Lion design

Alan Dun, the sculptor of the popular King Bladud’s pigs, was asked by the Lion team to come up with a lion sculpture that was neither too civic, nor too Lion King, with smooth, flat surfaces for artists to decorate, that was more "teenage lion with attitude" than curly-maned Trafalgar Square!

Alan took up the challenge and before long, his studio in Limpley Stoke was the scene of much local interest as various incarnations of lion emerged into the sunlight for inspection.

The first stage of the process was to create a small scale clay model, known as a maquette.  Once the design was agreed, Alan built a steel frame, covered it with mesh and clay and then scaled-up the design of the maquette to create a full size clay lion.  A plaster mould was then made of the lion (which is destroyed in the moulding process) from which a fibreglass lion is then made, known as the "pattern".

The prototype lion was then taken to Country Leisure, a fibreglass factory near Salisbury, where a more heavy-duty mould was made from which the rest of the pride has emerged! Each lion sculpture takes a day to create from the mould and then a further day of finishing, sanding and polishing!