Amazing Ark Animals Being Sculpted for Ark Encounter

Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth . . . . (Genesis 1:20).

Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind . . . . (Genesis 1:24).

The vast array of animal life sprang into existence at the commands of our infinitely wise and powerful Creator (Genesis 1:20, 1:24). Marvelous feathery, furry, or scaly creatures capable of flying, running, leaping, and other complex movements filled the globe as God created them.

The first two creatures made for the Ark Encounter are of an extinct animal known as Simosuchus.

At the Ark Encounter design studio, our artisans are engaged in a monumental task. Scores of these spectacular animals must be designed and sculpted over the next year to be displayed on the life-size Noah’s Ark to open next year in northern Kentucky. Obviously, we cannot miraculously create them, so instead each will be sculpted over many painstaking hours.

The first step in this process is to select which animals to use. Our team has chosen animal fossils from around the time of the Flood for reference. Then an artist sketches the creatures, using the modern representatives to guide them as they design musculature, skin, and color.

Our artists then build a digital 3D model of the creature. Some animals will begin as taxidermy forms to be modified by our team. Others will be cut out of foam on a CNC machine. These carved pieces are carefully put together by our sculptors.

With the creature’s form in place, our gifted sculptors spend weeks adding fur, scales, feathers, claws, teeth, eyes, and other features. Great care is also taken in adding the proper colors. At the end of the process, each magnificent figure appears lifelike. Yet despite all the talent and effort put into these wonderful sculptures, they pale in comparison to the living, breathing animals the all-powerful Creator spoke into existence.

Ark Updates—Watch videos and view photos of the buzz of activity currently going on at the Ark Encounter construction site south of Cincinnati by going to ArkEncounter.com.