Abstract Dog Sculpture Made Using Concrete

Summer is a good time to make some concrete projects and this time I decided to make an animal sculpture in modernist style. After finishing some different animal sketches on paper I decided I will try to make a dog sculpture and looked at different dog pictures. The shape of the pharaoh hound was suitable because it reminded me the famous Anubis sculptures. So this dog breed became the basis of the design but I made changes into shape and proportions.

After some more sketching and work in Fusion 360 I was happy with the shape of the sculpture and the build could begin.

This sculpture is 1.85 m tall, 1.38 m long but only 0.1 m wide/thick. Nevertheless the sculpture has some weight (body weighs about 130 kg) and therefore I decided to use a large pallet as a level base in this project. I also still have some furniture particle boards. The surfaces on them are water proof and a smooth surface will guarantee a smooth surface on the sculpture.

After attaching the particle boards to the pallet with screws I used the 1:1 drawing that I had printed out onto A3 papers (just taped papers together and then cut out the shape with scissors). Then I used a water proof marker and copied the shape of the sculpture onto the surface. This is needed to attach the styrofoam pieces into their correct place.

Then it was time to cut the pieces from styrofoam (EPS).

I still have the foam cutter that I quickly built for a "temporary" use a few years ago and it still works fine for these kind of projects. So all I had to do was to use the already printed/cut out drawing and use it to draw out the pieces that I needed. I had EPS foam board that was 100 mm thick and some pieces that were 50 mm thick (these I had to glue together with hot glue before cutting them).

I used simple hot glue gun to attach the cut out pieces onto the foundation surface. And from personal experience I can say that this glue limits the size of the piece you can glue. If you go wider than 100 mm and longer than 800 mm then the glue on area from where you start will likely become too dry before you reach the other end (this somewhat depends on the weather if you are working outside). This also brings up another point which is that if you go too thin with the EPS pieces then you need some extra pieces to make the first thin one stronger (this is visible on the picture that shows the back side of the ears area).

Another potential problem that can show itself is that if the glue gets a bit too dry before the EPS is pressed down it wont get the strongest connection. And to make sure that none of the EPS pieces can move away when putting in the concrete I attached some simple pieces of wood with screws onto the base surface. These will assure that the pieces cannot move when the weight of the concrete comes in.

The piece that is later used to create 2 ears on top of the head will be glued in later. It was not the easiest piece to make because it has to be a cone to make the ears on the sculpture a bit angled from the outside layer.

Reinforcing bar is the best option to use in concrete projects but I also had some pieces of a bit rusty metal that are thick enough to use in these kind of projects. So the front leg, neck and head is using a simple L-shaped steel and rest of the body uses a regular reinforcing bar normally used in concrete. You can see from the pictures that those reinforce pieces are connected together using simple thin wire.

This dog is thin and therefore it needs a solution you can use to attach it to something. This sculpture is going to stay in the wild and therefore it can have two simple heavy pieces which will be leveled up with the ground by digging them into it. To be able to attach those pieces later I inserted a piece of M14 bolt rod to both legs. I already had this bolt rod in my drawer and therefore used it here as well, but if I would have needed to buy another one then I would have taken something with a larger diameter. The front one is welded onto the L - profile steel piece and the rear one has a piece of the same steel welded onto it to make sure it stays in its position.

I also cut out pieces of reinforcing bar that will be added into the ears of the statute when pouring the concrete but unfortunately I made no pictures. You can see those pieces from the video and on the next step.

Pouring the concrete in is not difficult because the surface area is large enough. Doing it just takes some time and it is important to make sure that all the corners are filled properly. You can see me using a small wooden stick on the smallest corners.

You can also see a wire holding the rear leg bolt part in its correct position (height) during the pour. I pulled it away after enough concrete was in and keeping the leg bolt in correct position.

On some pictures you can also see that I used some pieces of metal and rock to keep the reinforcing bars in the right height before pouring in the concrete, but I took those away when enough concrete was already inside to mold.

I needed two simple rectangular pieces that are strong and heavy (ended up 26 kg a piece) enough to keep the sculpture in place. So it was easy to create two molds using wood and particle boards. I also took two pieces of plastic pipe to make the holes for the bolt rod and some styrofoam pieces which created the small thinner area that is needed for washers and a nut. These kind of pours also need reinforcing bars into them and I had some large and thick pieces of bent steel from another project. Otherwise I would have used regular reinforcing bars.

The dimension of these foundation pieces are 300x600 mm and its 80 mm thick.

The "fun part" is something that brings out the main plus and minus sides of the EPS board for these kind of projects. It is a cheap material and relatively easy to remove (you can see me mostly using an old simple knife in the video) but the smallest pieces of it want to fly away and therefore you regularly need to use a brush and a scoop.

After the EPS board pieces were removed I brushed all the sides with a regular wire brush.

I also decided to use a diamond blade with my angle grinder to remove some of the small rocks that were pointing out a bit on the lowest surface of the leg. It is important to keep this surface as smooth as possible because it will be in straight contact with the foundation pieces and both of those surfaces need to be smooth enough to make sure the finished sculpture stays stable.

The foundation pieces must be attached to the statue before the project is completely finished. This is a simple thing in principle but this sculpture weighs so much (190+ kg in total) that you need lifting machine or lifting tools or other people to lift it up and move around. I used the last option and after attaching the foundation pieces the statue was completed.

The end result isn't flawless but I like its shape and this was a fun holiday project :).