sculpting the ultimate tiger head ice sculpture: Geaux Tigers!

updated 2/23/22

the ultimate LSU tiger head ice sculpture

Generally, when I make a tiger head ice sculpture, it’s for an event that has something to do with LSU. Most recently, I made one for the governor’s inauguration in Baton Rouge, since LSU was getting ready to play for (and WIN!) the National Championship.

However, I’ve never felt like I took my sculpting as far as I could with the various tiger heads. I had a new idea when I was thinking about LSU’s championship and sculpting a special tiger head to celebrate. By mixing white snow and clear ice and lighting the sculpture with different colors from different directions, I’m hoping to create something like the design below.

past efforts at a tiger head ice sculptures

Before, when I’ve done tiger head ice sculptures, I was under a time limit, since it was for an event. With my “fine ice art,” there is no time limit, except for my own. Certainly, the longer I spend on it though, the higher the risk. The freezer could break. Worse, a hurricane, or even just bad weather, could knock out the power. Only a couple weeks ago, TWO hurricanes threatened to hit New Orleans. Neither actually affected Nola, but one hit Lake Charles, La, a few hours west So loss of power is a definite risk. Or, as I note further down the page, something odd could happen.

One thing, without a doubt: this sculpture will be very difficult to photograph. My previous efforts at photographing my tiger heads have left me wanting. Only twice have I gotten a photo that I actually liked, and I still had significant issues with the pics. The collage below shows a few that I didn’t like.

Mostly, the problem is time. I can’t do the sculpture that I want to for the picture. Because, one, I’m not getting paid enough to justify the enormous amount of time spent on it. And two, a sculpture that detailed would fade too quickly at an event. (A toothless tiger isn’t very intimidating 😉)

my newest tiger head ice sculpture is moving along...slowly

I’ve taken a few pics while I’ve been working on this one. And I’m sure I’ll take a few more before I’m done. For this particular sculpture, I thought a template would be very important to maintain symmetry in the tiger’s head. I tried an unusual method for the template, as you can see in the pic below. Instead of applying the template to a flat surface, I applied it to the angled surfaces shown. And I had to use my design software to avoid distorting the template. That’s just one of the extra steps I’ve added to hopefully at least improve my final result this time around.

Unfortunately, not everything has gone completely smoothly. This tiger head ice sculpture has so far been in four different freezers. I started working on it in one, then moved it to a storage freezer. Then I continued work in a new freezer, but because of a big project, had to move it again back to storage in yet another freezer. However, while it was sitting in the new studio freezer, there was a, uh, mishap…

loud noises are bad with ice sculptures

I was in another room, well away from the walk-in freezer, when I heard a VERY loud noise. I looked around quickly to see if something had fallen, but could see nothing amiss. Honestly, I was a bit baffled. However, I never even considered that the tiger head sculpture could have fallen, at least until I went into the freezer later. This design is a bit off balance, which I knew. But I thought it was stable where it was at. Instead, it fell off of the table! Fortunately/amazingly, all he lost was his ears. And that’s easy to fix. And I didn’t like his old ones that much anyway 😉

This tiger head ice sculpture started out with an unusual template. (L) And also had an unusual accident! (R)

my next best previous effort

Somewhat annoyingly, my best completed tiger head so far wasn’t the last time I sculpted it, but the time before that. So, I actually did worse the last time! But as always with event sculptures, there was some time pressure. And I guess I didn’t manage my time as well the last time and missed some stuff.

The sculpture pictured below (which is actually a luge), on the other hand, was my best one so far. And I hope that it looks terrible, comparatively, once I finish the one I’m working on. It should at least look markedly different, as I’m handling the striping a completely different way this time around.

Bob the white nosed tiger

Below, you’ll see where I’m at as I write this. He has ears again and I’ve got most of the shaping done. His lower jaw needs to be shifted and shaped though and I really need to spend more time on his eyes. For ice sculptures in particular, the eyes are super important. Doing them wrong, especially with a sculpture where you can see both at once, can ruin the entire piece. (Think cross-eyed tiger, lol)

Sometimes I name my sculptures. Not too often, but it happens. Larry the gator (with an overbite) comes to mind. I’d have liked to name this tiger Hobbes, as in “Calvin and Hobbes,” but Hobbes is too cuddly. Then I thought to name him after the evil tiger I thought I remembered in Rikki Tikki Tavi, but that’s a cobra, dummy! So, we’re going with Bob.

You’ll notice also that Bob has a white nose. If you know much about ice sculpting, then maybe you recognize that as a hint. It would be a hint as to how I’m going to attempt to stripe this tiger.

In order to get the lighting to work how I’ve envisioned it, I have to stripe Bob the REVERSE of the way that I’ve striped all my previous tiger head ice sculptures (and the full body ones too). Which, of course, makes total sense, since all of those tigers have been striped wrong. But it will also take a LONG time and be very difficult. And that reminds me why I’ve never tried it that way

after sculpting comes lighting

Of course, after the ice sculpting is done, I still have to figure out how to light Bob. And then get a great photo or two. One problem at a time, I guess

However, the lighting offers some bonuses. This design was initially just supposed to be an LSU Tiger. But I went to a school with a tiger mascot, Trinity University. Oh, and hey, there are two other Tiger teams just in the SEC, the Auburn Tigers and Missouri. Of course, the LSU Tigers beat yet another team of Tigers (Clemson) in the last National Championship…holy crap, that’s A LOT of tigers! And without even looking, I know there are a lot more. So if I can get the sculpture down, I’d just need to relight it to open up more opportunities. Although, I don’t know that they’d be a good fit for my Nola-centric art site 😉

some concerns

I don’t know if this sculpture is going to work. But I’ve said that many times before, usually right before I go ahead and try it anyway. Almost always, it does work, at least mostly. I’m hoping for significantly better than “at least mostly” though; rather I’d like to hit “the best I’ll ever do.” We’ll see

Although I’ve been sidetracked a bit, I’m planning on updating this with a few more pics as I move forward. (I may soon be sidetracked even more with a brown pelican design.) Conversely, I’m not planning on updating this with more mishaps, but I guess we shall see…

the end result 🙁

If you keep an ice sculpture in the freezer long enough, eventually you will lose it. Either it will sublimate away or the power will go out (or get flaky) and it will melt. The latter is what happened during Hurricane Ida. Even though I had my tiger head in what I thought was a safe place, Mother Nature had other plans and took it out. Thus, I’ll have to restart this sculpture as soon as I get a chance. So even though it’s the end for this particular sculpture, I’d say that it’s not the end for this particular design/artwork. I’ll update as things progress…

Dawson List

I think I remember when I started sculpting ice...it's been so long! ;) Since then, I've done some sort of ice sculpting activity or another in half the states in the U.S. and 10 foreign countries. I used to have a Guinness World Record in ice sculpting and I once very nearly won a world championship. I have hundreds of ice sculpting friends and acquaintances at this point, which makes for an interesting view of our little blue planet.