at the time I took this pic, I really liked this version of my female torso ice sculpture design. And I mostly liked the pic. Now though, I see a lot of things I could fix, with the lighting, with the sculpting, with the surfacing, and more. But that’s how sculpting, particularly human anatomy, goes. It’s a process, probably a never ending one.
getting started with a female torso ice sculpture
This female torso ice sculpture design is kind of an old one. I’d like to think that I’m much better now, but really, I haven’t really been working on my human anatomy lately (with one big exception), so maybe not. Btw, in case you don’t know, human anatomy is HARD. If it seems like someone just effortlessly sculpts a human figure, either they’re freakishly talented or they’ve been learning and practicing for far longer than you know. Possibly it’s a combination of the two.
Just so you know, I’m NOT freakishly talented. When I produce a pretty good likeness of a person in ice, it’s because I put a lot of effort into it. I do see better results when I put in more work, so there’s a payoff and it’s encouraging at least.
You’ve likely heard me say this before about other designs if you’ve spent much time on ice sculpting secrets, but I’d like to think that I’ll come back to this post later with an improved design and more useful info. Getting better at sculpting the female body is something I’ve been trying to prioritize lately and hopefully soon it will bear tangible results that I can pass on to you.
I’ve had this design lying around for at least 13 years or so, and I haven’t done much to try to improve it for some time. It’s serviceable though and it’s a decent starting point. I’ve been able to see some problems with it for a while, but I haven’t gotten around to working out fixes just yet.
this is a pretty faithful redraw of my original female torso ice sculpture design. I only made a couple of very small alterations that I couldn’t let go unfixed.
when I sculpt this, it's almost always a fun event!
I’ve created variations of this female torso ice sculpture for a bunch of events. Most of the time I make this sculpture, it ends up being a luge. At least 3 times, it was at venues on New Orleans’ world famous Bourbon Street. Once was for a balcony bachelorette party, once for a Saints and Sinners birthday party, and once for a New Year’s Eve party.
Elsewhere, I’ve made it mostly for sexy birthday parties. One time they invited me to hang around for the party 😊 That was particularly memorable because, unfortunately, I went swimming with my phone at that party, thinking the waterproof case would protect it. It did not 😭
here’s a double ice luge version of my female torso ice sculpture. These girls were testing it for the party they were throwing at Galatoire’s Restaurant on Bourbon Street. I’m sure it was a blast!
There are at least a couple of ways to make it into a luge, but I almost make it into a two tube luge with the funnels set high on the back, just below where the shoulders meet the neck muscles. I’ll generally leave some extra ice in that area so that the funnels stay in place throughout the event. The tubes exit through the nipples and go out at a bit of an angle horizontally. That’s just like real breasts and it allows two people to take shots at the same time if they happen to be taking them directly from the tubes.
To add the luge tubes, I use a long drill bit and drill from 2 directions after the sculpture is completed carved. It’s not always easy to make the drilled tunnels meet up perfectly, but you’ll get the hang of it. It’s probably best to start by drilling into the breasts first. Make sure the drilling is angled upward so that gravity keeps the luges working properly.
You might have to do a little extra drilling to clear and smooth out the spot where the tunnels meet. A propane torch or even just a pitcher of warm water can help with this also. That’s because it’s hard to add the tubing if it’s a hard corner where the tunnels meet. It needs to be more of a curve so that you can feed the tubing through. It also helps the shots flow through the tubing since it’s not pinched.
here’s another one of those Bourbon St. events, at a hotel
putting an angry skull atop my female torso ice sculpture makes for a creepy Halloween luge!
there’s not much difference this time between the female torso ice sculpture design and the template. Just that box.
the big exception to my recent lack of anatomy practice
Even though I REALLY want to work on my human anatomy skills, somehow lately I haven’t managed to practice much. I suppose it’s all about priorities, but something always seems to be getting in the way.
However, I did do one thing recently that was a pretty big deal. I took a course. And it was in an awesome place. It also fulfilled a goal that I’ve had for years.
I’ve long wanted take some sort of life drawing or life sculpting course. I’d thought some time back about going back to school for an MFA and that would presumably then be one of the required courses.
At the time that I was seriously considering this, however, I was married. When I brought this up, my ex told me she’d be really uncomfortable if I took a course where I was drawing or sculpting naked people. (That’s generally what life drawing/sculpting courses are: learning how to depict a nude male or female model that stands before the students.) This was a memorable point of friction in my marriage and because of that and a variety of other reasons, I abandoned my plans to go back to school.
Years later, my marriage is long over. Also, I’ve been telling myself for some time that I was going to go to Florence someday to visit what many consider to be the Mecca of Western figurative sculpture. After all it’s the home of both Michelangelo and da Vinci and essentially the birthplace of the Renaissance.
here’s my finished clay torso sculpture from the Florence course
I’d wanted to take a portrait sculpting class, since I’d found that so far to be EXTREMELY challenging and I’d run across a course by Jana Büttner. But geez, I’d have to go to Florence to take it!! Sounds really awful, right? 🤣
As it turned out, I couldn’t make the portrait course work. But then she later offered a torso sculpture course that did work for me! Florence here I come!
There were two nude models and the class was divided into two groups, each group working from one of the models to make a clay sculpture, perhaps 1/3 scale. Both models were really nice young women and did a really great job standing still for 30 hours over the course of the week!
I didn’t really have a good handle on how the course was going to play out. And actually, I never met Jana because she got sick while on a trip. Her studio partners were more than able to step up though, so no real problem. But the plan was to spend the entire 5 days sculpting one of the models. Initially, I wasn’t sure if we were going to spend half the time working from one model and half from the other. As it turned out, I think I could have done that, making 2 sculptures, if I’d sculpted a little faster.
By the end of the 3rd day, I was mostly finished with my sculpture. I suspect that years of hurriedly sculpting ice accounted for my quick progress. I actually ended up adding arms to my torso, since I had extra time. Later, for the final sculpture, I cut much of them off; see above.
All in all, it was an amazing experience that I’ll discuss in a future post. I also really hope to go back again to take the portrait course that I missed initially!
a happy accident during my Florence trip: I randomly decided to stay just around the corner from the site of Michelangelo’s David 😱 And when I went to visit on my way back from day of sculpting clay, there was literally NO line since it was off season! So awesome!
busty: to be or not to be, that is a question
One very important question when you’re making a sculpture like this: how voluptuous and busty should you make her? From an artistic or more typical point of view, probably less busty than most of the examples I’ve provided. The clay figure, for example, was done from a live model and the proportions are accurate. However, most of the ice sculptures were luges and for somewhat risque events, so bustiness is expected or even required. The breasts will melt, after all.
The typical ice block though, is not very cooperative in this respect. Unless you have a very thick ice block, it’s likely that you won’t have enough depth to sculpt a voluptuous figure. So if you look closely, you’ll see that I’ve welded additional ice on for the breasts.
How far to take it though, is a judgement call. I once sculpted a mermaid for a Gulf Coast party where the sculpture was set up in the middle of a pool. The client was very clear: she wanted this mermaid to have very large breasts. So I obliged. In the end, she wasn’t unhappy, but I think she was still a bit surprised how busty I made this mermaid. I probably took it a little too far 🤣😬
I just like this pic. I needed to do a little more work on a torso luge and my house was on the way from my studio to the event. So I stopped and did a little more work on it in front of my place. After the fact, it struck me as a very New Orleans thing to happen 🙂
CNC friendly?
Unless I made this piece in several layers and welded them together, my female torso ice sculpture design wouldn’t work on my CNC. My gantry is too short; with some bits, I can only use slabs 4 1/2″ thick or thinner. However, much of this design would work on other, larger machines. Unless you had more than a 3 axis machine however, it would require a substantial amount of hand sculpting afterwards.
links and stuff
In addition to this female torso ice sculpture design, I do have more people designs on the site. Check out the pilgrim, Santa Claus, and more. So far though, this is the only design on the site that’s something of an anatomical study.
Check out the design page for many more ice sculpture designs. Also, check out the design usage guidelines to see what uses are permitted.
You could also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. ice sculpting secrets is also on TikTok (sort of, so far, lol), although videos there aren’t really tied to posts as much. You can comment on IG and fb as well as below. And if it won’t LET you comment below, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
