Nipper the Giant HMV Dog by Sculpture Studios

Testing, testing, one, two, three. Welcome to Sculpture Studios. If you recognise this little fella, well, he's soon gonna become a very big fella. This is Nipper the dog from the original portrait called His Master's Voice. The image and name then became an abbreviation for the logo of HMV and has been part of the branding for as far back as 1909. We're going to be creating Nipper from polystyrene with a blanket coat of glass fibre. He's going to eventually sit outside the old vinyl factory in Hayes in England where the EMI Music Company first made tracks. Here, we're blowing Nipper up to just under three metres tall. Actually, just bring him up to three metres. You know what? Just chuck another two metres on top and make him five. There we go. We said he was gonna be a big fella. Since we've been in this studio, we've made a total of 11 oversized dogs, not including the Snoopys, but none quite as big as this. Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking. Phwoar, that's gonna be a cracking bit of carving. And that would normally be the case. But in this instance, the client has specifically requested that there be absolutely no margin for artistic interpretation. And this means we can't deviate from the design whatsoever from the model they've sent down. Yes, we can create a sculpture fairly accurately just by carving by hand, but this needs to be absolutely spot on. I know the last few projects, it seems that the computer cutting has been the way to go. And it's unfortunate for us here and those of you that love the carving aspect as well. But as a commercial company, we're going by the client's request. And we've had this scanned by a company called Impossible Creations just down the road from us. They've scanned the figure from every side and created a 3D render file as a workable model inside their program that we can then send on to the 3D cutters. We're really pushing the scale to the limit on this one as the client wants Nipper all in one piece, which means once he's created, he needs to get out of the doors here at the workshop. Here we have Nipper, which is our HMV dog, a bit of an antique, so we better look after it. And we're scaling up from this model here to make sure it can be made in one piece to get out of our studio. This here represents our door entrance. So it's quite important that this is made to go outside here. So what we're doing is making a trolley. That represents the trolley. And ideally, in the ideal world, the trolley's only about six inches off the ground, and from there to there is five meters. And we make our trolley bed just big enough to slide, oh, slight pitch, and it slides through at an angle. In theory, it should work, but nip and tuck on this one. So very, very good. From past experience, we know that theory and maths is all well and good, but you get to it on the day, and we just need to pray and make sure our calculations are correct. What we've done is we've divided the full five-meter dog, where I think he comes to about 4,900 to make him the right size. We divided him by the height of this dog to give us about a 13-point-something ratio. We've measured our door outside, and we've done the same here, which is how we've come up with the size of the door. We've worked out that the trolley that he goes on can only be a certain height. Otherwise, there's no way the dog can get out of the studio without needing to be really manipulated and slid on the base, which we don't really want to do. So hopefully, if we get the calculations correct, we can have a trolley made that will allow him to get out in one piece, and he should, by probably the skin of our teeth, get right out the door. The good thing is I've had my sons. I'm all right at sculpting, but I'm no good at maths, but my sons calculated, ooh, this will get out of that. So I'm passing the buck on to my boys now. So good luck, boys. No pressure. We've had the file cut by Ultimate 3D, a company that helped us create the Jelly Mold Pavilion and Gus the Giant Gorilla. The individual elements are adhered together, but they're kept broken down into manageable size pieces, both for handling and for transport size. Though this is an accurate translation in scale from the small model, what looks good on the miniature version doesn't always look good when it's blown up to this sort of size. Any imperfections on the original are obviously translated up as well, and even at the best of times, a lot of finishing is still needed on the polystyrene so that we have a decent surface. This includes any glue seam lines once the model's put together, as well as any lines and contours from the drilling process. So here we have the HMV dog, just been delivered after being 3D scanned and 3D cut. We're gonna use our PU Expanding Squirty Foam to join all the pieces together. He's predominantly hollow inside, just so we can save a bit of material and so that the dog's slightly lighter to manage. But as he is just polystyrene and hollow on the inside, we need to be careful that he's not bumped around too much. We're gonna keep everything at ground level for the moment and go over with our secretly sourced Sticky Back Tin Foil. And this will provide a protective barrier from the glass fibre and the general purpose resin that's going on top. Need to check with the client whether it's general purpose or class O rated if he's going indoors, but I have a feeling for something this size, he's gonna be going outside. So fire rating shouldn't be too necessary. For this project, our client is Stefan Dowers, the founder of 4Hour Creative Arts. He's the sort of client we really enjoy working with, with so much enthusiasm for the job and wanting to get it just right like we do. Having worked with large scale installations in the past, he can look at the bigger picture and take into account things like the logistics and the transport and the overall doableness of the job itself, given the cost and the timeframe. You can see just from his visit to the studio how invested he is in the project. And considering this is but one of many aspects he's currently working on, we're really pleased he's taken the time to come down and see the dog in its early stages. This way he can talk to Aidan, meet him in person and talk the job through properly. The polystyrene stage is also an ideal time to make any amendments, as no heavy duty glass fibre work has been started yet. Once any changes have been confirmed, these will then be made before we proceed with the next steps. Metalwork is being ordered simultaneously. And once again, we're gonna be working on this side of the job during the polystyrene stage, as it's easier than cutting through glass fibre to install later on. Well, at least it looks like Aidan's gonna get to do a little carving after all. He's using a wire brush just to make the base more in keeping with the original model. He's then going to fine tune some of the other areas on the dog, where the detail might get softened slightly by the glass fibre. Remember for this project, there isn't gonna be a mould made and will be a blanket coat of glass fibre over the entire form. This will then have a flow coat and a resin filler mix applied, once again softening out the detail. So all these areas need to be deepened and accentuated. So here we're cutting out sections of the dog in order to create a mock-up wooden frame for the base metalwork. Got a section for the bum, so that we can get two metal struts that go up and a box frame that goes across there, so it's nice and strong. And for the front legs, we're gonna have two struts, one going directly up. And for the front right leg, it's gonna be going at a slight angle. What we're gonna do, we can create a wooden mock-up frame to centre Martin at Fine Limit Welding. And he's gonna create the box metalwork to go into the dog and the outside metalwork that will fit around that on the base section underneath. Once this is made, we can put this back into the job, join all the polystyrene back up, foil it, and then begin on the fibreglass. But we need the metalwork inside the job before we begin, as it's gonna be much tougher to install once the fibreglass has been done. So that's the first thing that needs to be made. While the metalwork's being created, we're going over the rest of what we can reach with our secret sticky-back tin foil. And this is to protect the polystyrene from the resin that's going on top. The metalwork itself is gonna be made in two sections, a pre-installed frame and armature that we will install in the dog here, and a base that will be sent to Stefan where he has a team creating a giant plinth for the dog to sit on. The idea is that our frame is left protruding enough out of the bottom of the sculpture so that it can sit flush on the base frame that will be pre-installed inside the plinth. This is then bolted along the sides of the frame to hold the two together. Here we're going over with a red oxide paint so the metalwork has an initial protection from oxidization, which is always important for outside pieces. Beginning on the glass fiber work now, we've added a white pigment to the general purpose resin so that the dog, which will eventually be white, has a white base layer to begin with. We're going on with quite a strong buildup of around four to six ounces of glass fiber, and for areas like the two front legs in particular that are relatively flat, and fragile when compared to the rest of the shape, we're giving these a few extra layers as well. With the polystyrene still inside, this also helps the entire shape retain a little bit of added strength. Just tell us what you're doing here, Jess. I'm building a firework, and then we've got a dog in the process, and I'm doing all the rest. Fantastic. First class information that you're not going to get anywhere else, folks. One of a kind gem piece of info. Reaching as high up as comfortable with the fiberglass at this stage, it seemed a good time to invite Stefan back down to the studio before we proceed to lay the dog down. Quick time for a photo shoot to bring back to the office, and more discussions of how the dog's actually going to be transported. A company called HB Contractors has been commissioned just down the road from us to come into the studio to take a look at the dog, and give their recommendations of how a trolley should be created for this. We explained to them that ideally, it needs to be no more than six to eight inches off the floor so we can get Nipper out of the workshop. Only time will tell, and we'll see them when they come back with the trolley for delivery day. Walk in the park. We've now got to fiberglass everything on this top side of the dog head that we can reach. And then what we're going to need to do is we'll probably roll him over completely on the spine so that we can hit everything on the other side of the face. But once that's all glass fibered and we've gone over the filamix, we're going to need to sand everything down. Oh, there's Kirano. And then we're going to need to stand him up once all the sanding on the top half is complete. We've started going over with flow coats of resin and a filler and resin mix. What we've done is added powders to bulk up the material and this allows us to sand it back. We go over in numerous layers and repeat the process to bring it back to a smoother finish each time until we're happy with the final result. We also go over with paints every now and then just to get a clearer picture of the stage we're currently at. And if we feel this needs a bit more work, we repeat the process again. This time we're going to get bulky. Who's been a good boy, Kev? Yeah, you've been a good boy. Who's been a good boy? You've been a good boy. This time we're going to get bulky. We often get asked how long our projects take to create and hopefully you can appreciate just by watching a few of these video clips just how long and laborious some of the processes are. But once we've achieved the desired finish, you can see how the work has really paid off as we've created a really high quality product for the client. The paints we'll eventually use for this are a 2K car body paint that'll be durable for outside use. We go over with a primer first and then several passes of the final color topped with a 2K lacquer. Slight profanity coming up in the next clip, by the way. We don't often include something like this but as I hope you'll agree, we thought it was quite appropriate. Enjoying this job, kid? I'm just liking it. It's the dog's bollocks! I don't know what the line is but you can get someone else to do it. This time we're going to get... In keeping with the model's soft artwork, Aiden's gone over with a bit of airbrushing detail. The trolley's been made so the dog can be moved out of the studio and we've attached a chain winch to the ceiling of our unit so the dog can be lifted. Big moment now to see if all the measurements and working out were correct. Remember, we've blown this up to the very, very, very, very largest it can be while still being able to get out of the workshop and up to now, the dog hasn't actually been outside so this is the moment of truth. So here we are, Jess. About a foot and a half off the floor. No magic yet. Jess lifted it all herself. We've had the roof evaluated and they estimate it can hold a couple of tonne. We think this weighs just over a tonne. Got these straps all holding it up which can take a couple of tonne each as well. It's all, the whole sculpture on that one little chain. Just that little one on the right hand side there. Amazing stuff. So now we've got the trolley. We're gonna be taking the front off so that we can slide the trolley up to the dog. We can lower him onto it, put the bars back on the trolley and then we'll realign the dog on the trolley so that we've got the correct angle to go out the door. Here's the bars. Tricky, very tricky. Awww. Look at that, saved by the broom. Don't know what we were worried about. Well we don't know how we got it out. But we got it out. In terms of measurements at the very beginning of the project we had to plan for how we envisaged the dog to be laying on the lorry, the height of the dog at this position and the height of the lorry bed. Every single bridge, sign and overhead obstruction obviously needs to be high enough to accommodate this going under or rather the dog and the truck need to be low enough and this is going all the way around the M25 to the other side of London from our studio and oh that no way is that gonna get up that's not gonna get under that oh oh it did oh how did that get under that oh oh oh no no oh that's truly terrifying oh the dog's been transported to the old vinyl factory where the HMV headquarters really kick-started the business. Originally named the Gramophone Company the British record label bought the portrait of It's a somewhat sad chain of events actually that the portrait and logo came to be. Francis's brother Mark found Nipper as a stray and aptly named him so as he often nipped at the back of visitors legs. Mark then passed away and the portrait illustrates the dog listening to his old master's voice through a cylinder phonograph. To really hit home the portrait was also painted in the studio of Francis's other sadly late brother and was painted four years after Nipper had died too probably from a photograph so that had some really deep morbid backstory that you really didn't need to know about but at least we did our research. The dogs be in place as a bit of a restoration project in the old HMV factory square which used to be home to hundreds of people with their families and provide thousands of jobs. Nipper's going to be staying here for an undetermined amount of time perhaps the beginning of a bigger project on the surrounding buildings and spaces nearby. For now the base is adorned with a plaque to commemorate the sculpture, the cause in the occasion and the history of the piece. We're clearing our transport equipment away and this is why we had the trolley made from scaffolding so it could be broken down and flat packed back to Essex. We'd like to thank Stefan Dowers for entrusting us with the work and having so much faith in our ability to get this done, done right and done in time for him. Everyone at Impossible Creations, Ultimate 3D, Fine Limit Welding and HMV Contractors thank you very much for your assistance with this project. Please feel free to leave any comments below as they're always appreciated and hit the subscribe button for our latest videos. You can like Sculpture Studios on Facebook and follow at Aidan Hines on Twitter and for more of our work visit www.sculpturestudios.co.uk. Thank you very much for watching.