Case study - Big Jim

modelmaking, sculpting

Great ape-xpectations!

Continuing our tour back through some past DW Modelshop projects, this week we’re digging a bit deeper into an installation from 2021.

Looking for something striking for their new halls of residence builds, Future Generation came to Designworks to design a range of bespoke giant gorilla sculptures. Coined ‘Big Jim’ he was to stand or hang in foyers and common spaces to impress, amuse and likely intimidate the students. 

Like so many things, the experience with anatomy sculpting at DW Modelshop goes back a long way, although as you can see below not all of them looked quite as ‘healthy’ as Jim needed to. In fact, we’d even done an ape the year before, although at just two inches tall, Raz the monkey would be a very tiny ancestor of ‘Big’ Jim.

Sculpted digitally with Geomagic Freeform the three poses for Jim could be derived from a single master model. Using Freeform sped the process up and permitted changes and further poses that might be needed down the road.

For one of the poses, Jim was due to be hanging from high-up in the rafters (as primates have a habit of doing.) Whilst the sculpting software will give an indication of mass and centre-of-gravity, there’s no substitute for practical tests, so the Modelshop were able to rapid prototype a handful of iterations, and eventually produce a painted 12” proof of concept.

It wasn’t the first or last time some of Modelshop’s sculpts would be suspended above the public, so safety was paramount of course.

Big Jim can be found in his various poses and colours in Future Generation premises in Nottingham, Guildford and Loughborough.