Chris Currier carved my swooping bat ice sculpture design and sent me a pic. Thanks Chris!
a cute little swooping bat ice sculpture
updated 4/6/23 somewhat when added to the new site
This design has a similar structure to the swooping owl design posted a while back. You might recognize the bat from the bat, moon, & pumpkin design. This design, as well as the bat, moon, & pumpkin design are included in the Halloween design ebook, along with eight other Halloween designs. Happy Halloween!
^^That was the text from the original post on ice carving secrets. This is a pretty old design, from before I’d even started putting together collections of designs for the ebooks. It used to be called “bat in flight,” but that’s pretty clunky if you have to include it in your text several times for SEO :/
getting the most from your ice
For this sculpture, extra ice that’s left over is used to elevate the bat a little bit. You’re just trying to maximize your ice usage here. You get a weld line at the bottom (which I do not show in the design), but you also get a taller sculpture. In theory, you could also do something with the ice left over at the bottom left. But at some point, you just have to know when to stop, lol.
how much ice should you use for this sculpture?
You really wouldn’t need to use a full thickness block to make your swooping bat ice sculpture. However, when you make a thinner sculpture, you need a stabilizing base welded to the bottom of the sculpture. For example, you could sculpt this piece out of a 4 inch thick slab of ice, but then you would definitely need an added base so that it doesn’t fall over.
I would probably use a slab of ice that’s somewhere between 4 inches and 6 inches thick to make the sculpture. If you use a slab that’s much thicker than that, then you’re going to have to take a lot of ice away anyway, even if you really give the wings a LOT of dimension.
If you have any questions about this piece, email me or comment below. If you would like to use this ice sculpture design or any other design on this site, please check the design usage guidelines. The design collection page lists designs on the site.
You might also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets facebook page and you can comment there as well as below. Thanks!
