If you ever tried to sculpt anything in your high school art class, you probably know just how hard it is to turn an untouched medium into anything resembling a piece of art. Whether you couldn’t quite get a handle on the pottery wheel or that clay version of your dog came out looking more like an unfortunate dragon than a beloved canine, the difficulty that comes along with sculpting is readily apparent.
But Redditor squidPUNCH just pulled off a sculptural feat of epic proportions. The avid creator started out as a hobbyist and turned his talents into a full-fledged career after creating a life-sized whale out of styrofoam for a local aquarium.
It all started with a model. Once everything was mapped out, it was sent off to an engineer who helped lay out the massive undertaking.
With dimensions in hand, squidPUNCH rounded up about 30 billion tons of foam (not an accurate measurement, but you get the idea).
Once all of the foam was loaded into the aquarium, the artist got to work cutting out every true-to-life piece.
It looked more like a humpback by the minute…which makes me feel really bad about the upsetting ceramic mug I made for my mom as a kid that I’m pretty sure no longer exists.
Seriously. Look at this thing.
As you can see here, the whale actually had to be created in two halves so that it could eventually be moved to its final location in the aquarium.
All the while, squidPUNCH and his buddies welded a frame to reinforce the hulking sculpture.
I thought these were pumpkins at first glance, but they’re actually whale barnacles. Duh.
Before the process was done, Ms. Whale got a full paint job and a not-so-little baby to call her own.
Here’s the final product. I feel like every aquarium should have a display like this.
Yeah…it’s really, really big.
(via Reddit)
Basically, everything you made in high school that you thought was awesome wasn’t actually awesome at all. After watching this whale come to life, it’s easy to see why the aquarium enlisted squidPUNCH’s help to create a few more pieces. We look forward to seeing your next creation, dude.