Artem was approached to produce a Rotten Ralph character big enough to hang off BBC Worldwide's building!

The first thing to do when considering making a Rotten Ralph of these proportions was to make a scale model of the building he was intended to scale. By doing this, Artem could then use a small-scale Rotten Ralph (a ‘macquette’) to ensure that his positioning and dimensions would fit the contours of the building. This stage of the process was overseen by Artem’s Head of Sculpture, Stan Mitchell.

Having satisfied the desired requirements, Artem made moulds of the macquette and produced several plaster replicas of Rotten Ralph, still at a small scale. These were passed on to polystyrene sculptors Laurie Warburton and his daughter, Garance who utilised them to produce templates at a larger scale and thus bring Ralph up to his gargantuan proportions.

Whilst this was going on, a steel armature was being produced to form Ralph’s skeleton. The armature also featured the fixing points which would eventually ensure that Ralph would stay put on the real building. The poly-carving then commenced and gradually Ralph’s ample proportions were filled out.

The final stage prior to installation was to give Ralph a coating of pigmented fibreglass. This not only ensured that he adopted his familiar red coat but that he would also stand up to all that a British winter would throw at him.