Like lots of things I first carved a whales tale as an experiment, to see if I could do it and how it would turn out.
The first one I did like the sapele one at the beginning of the video was easier to carve than the smaller ones. But when I asked people most seemed to prefer the smaller ones at about 40mm across.
I looked on Pinterest for inspiration and pictures of how they looked and some of the details such as how they roll over. There are also different print offs you can down load which I have in a scrap book file that I can look back on. Different species have different shape tails but I don't tend to worry too much about that.
I think its more important how it looks and feels.
Perhaps as I do more of them I will add other details.
They are easy to make. You don't need a band saw to cut them out on, its just quicker for me to do it that way.
In terms of carving them, I have never trained to carve so its all a learning curve, a work in progress, like I said in the video.
You don' need to be an expert. Try to make sure your tools are as sharp as possible, that is half the battle.
If you are struggling with blunt tools you are much more likely to hurt yourself and not get as good a finished product.
Because the tails are only small you sometimes have to be a bit creative how you hold them steady.
Perhaps I will show you what I use another time, in the next video.
I hope you enjoy it, its only a short video. Have a go, they are good fun.