an Alabama A ice sculpture, step by step
When I lived in Mobile, Alabama, I was occasionally called upon to sculpt University of Alabama-themed ice sculptures. Although it would be tough to sculpt a Crimson Tide, I’ve made elephants, an ice portrait of Bear Bryant, and this sculpture of the distinctive tailed “A” that’s the university logo. I took pictures during the process, so here you go! Also, this exact same Alabama A ice sculpture shows up in the secrets blog as well.
You should know however, that I’m not really an Alabama fan, except of course when they want an ice sculpture π When I first moved to New Orleans and the Deep South, I became an LSU fan (and a Saints fan). That was way back when Nick Saban was LSU’s coach and some time before pretty much everyone in Louisiana instantly hated him when he took the Alabama job 
Later, I moved to Mobile for a while, although I still mostly did my sculptures for New Orleans. This Alabama A ice sculpture was an unusual order for me though; I’ve sculpted a lot more LSU tigers. I have, however, sculpted a couple more Bama themed sculptures, as you can see in the pics at the bottom.
When I first moved to Mobile, it was kind of a way to stay close to New Orleans while waiting for Nola to recover a bit from the beating it had taken. But at first I was bit unsure how I was going to handle sculpting ice for a living in a brand new town, since I didn’t have any infrastructure to rely on.
Fortunately, I got some help from an old friend and client, Bradly Green of Third Coast Catering. He let me use a freezer at the hotel in Mobile where he was executive chef. It was a crucial stepping stone towards getting things put back together and I’ll always be grateful for his help! These pics of the Alabama A ice sculpture were taken in the freezer that he let me use.
Roll Tide vs. War Eagle
When you live in Alabama, you find out that it’s kind of divided into two major camps: Bama fans (Roll Tide!) and Auburn fans (War Eagle!) While I certainly appreciated the sculpture work, I never picked a side between the two. In fact, I thought about sticking an Auburn ice sculpture right in the middle of this gallery π± Just to be fair, lol! But I eventually opted for lower on down the page, so see below. Yeah, I chickened out π
still more Alabama ice
Partly since my SEO checker (and therefore maybe google) doesn’t seem to realize that I’ve included a ton of pics here, I’m adding a few more Alabama-themed ice sculptures below. The Bear Bryant ice portrait probably took the most work. You can see a smaller Alabama ice sculpture attached to the bottom of the elephant.
The color for the “A” and for the Auburn logo is done with colored sand. I wasn’t super happy with the Auburn one, as my sand and logo work was a little sloppy there. I must have been in a rush :/ I’ve done another one on a CNC machine since, but I haven’t seen a photo of that around lately.
the legendary Bear Bryant and his intricately patterned hat made for a challenging ice portrait.
the little Alabama A ice sculpture at the bottom of the elephant is smaller than the one in the sequence, but not that much smaller, since this elephant luge is LARGE.
this is the kind of Alabama A ice sculpture that Bama fans truly despise, since it comes with a “U” and blue and orange colors π€£
I don’t always have the time to stop and take pics or video while I’m sculpting. But this time, it was a nice opportunity to break down the sculpting process. I hope my Alabama A ice sculpture process is informative. Ideally, I’ll do this more, and with lots of video as well, in the future!