209 pounds of marble

This is 209 pounds of solid marble and somewhere inside this is a masterpiece waiting to be uncovered. There's just one problem. This is only my second time carving marble and one wrong move can ruin the entire piece. Let's get messy. Well actually I'll get messy while you guys sit back and watch from the comfort of your homes. Probably wearing much cleaner clothes and breathing fresher air than I'm about to be. I originally wanted to turn this black piece of marble into a raven but I kept going over and over again in my head how am I going to support the weight of the bird with those tiny little legs that it has and I just couldn't come up with a good way of doing that and I thought it was just too risky. So I asked you guys for some help and you gave me some great suggestions but one suggestion not only fit this block of marble best but I just think it's a great idea and it's something I've never done before which is kind of surprising. And let me go back to fitting the actual piece because it may not be what you guys expect. I not only have to think of the color of the animal what type of animal would look best with this color and this veining here this piece of marble has this really cool white vein going through it at this weird angle and it's actually really cool and I want this to be a feature of this cat. So not only am I thinking about the color but the actual proportion of the animal and if it fits this exact stone like if I were to turn this into an orca it just wouldn't fit well with this stone. It would be tiny and there'd be a ton of waste. This cat fills up a really good amount of this stone. There's very little waste and that's a huge part of the decision making process when considering different animals to carve. All right that's enough of me talking. Let's start making some dust. Today's kind of a weird day. There's absolutely no wind so this dust is just staying put. So sometimes you just have to take mother nature into your own hands. One of my big fears before even starting this carving is the difference in density or I don't know what you call it. Just the difference between the white veining and the black piece of marble. Are they going to break apart easily? So when I broke off this little chunk I decided to test it and put a chisel right in between those lines and it actually did not break perfectly in the middle of that line which to me is a relief because I feel like both of them should be able to carve pretty much the same and I don't have to really worry about them splitting right down that line. With that being said I am concerned with another aspect of this black marble and that is it seems to me that it's chipping a lot more than the white marble I previously worked with. Again I know nothing about marble. I've done one other marble carving in my entire life but to me as of right now this black marble seems to be chipping a lot more and it's a little bit scary because any chip in the wrong place will end up showing on that final sculpture so i have to be extremely cautious on this one carving marble is an extremely slow process it is fun though i actually really enjoy chiseling it's just something really fun about the chisel and the hammer and just chunks of marble flying off that's really fun but the grinding and cutting to get all those relief cuts is just so time consuming and to put this in perspective this chunk right now is taking me about two hours and if this were made out of wood I would take a chainsaw and in less than one minute I would have this whole chunk carved off. But some would say that's just the beauty of carving marble it takes time it takes patience and that's what I intend to give this piece to make it the best sculpture I possibly can. And speaking of time you know what else takes a lot of time? Going to see your doctor. And that's why I'm excited to tell you guys about this video's sponsor ZocDoc. ZocDoc is a free marketplace place that you can search and compare local in-network doctors across 200 specialties in all 50 states. You get to read real patient reviews, check openings, and instantly book online. Once you choose your provider you can get seen within 24 to 72 hours and sometimes even same day. ZocDoc just saves me a ton of time. I no longer have to call and play phone tag with my providers. I don't have to get seen three months from now. I can schedule right now super quick and efficiently and that's why I love using ZocDoc. So if you're interested in all that ZocDoc has to offer to help streamline your health care, click the link in the description, scan the QR code, or head on over to ZocDoc.com backslash bmsculptures and get that appointment off your to-do list. Thanks ZocDoc. This little ray of sunlight decided to pop through and we have another day of no wind, so I spent a good part of the morning just filming this little sun ray and marble dust and I think I got some really cool shots. I can probably guess what you guys are thinking. Your neighbors probably hate you. And you know what? You might be right. But to my face at least, they're all really nice and tell me that it's no big deal that I get this dusty and use these loud tools all day. But with that being said, I want to share with you guys the progress on my brand new shop. Well, maybe not brand new, but brand new to me that is. See, we bought a 1970s farmhouse and it's going to require a ton of work. We're still waiting on permits for the house renovation to get started but right now we're starting the concrete on the new shop. We have all the rebar laid over there. Had to dig a bunch over here. This is going to be an overhang where I can carve outside and then just blow all my dust over there into no man's land. That back section right behind Kenny is going to be the clean room where I could do all my finishing work in a clean environment. I'm beyond excited to have my own workshop and can't wait to start carving sculptures in there but until then I just want to thank all my neighbors if they happen to be watching these videos for putting up with my mess and just putting up with all the noise and commotion I make over here. All right let's get back to this carving. I thought this was kind of a cool shot to capture so I messed around with the contrast and some brightness settings and I think this just captures how messy carving marble actually gets. For some reason I just really like these pictures and I almost want to frame them. It's like I'm an astronaut walking on the moon or something or just throwing moon dust everywhere. I think it's just pretty neat. What do you guys think? It's taken around two full days of carving to get where I am right now and it's not that far if you actually look at it, but that's just the name of the game working with marble. so let's get after it on day three. When this sculpture is finished it'll be listed for sale over on my website at bmsculptures.com or hit the link down in the description. After three full days it's finally starting to resemble a cat and now I can start smoothing and rounding over these sharp edges to really start getting this cat shape out of this marble. And while I do that I want to share with you guys a video that my wife took of our family when my channel reached 1 million subscribers in real time. Thank you from the bottom of my heart each and every one of you that just enjoy these videos and it's because of you guys that I get to do this for a living. This is a moment that I'm never going to forget and I hope I get to save this video forever because my kids reaction are just priceless and you guys this would not be possible without you so thank you guys very very much. A little bit of a between the front and back legs this is almost impossible to carve out it's just such a tight area I don't have a tool to get in there all of my stone carving bits are really thick and they're just not going to get in there. I do have some smaller ones, but they're still, you know, once this is in the die grinder, I only have half an inch sticking out. I have no way of getting in there. When I carve wood, I have these really long burrs that can really get in there. They just don't make this for stone carving. I'm just curious what a real stone carver would do in this situation. I mean, still a lot of work to go here. We're going to see if this works tomorrow, but something I'm just going to kind of sleep on the night and see if I could come up with any other idea of how to get in there. Till tomorrow. I scoured the internet and I finally found this masonry bit that's super long and it's perfect for getting in between these legs. I made a mistake here and I actually did this on both sides. I carved too deep and it a little bit ended up chipping off so my fixed approach to this and I don't know if it's going to work but I plan to mix a bunch of marble dust with some five minute epoxy and throw that in there and see if it blends in seamlessly in the end. Again I don't know if this is going to work but this is my best option at this point moving forward. Over on Instagram I gave those of you who follow me a sneak peek of the finished sculpture and asked you guys what name to give this sculpture and the results were pretty close. Honestly I really like the name Oreo and I thought that was going to be the winner especially with that white streak going down its face but it looks like obsidian took the cake. If you guys want to be part of the polls and help name my next sculpture go give me a follow on Instagram at bmsculptures. The fix seemed to have worked for now it grinded off pretty seamlessly but I won't really be able to tell until I'm done polishing but as for now I consider this a win and now I can move on to some finer details. I've done this in so many other sculptures where my weak point is making eyes and I cannot figure it out i just don't seem to understand the shape and depth of eyes these are close to being right but they're just not right and i can't pinpoint what it is that's wrong so i think what i'm going to do is i'm going to grind them out maybe have more of a mystic looking sculpture they do not work for me and i don't know i really struggle with eyes i need to take a class i need to find someone that's really good at doing eyes and show me how to do them because I just cannot conceptualize how these things are supposed to be. So I'm going to grind them out, see what it looks like without the eyes, and go from there. I just think it looks so much better without the eyes, but I'm curious what you guys think. Do you guys prefer having the eyes or kind of this more mystic look of the sculptures? One thing that I learned while doing this sculpture that was pretty surprising is that sanding black marble is way different than a lighter colored marble. When I sanded my white marble sculpture it was pretty much the same as sanding epoxy a little bit denser more hard to actually sand but the overall appearance and scuff marks were pretty invisible. This black marble is a completely different story. Think about a car. A black car will show every little scuff. It'll show dust where a white car you could barely even see it at all And that means on this one, I have to be extra meticulous and just sand through every single grit, every square inch of this piece, because if I miss a single spot, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb. All right, I have some fun facts about this sculpture for you guys. This marble is sourced from León, Mexico, and has a fitting name of León Black Marble. Pretty original, right? This sculpture took me over two weeks to finish, used over 13 tools, and was sanded by hand from 40 grit to 5,000 grit before polishing. Titled Obsidian, this sculpture is now listed for sale over on my website right now. So check it out. If you're interested, I will have a link in the description. All right, it is finished. I am super happy with how this thing turned out. And if you know me, you know I love little guessing games. So I wanna ask you guys, how much do you think this thing weighs? I'm gonna bring out the scale and right after I show you the reveal of this thing, we're gonna weigh this and see what it is. Okay, it is time to weigh this thing. I'm guessing this thing weighs 47 pounds. All right, here we go. 55.1. Wow, that is a big boy. Thank you guys for following along on this journey. And if you like this video, YouTube thinks you're gonna like one of these two videos. So check them out.