I haven’t made a griffin ice sculpture for quite some time, so I don’t have a recent pic to put here. You probably won’t get many requests for one, but the design is here if you need it!
updated 9/17/24 with some additional sculpting notes
more obscure than the usual: my griffin ice sculpture design
I say griffin ice sculpture. You might spell it griffon ice sculpture. Or maybe even gryphon. Griffins aren’t real, so does the spelling matter? I could spell it “griphyn” and you’d probably still know that I’m talking about that weird mythological beast, if you know what one is, that is.
what the heck is a griffin anyway?
A griffin is a cross between an eagle and a lion. Generally, it has an eagle’s head and wings, but a lion’s body. Sometimes they have eagle talons instead of a lion’s front legs.
Either way, it means that a griffin has 6 limbs rather than the 4 that lions and eagles have. It’s a bit like most depictions of winged dragons in this respect. If you’re going for technical accuracy, you would have to kind of account for the extra muscles that the wings would require, unless you want to just write it off as a magical creature situation π That is a common solution for fantastical beasts, since getting something the size of a lion off the ground would require huge wings and massive wing muscles.
The physical attributes of a griffin already depend on a certain amount of magic as it is. The only real animal that even resembles a mammal/bird cross is the platypus. And it’s not like a duck and a beaver got together to make platypus babies. Given that an eagle/lion combo would be far less likely, some divine intervention seems required.
And griffins do have relationships with the divine. Depictions of griffins and griffin-like creatures show up in ancient artifacts from thousands of years ago (3000 BCE even!). In Greek mythology, griffins were explicitly linked to Apollo and Dionysus. Later, in Christendom, griffins later became a symbol of the papacy and even Jesus himself. Accordingly, griffins are often depicted in heraldry. The hybridization of the king of the beasts and the king of the birds makes for a clear symbol of divine power.
here’s the template for my griffin ice sculpture. It’s designed to be a single block piece, with no welding. So while it has a lot of detail, technically, it’s not terribly challenging.
my first griffin ice sculpture
When I was younger, I really liked fantasy novels. I also played some Dungeons and Dragons. (I wasn’t very good at it; I got killed a lot π΅) But somewhere in there, I first found out what a griffin was. I do remember that it was one of the creatures in the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, so maybe that was it.
I thought the eagle/lion combo was pretty cool, so when I first started sculpting ice, I was excited to try a griffin ice sculpture. I think it was my fifth ice sculpture, right after I made my first swan. In hindsight, I’m not sure a griffin was a great ice sculpture for Sunday brunch at the Radisson Inn in Albuquerque, but I liked it!
I don’t remember if it was before or after I made my griffin, but at some point, someone at the Radisson showed me a pic they found in a magazine. It was a black and white photo of an amazing griffin ice sculpture; it may have been an ice version of the Merv Griffin Enterprises logo. It definitely made an impression, since it was probably the best ice sculpture I’d ever seen at that point. I wasn’t even sure if it was real ice! π Although I think the sculpture I saw was a bit more stylized and less “realistic,” it looked a little bit like the AI griffin ice sculpture below.
I tried a bunch of times with the Midjourney AI image generator. This is about the closest I could get to the griffin ice sculpture that I remember seeing in that magazine. It’s kinda close…
If you compare my griffin ice sculpture design to my earlier effort at the National Championships (a couple pics below), you’ll see that I’ve done some work on the design. In particular, I’ve worked on the griffin’s head to make it more “realistic,” as far as that goes for a mythological creature. Many depictions of griffins give them feathery ears, like an owl would have. I’ve gone with that also. Eagles don’t have these, but I suppose it works with a creature that has a lion’s body. Plus, I like the way they look. And that’s what matters, right? π
I’m not the only one who ever wanted to sculpt a griffin in ice. Jeff Stahl made a big one in Alaska in the multi-block event.
this was my single block griffin ice sculpture at my first NICA National Championships. I’d sculpted at least a couple griffins by this point andΒ I ran out of time because I think I got a little complacent. Notice the peg and slot assembly with the wings and tail; this was before aluminum welding.
CNC friendly?
Since this is a full block thickness piece, I probably wouldn’t try this griffin ice sculpture on my CNC. I could theoretically assemble it from two 4 1/2″ thick slabs (to get a 9″ thick sculpture), but it’s a lot quicker for me to simply sculpt it by hand. Even if I did run it on my machine, I’d have a lot of shaping and detailing to do.
If you have an upright I-Sculpt CNC machine, you could get a lot of it done with that. That would probably be my preferred machine, at least of the ones I’ve used so far. Running this on a high gantry flatbed CNC would require flipping it, which seems tricky and perhaps not worth the effort.Β
notes on my griffin ice sculpture design
There are still some problems with this design and I can do more work on it. I’ll get to these things when I can. I’m sure more problems will occur to me later, lol!
First, you’re going to want a backside view. With the right paw upraised, it changes the backside anatomy just a bit. I also need to work on the paw a little anyway.
Next, the gap between the wings and the feathering on the back of the head is a bit tight. It’s doable, if you’re careful, but I might widen it a bit to simplify things.
Finally, a front view for the griffin would definitely be helpful. I don’t often do those, but it would help a lot to see how the eagle eyes are oriented. Eagles (and griffins, supposedly) are apex predators, so their eyes face forward. Ice sculptures of eagles usually have the eyes wrong, with them more on the side of the head. If you’re wanting to carve an imaginary creature the “right” way, you should take some care to get the eyes right π
links and stuff
I’m hoping to soon go back and digitize a lot of my early ice sculpture photos. (Plus a LOT more from other ice sculptors!) I’d imagine I’ll run across a bad pic of my first griffin ice sculpture when I do. I suppose I’ll grudgingly post the pic then.
In the meantime, you can check out some more of the fantasy ice sculpture designs on the site. There’s a unicorn, a phoenix, a goblin, a cool Asian dragon, plus a bunch more. Check out the design page for all the 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!
