old bitch. She sometimes told me to go to hell and did her own thing out there.
I want a pipe designed as a tribute to these dogs, yet I'm not settled on what that should be.
Abstract. Not a sculpture, not a caricature of a dog, not a "dog's head." But something exemplifying the best traits of a Labrador Retriever that you could sort of "see" in a pipe shape.
Color is easy. I've had black, yellow and chocolate labs. I favor yellow. (Cheyenne was yellow; Dakota was a "Dudley" -- double recessive, meaning, she had chocolate lab accents and was sired by a chocolate but was yellow).
Their intelligent brown eyes might be a representable feature in the finish. Shiny, glossy, deep brown.
Forehead lines... well, see, depends on American Lab or English if you go with a sharp cut forehead or slant/slope forehead.
Bodies vary, too. Long slender legs (seeing the shank and stem here) or shorter-legged, stout body.
Rusticated represents the longer coats of some I've had, but most were real short hair, like my current Black Lab...
Don't know.
Help?

 

deathmetal

Lifer
Jul 21, 2015
7,714
32
Yellow wood, with a wide stem to represent big paws, and folds on the side to represent the ears, with good draft and comfortable in the hand like an old friend.

 

12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
Good draft.. yes.
And the image suddenly comes to mind of them paddling anxiously out to retrieve a duck, the way their cheeks bellow out, nose up as they plow through the water, eyes excited, searching. Wonder if can get the angle to do that.
But wide, yes. They can put anything in that giant maw. It envelopes, accommodates pretty big birds. Hell, they bring back Giant Canadas with no trouble. That trotting return, head heavy with the bird, trying to see past the bird in their mouth. I can sort of see the lines to represent from that.

 

12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
And the way it fills your hand... that has to be accounted for. You put your palm over the head or brow of a lab, it fills your palm, they push back against it firmly, or, wanting petted, come force their heads under your hand and toss it up over themselves.
Or as you said, the paw. "Shake!" And the paw is in your palm. That beefy pad, their foundation. One of those, the paw or head, you have to feel as you hold the bowl.

 

12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
Hmmm... something like that. They have that white undercoat. Could be in the finish.
But not oiled. Oiled, that would be my old Chessy (long since gone). Gawd-awful oily coat, that Chesapeake!

 

deathmetal

Lifer
Jul 21, 2015
7,714
32
mind of them paddling anxiously out to retrieve a duck
Come to think of it, some duck decoys of the old school had great stylized folds that were like wings, but not literally. It gave them a cool, aerodynamic but organic shape.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,459
I think the hard part is coming up with something that is sufficiently different to be its own shape and not a version of something else. Maybe a canted brandy shape with the forward edge of the brim flared out a little the way a Lab pushes the water in front of him while he swims. Maybe it could have two little garnets on either side of the bowl for eyes. I don't know. The eyes sound a little kitschy . Maybe just carve them or leave them off. Little paw nodules under the bowl. It might be a sitter -- sit, sit. Labs are among the sweetest breeds, so sociable, kind, and capable.

 
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