Setting up the Skeletal Structure
The first step in my whitetail deer cross-section sculpture is to form the basic structure and "bones" of the piece. The materials I used were a coil of thick black wire I bought at Home Depot, a 100ft coil of 24 gauge annealed wire, thumbtacks and a chunk of wood for a base. I also used a few different pliers and wire cutters.
The First step I took was getting the shape and proportions of the back and neck. Due to how fastening wire with smaller wire works, I needed to create notches to fasten the ribs to. In order to do this I carefully folded the wire 13 times as deer have 26 ribs, 13 on each side. These notches also serve to replicate the protrusion of the deer's spine. I also made the first sets of ribs too small, and had to immediately correct this mistake. At this point I also noticed that the neck was too long, but I figured I could wait until later before correcting it.
From here I got to work on the ribs. The first 18 ribs (nine on either side) connect to a sternum, with the next 4 on either side disconnected completely or connected to the ribs before them. I quickly realized that given the thickness of the wire, I would not be able to fit a full 13 ribs on either side, so I shortened it to 10. I also decided to only attack 8 to the sternum structure. For these eight, I bended them backwards at the end so that they would connect properly. I then made the sternum separately similarly to how I made the spine. I connected these together, and then connected the last two sets of ribs to the eighth. From here I began work on the legs.
For the legs, I bent them according to a reference image, making notches or curves at important joints to attach wire to later and leaving circles on the hooves to give the sculpture something to stand on. I created them as two pieces instead of four. The front and back legs each being one piece gives the entire sculpture more stability. From here, I attached the piece to a wooden base using thumb tacks.
