This looks a slightly different from my actual coiled snake ice sculpture design, but this was my first attempt at a snake (during a live demo) and the inspiration for the more refined design you’ll see below.
updated significantly 3/12/23
dawn of a new era? ok, maybe just a new website.
Before I forget, THIS coiled snake design is the first NEW post for the new version of ice carving secrets > ice sculpting secrets. The old posts haven’t all been restored yet, but I decided that it was deadly boring to just cut, paste, and rebuild. I had to make something new while I was at it. So I’ve decided that I’ll do a new post, then rebuild some old ones, then a new post, rebuild again…kind of like the directions on a bottle of shampoo that nobody follows.
Sadly, life interrupt and it’s taking me longer than planned. I haven’t even finished THIS post, much less added more new ones or restored many old ones. But hopefully before I die…π
In case you’re operating under the misconception that I’m some sort of talented artist, THIS is pretty much the artwork that I took to the live demo for my coiled snake. I scribbled it out on my iPad a few hours before and took a pic with my phone so that I could sneak a look if I got lost while sculpting.
the Abilene Zoo events
Before I really get back into my coiled snake design, I’ll quickly explain something about this sculpture. It was part of a series of live demos that I’ve done over the last few years during the holidays at the Abilene Zoo in Abilene, TX. Not long before Christmas, after most of the holiday parties have died down, I’ve taken a bunch of ice blocks to Abilene and done a series of 1 to 1 1/2 block live demos/performances for anyone and everyone who happens to be at the zoo for their annual Christmas Celebration nights.
Btw, it’s a lot of fun to do these events. Doing just one sculpture per day is a little more stressful than I thought at the outset (things happen, you know?), but the people at Abilene Zoo and the zoo patrons that have come to see my sculpting have been really great! So I definitely look forward to that time of the year!
Another reason that I like working with the Abilene Zoo is that they’re fully accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and they have been since 1985. What that means is that they’re actively working on conservation of the animals they care for and that the animals at the zoo are in appropriate environments. They’re not just sticking a lion in a cage and charging people to come see it.
Zoos like to have fun events and so I’ve done a lot of live carving at various zoos over the years. I’m sure other ice sculptors have had similar experiences. In the past though, I worked with one zoo that was a little sketchy and I was kind of uncomfortable with that. So it was refreshing to start working with the Abilene Zoo because that’s not a concern!
I’m planning to talk more about the Abilene Zoo in a future dedicated post. But in more than one future post/design, you’ll probably see that same Christmas Celebration background. It will likely be a zoo animal design, and that’s why. Of course, when I add those, they’ll all be listed on the design page, just like this one is.
back to the snake: a less than ideal subject for ice
Snakes are not great subjects for ice sculptures. Calling them less than ideal is being nice. Ice blocks are wide and compact while snakes are thin and drawn out. And thin things melt quickly and break easily! Pretty much ANY other animal makes for a better ice sculpture subject than a snake :/ So, I’ve never really looked for an opportunity to sculpt a snake as the main subject.
I didn't get to choose what to sculpt
I had no choice. Ok, well, that’s not totally true. The staff at the zoo gives me a list of animals that they’d like to see sculpted during the series of performances. Sometimes there are a couple of extras, and certainly there are a lot of animals at the zoo to choose from, so I probably could have vetoed the snake if I really wanted to. And I could have always given vague reasons why it’s not a great idea to make an ice snake.
But I didn’t veto it. I think I thought about it, but then didn’t because I like a challenge. I had to think about it a bit more and decide how I’d come up with a design that’s easy enough to sculpt during a live performance and that looked pretty good too. Deciding that it would be a coiled snake design solved a lot of problems for me.
starting on your coiled snake ice sculpture
Once you have your design figured out, the first step of actually working with the ice is always to come up with the right pieces of ice for your design. Like if you had a straightforward two block design, you’d go get two blocks of ice. In this case, we’re cutting the block into three pieces and reassembling them to get a structure that will accommodate the coiled snake. The first cut is to cut the block into two equal halves, right down the middle. It’s almost always easier to do this with the block lying on its side like this:
one half of your ice block is going to be the coils for your coiled snake
After you cut the block into two halves, you’re going to split one of the halves into thinner slabs. You can go right down the middle, or you can opt to make one a little thicker than the other. Presumably, the thicker slab will be part of the snake and the thinner one will be the base, since it’s only to elevate the sculpture. Then the unsplit half block will be the coils part of the coiled snake.
half of this slab will be your base and half will be the business end of your coiled snake sculpture π
Spoiler alert! Below is how the ice goes together after you cut the basic pieces from the original block. The base slab has been cut down a little to ensure that it fits in an ice display tray, but that’s up to you and your situation. Like when I sculpted this piece live, there was no display tray, so I didn’t have to bother with that.
basic block structure for the coiled snake
bad snakes vs. good snakes: it's in the eyes
Of course, there are no “bad” snakes, as they’re all playing their part in nature and just trying to survive, just like any other animals. However, there is a bit of a tendency for some of the more dangerous venomous snakes to have elliptical pupils while a lot of non-venomous snakes have round pupils. This is NOT a hard and fast rule though! (Cobras, for example, have round pupils!) But if you’re trying to sculpt a nice, friendly snake, give it round pupils. If you want an evil looking snake, go for the elliptical ones.
When I sculpt realistic alligators for example, I always give them elliptical pupils, since that’s what they have. But when I’m sculpting a more playful cartoonish alligator, they get round pupils, since I’m going for happy and fun. Eyes are SUPER important and have a major impact on your sculpture. You’ll notice that drawn cobras are often given elliptical pupils to make them look more dangerous. In reality, cobras have round pupils
You may also have noticed that I kind of screwed up the eyes in my live-sculpted snake, pictured at the top 
That’s probably the first thing I would go back and fix, given the chance.
Finally, another way to make a snake look “evil” is to give it a forked tongue. Unless your snake is REALLY large though, this usually won’t work with ice. Either it will be too thick and look wrong, or too thin and disappear/melt/break too easily. So most sculpted ice snakes are somewhat polite and keep their tongues to themselves π
round eyes vs. elliptical ones for the coiled snake design; your sculpture can have whichever you prefer
and here's the design!
I suppose the block assembly (above) looks a bit like you’re making an ice chair. But don’t worry, it’ll be a snake! You have several options here and you don’t have to follow my lead.
Instead of the problematic forked tongue, I just give a suggestion of a tongue. I went with round eyes for this one and I gave him(?) big fangs, which will probably melt right away. I don’t show scales here since that’s a whole other ball game. I’m also afraid I’ll screw it up with what I currently know. I’ll have to come back to that, maybe in a different post. My snake’s head is pretty big, but that’s part of ice sculpting: proportion often gets thrown out the window since ice melts.Β
the coiled snake ice sculpture design
I had to work on the eye a bit and you probably will too. When I first drew the eye, my snake looked like a muppet or something far too cute to have wanted Eve to take a bite of that apple π I think the scales around the eye are important. Certainly elliptical eyes would help for that devious look. (See the earlier comparison.)
some structural details and sculpting tips
Here’s how the simple block structure relates to the sculpture design. The the support strut is super important, so try to keep that until you’re almost done and, of course, very sure that your main weld is good. And I would definitely attach the top slab before you do much shaping of the coil block. It’s pretty difficult to get the coiled snake to look right if you sculpt them separately.
detailed structure of the coiled snake
top view of the snake coil block (The dotted lines are where the upper section is attached.) Also, please ignore how the tail attachment is different in the different drawings. Just make it work according to how your coiled snake sculpture turns out! Do I have to show you how to do EVERYTHING?! 
am I done with this? I'm not sure π€
Well, finally I finished an actual design for this sculpture! Of course, it doesn’t look exactly like the winging-it version at the demo. As I said, I just took a very rough idea with me to the zoo that evening. When I decided to redesign it for this entry, well, that took a long time. Check the difference in dates between the initial entry and the update 
I could still do more (scales, anyone?). But I may just leave it be since I could be sick of thinking about this sculpture/design.
The stupid thing is that I think I’ve only sculpted ONE regular sized snake sculpture (not including caducei) in my entire career, yet I agonized over this design 
Ironically, at this writing though, I have a feathered serpent (the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl), on my upcoming schedule. So that will be snake #2, sort of. If I decide I’m ready to do much more with this after that, then so be it!
P.S. Caducei is plural for caduceus, which is the medical symbol with the wings and serpents coiled around a staff. I knew caduceus, but I had to look up the plural version.
