This is what a keel-billed toucan looks like. It is a little under two-foot tall and very colorful. Love that beak.

As usual, I start with an internet search to find several pictures of my subject, showing it in different poses and from different angles. Once I select a good profile, I overlay a grid so I can construct a template to scale.

This shows my template that I used to cut out four pieces of two-inch styrofoam. These are then glued together with construction glue to make a two-dimensional model of roughly the correct thickness.

My next step is to do a rough cut of another dimension. I use different technique to trim the excess styrofoam. Sometimes I use keyhole saw, hot-wire knife, electric knife, regular kitchen knives, or a wet-vac cleaner. This last one works best for the final shaping. I use the nozzle on it to scratch along the form and it scrapes it away and sucks it up for very little mess. The other techniques are best for cutting away big chunks of waste.

What I thought was the final step in the construction was to paint and coat it with a sealant. Wow, was I wrong. I was pretty satisfied with the colors and found that an egg carton was a good container to mix colors in small amounts.

Once I was done with painting, I sprayed it all with a clear sealant to protect it better from the elements. BIG MISTAKE!!!

The aerosol in the sealant gradually started dissolving the styrofoam until it was pretty pockmarked. I could see the change almost immediately and thought I had destroyed Toucky. Then I thought of a way I could salvage it.

I went ahead and sprayed the entire body with the sealant so it was entirely pockmarked. Then I covered it with a thin layer of hypertufa. Hypertufa is a mixture of portland cement, perlite, peat moss and water. It makes a relatively smooth surface and though not as strong, it is much more lightweight than concrete. With the holes made by the aerosol, the hypertufa stuck well to the form. Then I had to repaint it to finally get it ready for its perch.

I first mounted it in an old crab apple tree. The tree was nearing its end of life but was a nice prominent location for viewing. The tree became three other pieces of art as it gradually met its demise and Toucky eventually had to be reperched in a new location.

Here is Toucky mounted in a mugo pine tree located just outside the front door to greet our visitors. He looks pretty smart with his spiffy red glasses, I think.