my new(ish) Derby horse ice luge design features a LOT of color roses and is perfect for serving chilled Kentucky bourbon? shots, if you like.
a Kentucky Derby horse ice luge
Ok, I didn’t really know what to call this piece. If you have any better ideas than the π© ones that I came up with, please comment!
Part of the problem comes from the garland of roses. That’s apparently the proper name for the big stitched conglomeration of roses that goes on the neck of the Kentucky Derby winner, but it’s also sometimes called a blanket or a wreath too. At any rate, garland of roses doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
The design is really mainly a horse and an ice luge, but then there are a whole bunch of roses on the neck. “Run for the roses” was the first name I came up with. I can’t imagine that anyone will search for that when they need an ice sculpture design though π After that, I just opted for Derby horse ice luge. The roses get screwed over and don’t even appear in the name, but at least it has “horse.”
Also, before I move onto the actual design, who would have thought that the garland is made by a GROCERY STORE floral department?! That to me is crazy! Hi, I’d like a little arrangement for the office, some carnations,…and then howabout a giant garland of roses for my world class racehorse? π€ͺ
the Derby horse ice luge concept art
Sometimes, I put concept artwork together for a client. Meaning, I send them my essential idea, while at the time, I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to sculpt it. Other times, I’ll send them a design where I know exactly how I’m going to create the sculpture. In the case of this Derby horse ice luge, I was still working out some of the details, so I sent them this concept artwork.
this was the original concept rendering for the Derby horse ice luge. In this case, I didn’t draw the horse head; I actually asked an AI to come up with it and then I cut away/covered up what I didn’t need. You can actually see a few AI roses peeking out from under the pasted roses. I think I grabbed the rose image off of search, since this was just a quick rendering. You’ll notice that the roses in the actual design are different, since the rendering roses would be really problematic to engrave.
the Derby horse ice luge design and templates
Since as I write this, the Derby is coming up fast, I’m giving you a maybe not completely finished design. I likely will come back later and work on it more. There are a couple things I should fix. I don’t really think that anyone will actually use this design this year; there’s not much time left. It’s mostly so that I can tell myself that I finally got around to adding a Kentucky Derby roundup post that had a couple decent new designs π¬
remember the roses are engraved and colored in REVERSE (I use colored sand). Then that piece is fitted into the inset that’s cut into the main neck piece, which has the track for the luge tubing.
horse eyes don’t have much in the way of whites of the eyes like people do. The little dot in the eye though is a highlight, so you can make that white for a little extra life. Also, this guy is wearing a halter, rather than a bridle, which is why there are no reins or bit. The halter is enough of a pain to make; a bridle and reins would be worse.
putting the Derby horse ice luge together
So basically, I took one piece of ice, engraved and colored all the roses from the back side (with sand), freezing the sand in with a little snow. I’d added a piece of ice (via aluminum ice welding) for the horse’s head and sculpted that portion by hand. Then the resulting main horse piece had an inset for the rose section and the groove for the ice luge tubing. I just put the luge tube in place before I froze the rose section over it. Along the way, I added a rectangular base for stability.Β
what about with a CNC?
This design is supposed to be done primarily on a CNC. The only part that I didn’t do with my CNC was the horse head itself. You can see from the design that I welded most of the horse head onto the luge/rose/neck section. I didn’t even consider trying to CNC the horse head. That would take forever and I could hand sculpt it far more quickly than I could program it. And I don’t expect to make this design more than a few times, so it’s not worth it in this case.
Doing the roses section and creating the inset by hand, on the other hand, would be a huge pain in the ass. So that’s all CNC. When I finished cutting all the pieces, it was a very simple matter to set the luge tube in the track and then freeze the rose panel over it to trap it in place.
links and stuff
This Derby horse ice luge is included in my so far small collection of Kentucky Derby ice sculpture designs. You’ll also find other horsey designs like my rearing horse there too.
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, 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!
