way back before I started printing templates for my ice sculptures, one done the old way: hand drawn from an overhead projector using a transparency. I had a big piece of sheet metal on the wall and I could hold the paper in place with magnets.
updated 103023 with a TikTok, but mostly on 8/2/23. This is one of those old posts that got a MAJOR makeover. It’s no longer the same article it was before, and it’s LONG now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
This post USED to be about a method that I would almost always use for printing templates. I used it because it was simple and inexpensive. (See Plan C) However, a couple of things have changed since then, and it’s no longer my primary option for templates. But I’ll still go over that method; you’ll see why in a sec.
what's a template?
In the earlier version of this post, I just started blabbing on about how I solved my template production problems by figuring out a cheap way of printing templates. While I’m rewriting and updating it though, it’s occurred to me that you might not even know what I mean by the word “template.”
As far as ice sculpting is concerned, a template is most often a big piece of paper that you freeze to your ice block that has a drawing of your sculpture design on it. Once it’s stuck to your block, you use it as a guide, cutting right through both it and the ice block to create your sculpture. Virtually of the ice sculpture designs on the site include an illustration that shows what your main template would look like for the sculpture.
In most cases, when you’re designing an ice sculpture, you start with a small drawing, likely on a piece of paper or a tablet or computer screen. A template is how you resize that small drawing to fit the dimensions of the ice block(s) that you’re working with. It also serves as a sort of visual plan for your ice sculpture.
producing templates for your ice sculptures
I basically have 4 ways of producing templates that I either use regularly or have used in the past. (Notice I don’t say “printing templates” here. That’s because two of the methods don’t involve printing.) I’ve categorized each method, starting with Plan A and going to Plan D. Plan A is obviously my preferred method, while Plan D is: “Oh 💩! I don’t want to do it this way, but I have no choice!”
For a recent sculpture, let’s just say, I had some problems. <Spoiler Alert> I had to go with Plan C, which is not great, but also not totally horrible, as I’ll describe.
but before the template, comes the design
Before I can make a template though, I need a design. This COULD be just an idea in your head, and if that’s the case, then it is possible to just sketch it on the ice block and start sculpting. But there’s a reason that most professional ice sculptors don’t do this. Winging it rarely produces the best quality work. While I will say that there are a few things that I can and will sculpt without a template, those sculptures are the exception rather than the norm.
A lot of the time, I have to incorporate some sort of a design or lettering into a sculpture (like a logo) and my client may have emailed me what they want included. This makes it easier to do all the design work on my computer, usually in a program that I use all the time, Adobe Illustrator.
Other times, I have to come up with a design on my own and I often get to be as creative as I want. It used to be that I would grab a piece of paper or sketchbook and start drawing. However, now that Adobe Illustrator has a version for the iPad, I usually start doodling on that now. Sometimes I still do regular paper sketches, but I almost always end up moving them to Illustrator to refine them.
In the drawing below, you see part of the recent ice luge that I was working on where I was having problems. The problems I was having had to do with getting the design from the computer to the ice.
this is the basic design for a double ice luge that has an oval space for a logo. The drawing is in Adobe Illustrator and the white box shows a part that I was going to print out as a template, since I have to use at least 2 pieces of ice and a base piece to make what you see here.
plan a: virtual templates with VCarve Pro and my CNC machine
Now THIS is what I normally do, at least recently. I SHOULD have been doing it at my studio for a lot longer than I have been, but that’s another story. I could write a lot more about virtual templates in this case, but here I’ll just go over it briefly.
Now when I started on this sculpture, I knew from the get go that Plan A was a no go. That’s because, earlier in the week, my CNC machine’s controller was showing what the Laguna tech called “the green screen of death 
” Something was really wrong with the little “pendant” that has a keypad and lets me choose and start the jobs that my CNC works on, plus a lot of other functions.
After trying some other options, we determined that the most likely fix was to simply replace the controller. Sadly, they don’t have those at Wal Mart and they’re not cheap. So I had to order one and there was probably no way that my machine would be back up and running by the time I needed it.
All that said, I’m going to pretend for a second that I was going to go with Plan A and show you what that looks like, at least up to the point where we get to the controller. But you might be wondering how using a CNC machine has anything to do with a paper template, and that’s a good question. It doesn’t. But you do create a sort of virtual template when you get into the CNC design software that I use with my CNC, VCarve Pro.
Now in the past, I used to use I-Sculpt software a lot for the same thing that I used VCarve Pro for now. VCarve Pro produces the G-code commands that tell my CNC what to do. While it’s still on my computer screen though, and before I’ve told VCarve Pro how I want to cut it, my design looks just like a regular paper template.
At any rate, in the pics below, you can see how I readied my design to go from Illustrator to VCarve Pro. After that, I imported it into a new VCarve Pro file. And then I told VCarve Pro how I wanted all the shapes in the design to be cut and with what tools.
Once I’ve set all the cut commands and double checked that I’m not going to cut into the table or something, I’d have VCarve Pro create little G-code files called toolpath files and that end with “.mmg.” Each of these files corresponds to a particular cutting bit that I use with the CNC and I’d put them on a flash drive and take them to the CNC in the freezer. However, at this point, I get to the dead end green screen of death on the controller and I have to switch to Plan B 😩
One final note though before we abandon the CNC and VCarve Pro and move to Plan B. I use Adobe Illustrator for designing, but that’s not required. You can design a whole sculpture in VCarve Pro. However, Illustrator has been around forever and is extremely capable. I have lots of Illustrator experience and significantly less experience with VCarve Pro at this point. Later, I’m going to improve my VCarve Pro skills, but I doubt I’ll cut out Illustrator anytime soon. And actually, one of the reasons I use VCarve Pro now is that it plays so nicely with Illustrator.
my oval ice luge design, ready in Illustrator for import into VCarve Pro. For simplicity’s sake, I skipped the design’s luge tracks and when I get to VCarve Pro, I only show the oval section.
now I’ve imported the vector artwork from Adobe Illustrator into VCarve Pro and I’m ready to tell VCarve Pro exactly how I want this design cut. The white rectangle corresponds to the ice block that sits on the CNC machine. This is the closest look we get to the traditional paper template with this “virtual template.”
here, I’ve told VCarve Pro what cuts and pockets it should make in the design, so now we’ve gone beyond the traditional paper template. All the cutting in the middle is where the CNC will make an indentation for the logo that will be added later.
here’s another view of the design; this one is a 3D view that you can turn in different directions to make sure that the cuts are set correctly.
but then, when I take the .mmg files that I generated with VCarve Pro to my CNC to start cutting, I get THIS! ☠️😱🤬💩🤬😤 Oh well, time for Plan B…
plan b: printing templates with a large format printer
Ok, so my CNC is dead. That really sucks, but it’s not the end of the world, right? I sculpted ice for years without an in-house CNC, so it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing!
Anyway, after years of printing paper templates with my office inkjet printer, I got kind of sick of it and wanted to make things a bit simpler. So I looked into larger format printers. However, I also knew that I should get a CNC as soon as possible, so I shouldn’t spend money on a large printer that I should be spending on a CNC. This was a conundrum.
Fortunately, FedEx office had a nice solution for me. Their large format printers are self service, extraordinarily easy to use, and print on sturdy white paper that makes for nice templates. I can’t remember when/why I started going there, but I’m pretty sure I was just sick of taping pieces of paper from my inkjet together. (That part will make more sense in a bit.)
So to use the large format printer at FedEx Office, all I have to do is make a .pdf file for each template that I need, which is super easy to do in Illustrator. And then I just put it on a flash drive (the same one that I usually use for my CNC, actually, which I may want to rethink 🤔) and take it there. Once there, I plug it into their printer, insert my credit card, and off I go!
Except…oops! I brought the flash drive, but I forgot to put the file on it before I rushed out the door. And NOW, FedEx Office is closing too soon for me to go back and get it! 💩!
Ok, time for Plan C 😩 But again, I’m going to pretend that Plan B worked (after the fact), up to the point where I didn’t actually print the template. See below.
here’s the self-service large format printer at my local FedEx Office. It’s a big HP DesignJet. Apparently not all the FedEx Office locations have these stations, but a lot seem to, at least in my experience.
the self-service large format printer has 2 screens, one on the printer and this separate payment terminal. Of course, you start with the $$$; credit or debit cards work fine.
just out of frame, I’ve inserted a flash drive with my file to print on it. So I pick “print” from this little screen on the printer.
you can see my .pdf file that I’m going to print. (Ok, not really, because I don’t need it anymore; I’m just pretending right now.)
and of course, I only need a black and white print for my template.
after you go through a few other simple screens on the printer, the payment terminal asks you if you’re sure you want to print this and tells you how much it’s going to cost you. And that’s about it; you approve it and it prints your template! I decided in the end that it’s worth $6 to not have to tape together sheets to make my template, or it would have been, had I actually brought the file when I still needed a template :/
plan c: printing templates with an office inkjet
Ok, so Plans A and B are busts! Fortunately, printing templates with Plan C is a bit more foolproof than the earlier plans. I don’t really have to worry about specialized equipment, except I guess for my computer and the not-cheap Adobe Illustrator software that I use. (But I do believe that other programs can do what I describe here.)
Of course, I’m not happy that it’s gotten to Plan C, but I’m at least not worried that this plan won’t work. That’s because I’ve done it this way probably more times than I can count. So one more time isn’t going to kill me.
here are the templates that I ended up using for my sculpture, hanging on my freezer door.
Ok so, creating templates is one of the most mind-numbingly boring parts of ice sculpting, at least for me. So years ago, probably after drawing out several of the templates like you see in the photo at the top of the post, I used to look at the expensive, large format, plotter-style printers like the one at FedEx Office and think: “Boy, someday I’ll get one of those and I won’t have to hand draw my templates any more!”
Well, I failed to anticipate then that CNC machines and the associated software would eventually cut out the whole template process for most of the ice sculptures that I make. That said, I still wouldn’t mind having a nice, great big printer that could print out a whole template for me and save me trips to FedEx Office. (If you want to donate one to ME, I’ll still take it, lol!)
At some point though, before the original date of this post and well before I got my CNC or found the large printers at FedEx Office, I finally realized that I can use Adobe Illustrator and just my regular inkjet for printing templates out on multiple regular size pieces of paper. I didn’t need a big printer and you don’t either! After all the sheets print, I just lay them out and scotch tape them together, cutting off any excess.
The largest piece of paper that my little inkjet printer can use is legal size, but I usually just use letter size for printing templates. The printer’s precision is such that the pages line up quite well, and there are only small gaps in the printing where the pages meet.
It sometimes takes a while to print, but I can easily be printing templates at home in the evening while I do something else. When I did this all the time, I used to watch movies or tv while I taped the sheets together, since it’s pretty mindless. After I taped them together, the templates would fold up nicely along the taping and I could put them in a folder. Each template usually required about 10 pieces of paper. It’s still really boring to do all the taping and cutting, but printing templates this way and assembling them takes a lot less time than the hand drawn way, which I’ll go over next. That way sucks!
@icesculptingsecrets So far, this is about the closest I’ve ever gotten (there’s one other that’s pretty close too) to making a “realistic” ice sculpture. I’d like to try it again some time, but there are so many things to sculpt and only so much time. So maybe not. It definitely won’t be my last pelican (pelicans come up a lot in Louisiana), but maybe the last one that’s this detailed. I have some ideas to improve the coloring and I learned a lot about brown pelican anatomy; who knows, maybe I will try again 🤷♂️ Love seeing these beautiful birds! . . #brownpelican #pelican #louisiana #neworleans #icesculpture #icesculpting #icesculptingsecrets ♬ Agaru! Royal Road EDM / Progressive House(959886) - Eto
you can see right at the beginning of the TikTok above that for the brown pelican ice sculpture, I used a template printed from my inkjet and taped together. This method isn’t perfect, but printing templates this way definitely works! (If you can’t see the TikTok with your browser, it’s here also. For more ice sculpting videos, follow ice sculpting secrets on TikTok.)
Now there’s a good chance you don’t have Adobe Illustrator. If you don’t want to get it and want to try to use other software, the important feature to look for is the ability to “tile” a larger image into letter size sheets of paper.
The way I do it in Illustrator, I just set up a document size that is larger than a block of ice (45″ by 25″, for example). Then I make a rectangle that’s 38″ by 19″. (Although standard ice blocks are 40″x20″, going with an inch smaller gives you a little leeway for block defects.) Then I either import a scanned or saved design or I build it in the program. I resize the design as necessary, save it as a template, then print.
If my printer fails, I can buy a cheap, capable printer and the paper at pretty much any store that has an electronics department. Everyone knows that they price the printers cheap so they can get you hooked on buying replacement ink cartridges, but if I’m replacing a broken printer and on a deadline, I’m not going to care! I tend to stick with Epson printers and sometimes Canons. These little inkjet printers do run out of ink fairly quickly and that’s annoying, but that’s usually easy to fix.
this is what the dialogue box looks like in Illustrator when I’m printing templates this way. The “tile full pages” part is super important!
Printing templates out properly this way involves selecting certain settings in Illustrator. (see above) I want the scale to be 100% and for the scaling drop down list, I want to “tile full pages.” Also, you can see on the left how the software breaks the document up into multiple pages. The “tile full pages” option is important because on another tiling setting, it tries to print the entire image and the page margins become extra space inserted into the image. “Tile full pages” leaves small gaps in the image where the pieces of paper meet, but the proportions of the image aren’t affected.
you can clearly see how I taped this template together from multiple sheets of paper. For my sheet paper, I always buy whatever is the most recycled option. I could care less how white and perfect the paper is, since I’ll be cutting through it with a chainsaw anyway! You’ll also notice that I goofed a bit here. I hadn’t used this weight paper for printing templates in a while and I forgot how easily it tears when wet. But you get used to that quickly and you don’t need thicker stock.
Incidentally, if if my template is based on a photo or complex graphic, I do whatever I can to avoid using lots of ink. I erase unnecessary sections or details, convert it to line art, or whatever else I can do. A heavily inked template messes up the paper and the ink runs a lot more when the template is wet during carving. Line art works much better for printing templates and I also convert it to black and white to print unless I’m trying to emphasize a certain portion with color.
this is how the luge turned out in the end. You’ll notice right away that there’s a color logo in there that I hardly mentioned before now, but it’s just a plastic insert. Since my CNC was down, that was the best way to add a color logo. Doing it by hand would NOT be fun!
other size printers can work for printing templates
Medium format printers will also work for printing templates. The software usually doesn’t care, you just need the right driver. I also have an old Epson R2400, which is a medium format printer, but it’s stuck in storage at the moment. However, with the CNC and the large format printers at FedEx Office as better options anyway, I doubt I’ll go dig it out. If I used that printer though, I’d be printing templates on 3 pieces of 13” by 19” paper, giving me a 19” by 39” template. Taping three pieces of paper together beats ten pieces, for sure!
Another downside of that printer though is that the paper is harder to come by. To get normal bond and weight paper that’s 13″x19″, I had to go to a paper supplier who would cut it special for me. That’s an annoying hurdle and another reason that I’m not printing templates with that printer.
plan d: hand drawing templates the old school way
Well, fortunately, Plan C worked for printing templates, but if it didn’t, I still had one more trick up my sleeve. Even though I’ve been tempted to sell or throw out my overhead projector, I’ve so far resisted, just in case it ever got to the point where I had no other option. (It got uncomfortably close this time!)
I rarely need to draw paper templates anymore, thankfully. But I can if I have to, since I’ve done it thousands of times in the past. Mark Daukas used to recommend using an opaque projector, but I always hated those and I used my overhead projector and printed transparencies.
In my old studio, I had a big piece of sheet metal on the wall with block size rectangles drawn on it. The rectangles helped me make sure that I wasn’t projecting at an angle and therefore distorting the projected image. I always included a block outline in my designs so I could line it up with the rectangles on the wall. Instead of tape, I’d use little magnets to hold the cut banner paper that I’d use in place. I’m sure I have pics somewhere aside from the CAFTA logo at the top and I’ll add one if I find it. With all the pics in this post, one more won’t hurt, lol.
I’ll never like drawing templates, but once your ice gets above a certain size though, using hand drawn templates starts to look better. For the giant blocks in Alaska, it would be rough to tape together a bunch of little sheets of paper to create a template that size. And a CNC machine is out of the question. So large format prints or hand drawn templates become really your only options.
I can’t remember if Junichi’s templates were hand drawn when I worked with him in 2004 (see below), but I do know that I’ve hand drawn some of my own Alaskan ice and other big ice templates. I also know that the one time I didn’t use templates competing in Alaska, it didn’t go well :/ So hand drawn templates are a hassle, but they’re definitely better than nothing!
Not your regular everyday ice sculpture templates: Junichi Nakamura (L) and Shinichi Sawamura stand amongst the templates for the huge “Ancestral Spirit” ice sculpture in Fairbanks, AK in 2004. There wasn’t enough floor space in the room to properly lay out the entire template 😱
links and stuff
This post is listed on the ice sculpting techniques page, and you could also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. You can comment there as well as below. And if it’s gone rogue and won’t LET you comment below, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
a super old comment
The following comment was on the original blog entry. After some technical difficulties, the blog had to be reconstructed, and this was the only way to keep the original comments. Btw, the “very useful idea” refers to my Plan C method, not the other 3 methods, since this post was all about printing templates with an office inkjet before.
1 Comment
Anonymous
this is very useful idea!! thank you very much
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 – 11:20 PM
