Amelia had a a unicorn ice sculpture AND a bounce house for her birthday party! I suspect the bounce house was the bigger hit, but the ice seemed like it was close ☺️
updated 3/28/24 with the unicorn AI video at the bottom
my unicorn ice sculpture design's origin story
Way back when I had my ice sculpting studio in the New Orleans Marigny neighborhood, I came up with a unicorn ice sculpture design that I just assumed would be really useful down the road. That assumption turned out to be a bad one. It was years before I used that design again.
I wanted to do a really nice job on that first unicorn though. It wasn’t for an event or anything; it was just a piece I wanted to do.
Sadly, it got destroyed before I ever really finished it. Actually though, literally nobody cared about that, not even me, since the reason it got destroyed was that Hurricane Katrina hit Nola and coastal Mississippi. I talk about that briefly in one of my recently restored old posts, “unicorn slain by massive flooding! sort of.” (It used to have the less dramatic title: “death of a unicorn.”)
the posted design isn’t EXACTLY like the original, shown here, a bit unfinished, in my old studio freezer. But it’s pretty close.
too soon for unicorns?
So maybe I was ahead of my time? Since I first came up with that design, the cultural meaning of “unicorn” has changed. Where before it was a just fantastical horse with a horn and a preference for hanging out with virgins (see below), it’s now also a way to describe a person who is truly unusual. Unique on this earth even. 🦄
Now I’m not saying that that’s meant unicorn ice sculptures everywhere. But it seems to have helped a little, since now my old design is kinda useful, occasionally.
Interestingly, a similar thing happened with fleurs-de-lis, although the timeline was different. Before Katrina, I’d thought that a fleur-de-lis could be a popular ice sculpture design for me, but it really wasn’t. Immediately post-Katrina, and in the years since, I’ve gotten kind of sick of ice fleurs-de-lis. For a while, it felt like every sculpture I did had one.
this surprising video on unicorns is pretty damn interesting if you like to find out how symbols change throughout history.
designs for your unicorn ice sculpture
here’s the line art design for the unicorn ice sculpture at the top of the post. It’s ALMOST identical to the one I sculpted. The main difference is the base. This base is thicker and I’d used a random leftover base in my freezer. Also, I forgot to put a highlight in the eye when I sculpted it. But I made sure to add the highlight to the design, so don’t forget!
For this design (basically the same as the sculpture at the top of the post), I use a 6 1/2″ slab of ice. I could use a slightly thicker slab, but I really don’t need that much depth. For the other design below however, I’d use a thicker block of ice, probably at least 8 inches thick.
The unicorn’s mane is pretty detailed and you’ll probably want to use a narrow conical end mill bit in a die grinder to work on that. Along the way, you can rough shape the mane with an aggressive angle grinder or a large burr bit on a die grinder. I’d add small finishing detail with an ice needle.
Sculpting horses is no joke. I often think that the only thing tougher than sculpting a good horse is sculpting a good person. So take your time and use some reference art to get the head shape right, especially from the front view. I’ve based my unicorn on kind of an Arabian, since I’ve always loved that breed of horse. But you don’t have to if you’d prefer a different look. After all, the unicorn legend is tied to a variety of animals: horses, goats, narwhals (see below), and even rhinos!
ok, this is the template for the smaller unicorn ice sculpture, which has a space for names. I took off “Amelia” here, since it’s highly unlikely that you’d need that exact sculpture. If you ARE making a unicorn ice sculpture for Amelia, then sorry 🤷♂️
Now THIS is a big unicorn! Check out more from this large ice display in the Netherlands.
this one was for a sorority party in New Orleans. You can tell it’s in New Orleans by the scattering of Mardi Gras beads around it.
an extra version of the unicorn design, no extra charge!
THIS version of the design is actually closer to the original sculpture, I think. It’s probably about the same size as the original. For the birthday-ish version up above, I was using a thinner block and I wanted to make a slightly smaller sculpture. So that one fits in the block more easily.
with this version, I opted to make the horn a bit shorter. Up to you though, as long as you can find the needed size piece of ice.
here’s a bit larger version of my unicorn ice sculpture design. Here, you’re trying to maximize your ice usage and get a larger horse head.
the problem with unicorn ice sculptures
The problem with unicorn ice sculptures is the exact same thing that makes it a unicorn ice sculpture: the horn. (There’s even a special name for it: alicorn.) If you sculpt a full body unicorn from one or two blocks of ice, the horn has to be kind of small. And that means, if it’s for a room temp event, that that horn won’t last long. Then you just end up with a horse ice sculpture with a weird forehead deformity.
My unicorn ice sculpture design addresses this problem. I just forget about the unicorn’s body and sculpt just its head. That way, the horn can be big enough to last for a bit.
Oh, and about carving that horn. It’s not super simple. The spiraling lines around the classic unicorn horn make it more than just a sculpted spike.
I’ve approached sculpting the horn more than one way in the past. The method I like the best, so far, is to sculpt it from a larger chunk of ice. That way I can do most of the shaping while the weight of the additional ice helps hold it in place. Then, when I’m about done, I can cut it free of the chunk and clean it up with a small handsaw.
The other problem with the horn, of course, is attaching it at set up. Obviously, trying to move the sculpture with the horn already attached is asking for trouble. So I opt to freeze it on after the rest of the sculpture is set and ready to go.
Years ago, when I first started sculpting ice, I probably would have cut a hole in the center of my unicorn’s head and tried to slot the horn in. Thankfully, we don’t do THAT anymore. Now it’s just a simple flat weld. The only tricky part of that is to make sure the weld surface is above the mane and ears, so that they don’t get in the way when you use aluminum or an iron for the weld.
You’ll notice that in the designs and pics, the horn changes length. That’s kind of up to you, based on the event and how extreme you want the horn to look. I tend to take kind of a reasonable approach, but one of the real life inspirations for the unicorn, the narwhal, is completely unreasonable. Their “horns” are actually teeth, but they’re insanely long, like potentially 10 feet (3 m)! So you go ahead and pick a length you like somewhere between insane and obviously too short, and go with it.
Also, you don’t have to get the horn from where it says in the design. You can use a piece of scrap ice if that’s easier. If you’re worried about breaking the horn while attaching it at set up, then make extra horns!
my nearly finished ice unicorn horn waits, still attached to the larger chunk of ice that I sculpted it from
so my CNC machine’s gantry is too short for me to machine much of the overall shape of my unicorn, at least with this version. However, that doesn’t mean it’s useless. I can still use it to engrave the design (and therefore forgo the template). For this particular piece, I also used it to engrave the birthday girl’s name. (It was on a separate piece of ice.)
how CNC friendly is this unicorn design?
With my CNC, I can’t really sculpt this version of my unicorn ice sculpture design. The gantry is too low, which means that the long cutting bits can’t get high enough to move around over a thicker block. That means I’d have a tough time cutting out the shape of my unicorn and shaping the 3D surface. At a later date, maybe I’ll be able to get a CNC with a taller gantry. (And an auto tool changer too, while I’m at it!) But for now, I’d have to go through some rather elaborate machinations to fully sculpt this unicorn design with my CNC.
However, my CNC isn’t totally worthless here. I can absolutely engrave the design into all but the thickest blocks, since I have around 10″ of clearance with my gantry. (The block I used for the pictured unicorn was only about 6 1/2″ thick, so no problem.) That’s a big help, as when I finally got my CNC running, I wanted to make paper templates a thing of the past.
For the unicorn at the top of the post, I was also able to engrave the birthday girl’s name. That’s also a good thing, since I hate seeing my hand engraving now that I always mentally compare them to the perfection of CNC engraving. (I’m actually not bad at hand engraving, but I’m no CNC.)
I do have a pretty good idea as to how I could engrave this entire design on my CNC, however. I may decide to give it a shot at a later date. We’ll have to see. I might try one of my dragon designs first though, since it IS the year of the dragon as I write this.
here’s one of my favorite ice pics. It’s so not a favorite because of how I look in the pic though. I’m exhausted and sleep deprived from carving a giant throne just before this unicorn demo. But the look on the little girl’s face is kinda how I imagine I looked at the first ice sculpture I ever saw! Incidentally, she was very helpful during the demo, since I pretended not to know where the horn went and she was happy to set me straight 🤣 Btw, the OTHER side of the unicorn has all the detail 🙄
so it's not like I've never made a full body unicorn ice sculpture
you can see for this rearing unicorn ice sculpture that I had to make the horn disproportionately large. Even with the quick-melting horn, this piece would be fine for shorter events though.
here’s the rough design for my rearing unicorn ice sculpture. I think I ended up making the horn even larger than shown in the design, to compensate for the quick melting.
had to buy this impressive plastic horse model when I saw it, since I love the pose! At some point, I’d like to do something like this in ice, maybe as a unicorn, maybe as a normal horse. Heck with a unicorn, you can do both. Add the horn, remove the horn, whatever.
one more thing...
@icesculptingsecrets Playing with Monet app and making AI unicorn ice sculpture videos. The results were fun, but sometimes wonky! . . #ai #unicorns #icesculpture #monet #icesculptingsecrets ♬ Drake style/HIPHOP beat(1491552) - Burning Man
I made this video with the Monet app to see how good AI video was getting. And since I was working on this unicorn at the time, it seemed a natural fit…
links and stuff
I probably should have posted this unicorn ice sculpture design long ago. But, as it happens, it’s easier to put together new posts when I have fresh content. Sculpting the unicorn at the top gave me that opportunity. As I mentioned before, a very similar unicorn ice sculpture shows up in my old “death of a unicorn” post that I also recently restored from the old site. Similar designs also on the site include the rearing horse and the horse head.
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!
