this is a brand NEW polar bear ice sculpture to replace the AWFUL version that was here before. (You can see it way down in the post.) I’ve also added a bunch of pics from the sculpting of the new one.
**updated betwen 12/31/25 and 1/8/26 with a bunch of new stuff including lots of new pics!
my polar bear ice sculpture design
This post about my polar bear ice sculpture was a legit mess. You see, my original attempt at this sculpture was pretty bad. (There’s a pic much later in the post 🤦♂️) But it was better than nothing, barely 😬
Recently though, I got a request to do this exact sculpture; they event sent me my own design! So I made sure to get lots of pics this time! And I’ve added all the pics and I’m trying to revamp the post. But it’s not going super smoothly so far, lol. I doubt anyone is even reading this, but if you are, and care at all, just gimme a sec! 😉
here's the original post, mostly
This sculpture request was prompted by a sculpture that Christian Funk did in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany as a statement about climate change (according to Greenpeace). My client wanted something similar (and smaller!) for their winter themed party.
While I was looking for polar bear reference photos, I found a surprising photo sequence of a wild polar bear playing with huskies. Apparently, the photos are real and not photoshopped. [I don’t have the original link to the pics anymore, but I’ve added a BBC Earth video below.]
The design below was adapted from a design that I’d had for some time, but apparently never used. The sculpture in the photo at top was carved without the benefit of the template below and therefore doesn’t match the design exactly. The sculpture requires two blocks, but you can see, in the second block, there’s a lot of unused ice. You can take advantage of that extra ice to make the sculpture base larger, carve additional elements, or make it into rough chunks that can be placed around the base (as in the photo at top).
[The following comments were on the original blog entry. After some technical difficulties, the blog had to be reconstructed (and most recently, the whole thing had to be redone 😩), and this was the only way to keep the original comments.]
2 Comments
Anonymous
Thats a really great design! thanx for sharing it.
Butter
Saturday, February 2, 2008 – 12:43 PM
Dawson
Glad you like it; thanks for the comment!
Saturday, February 2, 2008 – 11:24 PM
here’s the original design from 2008. And then below, the original template. The original text is up above. But the video is a recent addition. I don’t know where to find the set of sled dog and polar bear pics that I originally talked about, but the video shows a similar interaction. As for the original sculpture photo, I’ve buried it later in the post WAY down below. It’s bad 😬
so this isn't a one block ice sculpture
Just keep in mind that you need 2 standard ice blocks for this fairly large polar bear ice sculpture. The lower block can be a trash block (cloudy, fractured, or whatever) and that won’t hurt the design a bit. The bear, on the other hand, needs to be awesome, and not like mine, lol.
I’ll also say that I’ll try to add a single block polar bear ice sculpture design in the future. Pretty much everyone knows that the polar bear is one of the poster children for climate change and that’s ALWAYS on my mind when I think about what I can do as an ice sculptor to make the world a better place. So, even though this is one of my older designs, I’m sure that I’ll have more to say in this space along those lines.
sculpting the polar bear ice sculpture sequence
Brand new to the post are these pics that I took while sculpting my latest attempt. Hope you find them useful!
the polar bear ice sculpture starts out with a block of ice and a paper template. I apparently reversed the original design, btw. I probably decided that I’d rather he look to the right and presumably the future (which polar bears might not be a part of 😢).
here I’ve engraved the design onto the ice block and removed the template.
I used a chainsaw to rough cut it to this point. But you can definitely see the design.
I didn’t use a template for the backside of the sculpture, so I’ve marked the backside legs with a red Sharpie.
the main part of my polar bear ice sculpture is almost done now that I’ve shaped it and smoothed it. Next is the detailing.
working on the details on the head, I used a red Sharpie to mark them
here’s the backside of the finished polar bear. It’s rough, but it will have time to melt down a bit before the event.
this side is a little cleaner than the backside. That works too because it’s the side that is supposed to face the event.
and here’s the finished polar bear ice sculpture, with the finished bear atop the angled, icy base.
how would it work on a CNC machine?
Well, when I get a bigger CNC machine, I would try this sculpture on it. My current gantry is too short though. But soon…
Ok, maybe not that soon since I’m pretty happy with my little CNC. How about eventually?
But also, in theory, I could still make it on my current CNC, by cutting it from two thinner slabs and then freezing them together. Not ideal, but I definitely have used similar techniques in the past.
how could I take this design further?
I’m going to get into this more later, but as you can already see, I made some drastic improvements between version 1 and version 2 of this design! So I could probably do even better next time!
I didn’t use a reference for v.2. I was just sculpting from memory and from the template. That was better than the first time though, where I didn’t even use a template.
I think I could get a MUCH better polar bear ice sculpture on my third try by following my typical high-end sculpting procedure: detailed templates and reference pics on the wall behind the sculpture so that I could constantly work to make it as lifelike as possible.
here's the awful original polar bear ice sculpture 🤦♂️
If you think this sculpture doesn’t match the template that well, you’re right! I could have done a much better job on the bear, particularly his head. He also looks like he’s eaten a few too many seals 🤣 Thankfully I have the new pics!
for more info and some guidelines
If you have any questions about this polar bear ice sculpture design, email me or comment below. (It might not let you though.) If you would like to use this ice sculpture design or any other design on this site, please check the design usage guidelines. The design collection page lists designs on the site.
You might also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets facebook page and you can comment there as well as below. Thanks!
