this is a new stiletto high heel ice sculpture design, very different from the one that’s already on the site…
about this new stiletto high heel ice sculpture design π
Here’s another one of my last minute designs for Mother’s Day 2024. I’d have liked to include it in my Mother’s Day ice sculpture design collection, but I finished this new stiletto high heel ice sculpture design (there’s another 3D version too) far too late to add it to the collection.
By the way, I did NOT get the design from the emoji π The resemblance is just a happy accident π
I'm using my sandwich method again for this
Like my egg bunny and hatching chick designs from Easter, the stiletto high heel ice sculpture design is a sandwich piece. What I mean by that is that I take two slabs of ice, put almost all the detail in the sculpture on the back of the front slab, and then cover and protect these details by freezing on a back slab. This means that all the stuff that would normally fade is in the middle of the ice sculpture. So I get a really long lasting sculpture, which is really good for brunch events, which often tend to be long.
the font used in the design is Harringon. You’ve seen me use this font before, but I don’t deserve any credit for my choice. Max Zuleta from Art Below Zero was probably the one who started using this font for ice sculpting. It’s a very adaptable font and is perfect for weddings and many other stylish events. Max made a fantastic choice!
ok, you can see the bubble details on the left slab in the template above. I don’t engrave them on the back. The bubbles are actually the only detail that end up on the front of the sculpture. All the rest of the detail ends up inside. I think I forgot to take them off the template design. But they don’t get programmed into the CNC design. I end up adding them to the front and it’s just quicker to add them by hand rather than add an engraving step just for some bubbles.
here’s the sculpture in the wild; pic courtesy of the venue’s chef. It’s still a tiny bit frosty not long after its debut at Mother’s Day brunch. Most of the texture that you see along the edges will smooth out as it melts. I think it’s a consequence of the very cold freezer that it went into at delivery. You can see in the pic at the top that it was fairly clean. I kind of like the textures in this pics though π€
back to making the sandwich
Again, if you already saw my egg bunny and hatching chick designs for Easter (You probably didn’t see them before Easter, since I also posted them late.), then you’ve seen me make an ice sandwich design before. You’ll also recognize the inset in the back slab of the sculpture. I cut down into the ice just a little (about .20″) so that when I freeze the sandwich together, the slabs only freeze along the edges. What that does is keeps unpredictable and hard to control freezes from cluttering the main details of the sculpture, which are in the middle of the design.
My two pieces of “bread” for the sandwich are pretty thin. So far, I’ve decided to pretty much use a 2.5″ thick slab for the front piece and a 2.0″ thick slab for the back piece. Then, I end up taking off .15″ from each slab to flatten them, so my final sculpture is 4.2″ thick (not counting the base that always forget to mention.)
With the sandwich, when I reverse engrave the details into the front slab, I can cut shallower than I might otherwise, since I don’t have to worry about them melting away quickly. Since shallow becomes ok, this also gives me a bit wider range of depth options, so I could theoretically do more complicated colorfills with this method. I haven’t tried that yet, but we’ll see how it goes.
Eventually, once I get everything nailed down, I’ll do a post just about the sandwich method. For now, unfortunately, the method is scattered between several designs and you get the stream of consciousness explanation.
using my CNC for this high heel ice sculpture design
You certainly don’t HAVE to use a CNC for this design. But boy, does it make things easier.
- it’s a lot simpler to create the multiple levels for the sand colorfill sections in the shoe
- the parts that need to be flat are actually flat
- the edges of the 2 slabs for the sandwich match up perfectly, unless I screw them up somehow.
I’ve made complicated multi-level colorfill sculptures by hand before, but it’s tedious and takes tons of time. I don’t recommend it and it could make you hate sculpting ice π±
links and stuff
I feel like I’ve written plenty about making this high heel ice sculpture design. You’re probably sick of it too π€’ However, like I said earlier, I need to do a post about the sandwich method so that it makes sense. I think I need to also do another post about coloring ice with sand. I’ll get right on that!
Also, I already mentioned the other Mother’s Day designs in the collection. This design is/will be in that collection, along with the two other Mother’s Day designs that I’m posting about the same time as this one, the Mother’s Day vase and the rose with “Mom.”
Regarding use of my designs, check out the design usage guidelines.
Finally, 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. Since this is a newer post, you probably can comment below. But if not, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
