The Critter Den

Making Of A Tiger Continue

2011-01-29T17:37:00.000-08:00

Making Of A Tiger Continued

The saga of making a tiger continues.....
After the sculpt was handed off to Jim Ojala of Ojala Productions, he created a beautiful mold and made a fiberglass form which was our base for the body. The finished tiger body is in two pieces so that the head can be detached as Madame Tussauds Las Vegas will place two speakers in its head. This baby is going to grrrrrowl a welcome at the visitors to Madame Tussauds.

Ernesto Cornejo did a pre paint, creating a black striped pattern so that our Chief Critter had a pattern to follow. Now it was time to start the "furring" process.
Using calf and goat hides Chief Critter spent numerous days piecing and puzzling the hide together, sometimes dealing with pieces that were no more than 1/4 by 1/4 inch. Piecing of the hide is a very tedious and meticulous process, as you have to take the fur length, thickness and direction into consideration.

Piecing creates a much sturdier application than flocking or transfers. Both of these applications are beautiful and realistic looking, but are not meant for a lot of wear and tear. Piecing of the hide leaves the hair attached to the hide and is more durable and has a much longer lifespan.
(see the “process” link at thecritterden.com)

Our tiger was delivered on January 21st to a very happy client and should now be on display in Vegas as a part of the Siegfried and Roy Exhibit at Madame Tussauds Las Vegas.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Aina
Chief Critter

Making of a Tiger.

2010-12-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2010

We thought it would be helpful and informative to share with you some of the processes used in creating our costumes and critters. As time and the confidentiality of our clients allows, we’ll post sneak peaks of projects as we are working on them. Those of you not familiar with our business will hopefully find it interesting to see the stages involved. For those of you in the critter/costume creating world, we gladly welcome your comments and ideas.

Making of a Tiger.

We are currently working on a tiger for Madame Tussauds Las Vegas, for the Siegfried and Roy exhibit. Our deadline is mid January 2011.

We were lucky enough to recruit a very talented sculptor, Len Burge (www.LenBurge.com) to sculpt the body and head of the tiger.
First he needed to create a strong base for the tiger to be sculpted on. So, off to home-depot for 2X4s, sawhorses and strong plywood. Since he anticipated using 500lbs of clay he needed to put together a strong and sturdy table with rolling casters so that the table could be rotated.
Before starting any sculpting plumbing pipes were used for an armature and a combination of chicken wire, burlap and gypsum created a base loosely shaped like a tiger.

The body was sculpted out of wet clay and head out of a soft chavant clay.
The most important thing to take into account when you are sculpting an animal that will have fur applied is to not make it too big. You have to take the thickness of the fur into account so the sculpt resembles the animal without fur.

As you can see Len has done a fabulous job sculpting the tiger.

Next step was off to moldmaking. Jim Ojala (www.ojalafilms.com) is our guy for mold-making. He and his crew created a 12 piece mold of the body. It needed to be in this many pieces because of undercuts underneath claws etc. We chose a fiberglass mold for the body. The head is in for mold making as I write and will be a silicone mold.

I will keep updating the "making of a tiger" in the next couple of weeks so please come back and visit and I/we welcome any comments and/or ideas of "how to". I know there is a lot of very talented artist out there and we all have slightly different ways of doing things. I/We are always open and interested in learning new things here at The Critter Den.

Thank You

Aina
Chief critter

The Critter Den

2010-05-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

The Critter Den is a Los Angeles based animal fabrication facility offering museum quality critters for the discerning client.

We can create any creature that exists in nature or in your imagination. Our Chief Critter is Norwegian born Aina O'Kane who has over fifteen years experience creating high quality animals for motion pictures, television and commercials. Our talented team of experts have extensive experience and a wide range of credits.

Please note that we specialize in quality over quantity and will not compromise.

We look forward to hearing from you.