Great projects begin with great designs and this was an incredible design from noted illustrator John Pattison. This is our second collaboration for Warped Wing Brewery. We also did the Baltic Argonaut project in 2015. John did the design work for this mythical beast and helped at many critical design decisions on this massive 5′ long project.

The whale initially weighed over 75 pounds and was made from a single 12′ long piece of basswood that was cut up and glued up in the rough shape of the design.

The cardboard mockup was essential to getting the shapes right.

The project was so big I worked on it hanging on the wall to visualize how it would look when finished.