Baby Hippogriff
May 2016
My Sleeping Baby Hippogriff was inspired by Buckbeak the famous Hippogriff from the Harry Potter Universe. Researching Buckbeak led me to the beautiful Harpy eagle which I choose to base my design on.
This is my Final Major Project in Prop Making and SFX at Northbrook College. Its a life size replica of a one week old sleeping Hippogriff.
I sculpted the body using waterbased clay and made a brush on silicone mould with a fiberglass jacket. I then brushed silicone into the mould to make a nice skin for the hippogriff that I filled with soft expanding foam. I wanted the animal to be soft when you touched it but the beak needed to be hard, so I sculpted the beak onto a skull. I made a silicone box mould and cast the beak in Fast Cast. I used the skull to sculpt the head onto and made a brush on silicone mould with a two part fiberglass jacket for the head. I used the fast cast beak as a core into the mould and brushed silicone around it and eventually filled the head with soft expanding foam.
Using 5 different types of hair: sheep wool, Mo hair, human hair, fake hair and horse hair glued onto the silicone body with silicone sealant and hair punched some places.
Using various feathers for the upper body. Covering the upper body with a power net and gluing the feathers onto it.