I have used a stationary bandsaw, a hand-held bandsaw, an axe-adze-spokeshave combo, and have even been on a job where they were cut from both sides with a 7 1/4" circular saw (the curve was pretty shallow).
We cut the joinery in all the braces first and then go through and cut the curves. To remove saw marks we used to belt-sand the curved part (bad--I don't like sanding), then I spokeshaved it (good--you can't breath those shavings), now we have a curved power plane (a little faster than the spokeshave although I kind of miss the shoulder workout).
Your technique will basically be determined by your available tooling. If it is a hobby and no bandsaw is available, I would rough out with an axe, take it nearly to the line with an adze, and clean to the line with a spokeshave. It really goes pretty quickly.
Good Luck
Gabel Holder
