this sea turtle ice sculpture was part of the 2011 OC Fair Ice Museum in Costa Mesa, CA, put together by Carving Ice (which is now The Art of Carving Ice).
updated 11/10/23 with the video and on 5/28/23 with seo and formatting when I restored my sea turtle ice sculpture design to this new iss site
my swimming sea turtle ice sculpture design
This sea turtle ice sculpture design, like the earlier manta ray piece, was part of the 2011 Orange County Fair Ice Museum in Costa Mesa, CA (put together by Carving Ice). There will also be a reef shark design as a result of that event.
This turtle design is based on the green sea turtle (named as such not because they’re green on the outside; they have a layer of green fat under their shell), but it’s not a completely faithful adaptation. It is close, however.
You’ll notice that the design has more support than the pictured version. The pictured version was more delicate than I would like for a melting sculpture; the Ice Museum generally remains below freezing through the duration of the fair, so less structural support is required. I also MAY have taken away a bit more than I should have, even for a below freezing display 😬
sea turtle stuff
Male sea turtles typically have larger tails than the females. For this design, the tail is kind of medium sized. Scale details are present in the design, but you may decide that’s more detail than necessary. (I did only a small amount scale detail on the piece for the museum.) The silhouette is the most important aspect; the shell/head/front flippers combination is what counts. The shell pattern is also vital. One aluminum weld is required for the right flipper.
Sea turtles have prominent and distinctive eyes, so I provided a photo of a hawksbill sea turtle down below for reference.
The turtle’s shell pattern was taken from the illustration below (which is in the public domain). The drawing also shows the ventral (underside) shell pattern, which you might find helpful, although if you detail both the top and bottom of the turtle, you can clutter the sculpture visually.
alternative design approaches
Down the line, I’d like to try more sea turtle ice sculptures, but the simplest alternate design approach for this piece would be a mirrored version. For a large seafood display, mirrored sea turtles on either end might be a fantastic look! (And I’d like to give that a shot sometime!)
if you sculpt your sea turtle ice sculpture out of a thinner ice slab (say 4-7″ thick), then you’ll need to add a stabilizing base, which is not in the design at all.
this photo of a hawkbill sea turtle is courtesy of Tom Doeppner and Wikipedia.
the pattern on the turtle’s shell is quite geometric. The top is on the left and the bottom (underside) is on the right.
watching the video gives you an idea of how sea turtles almost seem to fly through the water
the sea turtle ice sculpture on a CNC machine
Honestly, I’ve never tried it on my CNC, but I will/would. Sea turtles are naturally kind of flat, so even my smaller machine could handle this design.
At least for the time being though, I’d definitely still sculpt the 3D aspects by hand. Carving the eyes and beak of the turtle, for example, would be very difficult to CNC since they’re oriented to the side. It would be possible to carve the head as a separate piece however, and weld it on afterwards. Then I could more easily work on the sea turtle’s head without a higher end CNC.
for more info and some guidelines
If you have any questions about my sea turtle ice sculpture design, email me or comment below. (It might not let you though, since this is an older post.) 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!
