Mountain Gorilla Deadly Art

I'm Steve Backshall and this is Deadly Art.

I travel the world, tracking deadly animals.

In this show, I'm picking 25 of my favourites...

..and challenging my team of Deadly Artists to recreate a killer moment.

You'll get to make some art yourself

and in the final show, my team and I will choose

which animals will make it into my Deadly Art Gallery.

This is no ordinary art show, this is Deadly Art.

On today's Deadly Art,

I have a close encounter of the primate kind...

Ooh!

Haha!

..my team of artists create art of King Kong proportions...

You can see how big this guy is going to be!

..and you can make your own gorilla art at home, too.

Today's deadly animal is one of our closest relatives,

sharing about 98% of their DNA with us.

Despite being the strongest primates in the world,

they're vegetarians and can be total pussy cats...

unless they're provoked.

This is the mountain gorilla.

For an animal that feeds entirely on vegetation,

gorillas are one of the most heavily-muscled creatures on Earth.

Why are they built like wrestlers when they only feed on plants?

Well, gorillas are fiercely loyal

and they'll fight to the death to defend their families.

Time to meet today's artists,

who are waiting in the Deadly Art studio for their mission.

I'm Jo. I like using gloss paint, human hair, all sorts of materials.

But most of all, I like making a mess.

Hey, I'm Mike. I'm a cartoon artist

and I like turning my drawings into stencils

and making them deadly!

And in just a moment, you'll be joining me in Uganda,

on my mission to track down some very rare mountain gorillas.

And this is the killer moment I want Mike and Jo to capture.

Here are the essential elements I'd like my art team to focus on.

The arms of adult mountain gorillas are 20% longer than their legs.

A mature male can spread his arms 2.5 metres wide

and is said to be as strong as six men.

That's scary if you're standing near one and he's staring at you.

On the whole, they're peaceful creatures,

but they can be fiercely protective if someone threatens their family.

They'll stop at nothing to defend them.

Gorillas are primates like us

and they share many spookily similar traits and mannerisms.

They're highly intelligent and have human-like emotions,

including love, fear, hate, jealousy.

They even laugh when they're tickled!

Mike and Jo, this is going to be quite a challenge.

Oh, look at that face! It shows their personality.

They can get really angry when protecting their families,

so we have to get that in.

AND capture their sheer power.

Yep. To me, that means size. Let's go REALLY big on this one.

I've got just the thing!

Jo's delving deep into the crypt at the Deadly Art studio.

Odd place for pillows. Must have had a scary sleepover.

Hey!

These could be fantastic for fingers. Just hope they've been washed.

Me too. This one will be interesting.

I start my search for the mountain gorilla

2,300 metres above sea level.

But with five hours of trekking ahead of us, it won't be easy.

Christopher and the other trackers make daily visits up the mountain

and know each gorilla family and every individual.

Without their tracking skills, we'd never find our gorillas.

And without their knowledge and expertise,

the gorillas would never let us get close.

It was about 100 years ago...

that the first...

outsiders came here and saw mountain gorillas for the first time.

They brought back stories of these terrifying animals

that were incredibly strong

and could rip a man apart with their bare hands,

which is what inspired the story of King Kong.

Since then, we've learned an awful lot more about mountain gorillas.

We've found out that they're peaceful animals that eat...

well, stuff like this, most of the time.

That doesn't stop them being formidable creatures.

While I carry on looking for these elusive characters,

let's get back to the Deadly Art studio.

How's our giant gorilla getting on?

I'm making the gorilla's hands.

I'm using some wadding to stuff these socks and turn them into fingers.

You can see that the ankle of the sock works well as the knuckle.

I'm using a safety pin to attach my socks to this black, furry cushion.

If you can imagine that this furry cushion is his palm

and these are his fingers, you can see how big this guy is going to be!

One of the essential elements of the gorilla is power.

He is full of muscle and this is going to be his bicep.

I'm tying these cushions together really tightly to pack them in.

Jo and Mike's mountain gorilla is going to be large and fearsome.

Now Mike will show you how to draw one.

OK. I'm going to show you how to turn this picture of an angry gorilla

into my Deadly Doodle.

Going to place my picture down on top of my light box.

This will help me trace over it.

If you don't have a light box, you can place your picture on a window

and use that light to trace over it.

Now I'm going to put my A3 piece of paper, centred, over my gorilla head.

All right, this is all about wax crayons.

You must use a wax crayon and let's start with red.

Let's colour the angry eyes.

Now I'll move on to the mouth.

That is one fierce gorilla!

I'm tracing over the red bits underneath.

Make sure you push down nice and hard.

That's the red done. Now for the white crayon.

I'll use that to colour in all the parts that are not shadows.

I'm going to leave all the shadows for later.

Starting on that big nose of his.

Add in those deadly teeth.

OK, that's all the white crayoning done.

Let's take it off.

You might be thinking,

"What is it?"

That's because we haven't added in the magic ingredient.

Some black ink.

Just going to start painting on our page.

Here's the reason we used that wax crayon earlier.

This black ink soaks into the parts that don't have the wax crayon on.

So as you paint, that picture really comes off the page.

I must say, this is very impressive!

Ha! And there you have my angry gorilla Deadly Doodle!

I'm going to give that one a go myself! Back to our big art.

As you can see, our gorilla is just getting bigger and bigger.

I've got loads of black fur that I'm covering him in from head to toe

and just tucking it in.

Now our gorilla also needs some form,

so I'm using some black wool to tie the fur on tight

and create some body shapes.

We're going to use this bean bag for his stomach...

..and this bean bag for his head.

He's going to have a big personality.

He's going to be huge!

Meanwhile, back in Uganda, we've found our mountain gorillas.

(Wow.)

It feels quite vulnerable to be so close,

knowing that if he wanted to charge, he'd be on me in a heartbeat.

Massive.

Despite the fact that he probably is no taller than I am...

he would be at least two times my weight and way more muscular.

He's walking across now.

You can see that silver saddle back as he goes.

And just the strength to just brush bushes aside.

Look at that incredible bulk!

They are majestic animals.

'And I'm about to get the fright of my life.'

Before that, let's join Jo. She's got a great DIY.

I've taken Mike's doodle from earlier

and I'm going to show you how to make him into a talking gorilla.

I took the drawing and glued it to some foam board.

And the first thing we're going to do is cut out a hole for his mouth.

Remember, scalpels can be dangerous. Get an adult to help you.

Just...pop that out.

Now what we have to do is peel back this mouth,

off the foam board, taking care not to rip it.

Take your time with this,

otherwise you'll have to do the doodle again.

OK. We're going to take that

and put double-sided sticky tape on the back of it.

Now I'm going to stick that on to another piece of foam board.

This piece has got some black paper stuck to it.

So we'll just peel that back.

Put it right in the middle.

So now, we need to make this grid structure,

which keeps it all in place and works a bit like a drawer.

What we've done with that...

is got some more strips of foam board.

Before we put that together,

you need to check that the mouth is in the right position.

So these are going to go down the sides, like the runners.

This one is going to go across the back, just to keep it in place.

Make sure it only sticks to the runners and not middle piece.

One more, smaller one, which is going to go across the top,

which stops it all falling out.

OK. Next, I'm just going to put his mouth up into the closed position.

I'm taking another piece of foam board, which will be our handle.

It's a nice, long piece and this goes right up against that guide.

So there we have it, one talking gorilla.

Is that deadly enough for you?

What a fantastic DIY!

But imagine getting close to these bad boys.

I got closer than planned.

We try and keep a respectful distance,

so we don't disturb the gorillas as they feed.

Johnny, Johnny!

Suddenly, a cheeky, confident young male moves menacingly towards us.

This is the blackback. He's the young male.

And...

they can be...

more of a worry than a silverback, because they have more to prove.

You can see how easily he pulled that tree down to cover himself.

People that actually work with gorillas a lot reckon...

they're ten times stronger than people.

They've seen them bend iron bars.

The guides make me stand my ground as he comes in for a closer look.

Ooh!

Right. Well that...

is a blackback gorilla... letting us know who's boss.

HE CHUCKLES

Gorillas are aggressive when defending their families

or when showing off to a film crew.

Let's get back to Jo and Mike. Their gorilla is better behaved.

If an essential element for the gorilla is protectiveness,

our gorilla is going to look angry.

I have a sock, stuffed with wadding.

This is going to make his eyebrow,

which makes a difference to an expression.

I'm going to put it low down on his face to make him look really cross.

If our gorilla's looking cross, his mouth will be wide open.

So for the mouth, I've used this red cushion cover.

Just going to stuff it down into his face.

Now if his mouth is wide open, we'll see those big teeth.

So for the teeth, I've used some wadding.

Going to shape it into one of those big, sharp canines...

and stick it in his mouth.

So, we've got his head, his arms, his legs and his body.

All we need to do is put it all together.

And once it's fixed together, Mike and Jo hoist it up.

Wow! This is definitely the biggest Deadly Art we have ever made.

The sheer size of it represents the gorilla's awesome power.

We have covered his personality

by giving him that angry expression on his face and adding in that hand,

with those five fingers coming at you!

He's reaching out, he could be protecting his family,

which is an essential element.

-Well done, us!

-Let's hope Steve likes it.

So it's time for the big reveal.

Remember, this is the killer moment I challenged my artists to recreate.

Now let's have a look at the finished piece of art.

That is a monster!

This is the biggest piece of work we've ever done on Deadly Art.

I asked Mike and Jo to capture the gorilla's personality.

Well, look at its sheer size!

His eyes look menacing, the teeth are sharp. Big tick there, guys.

And with his outstretched hand, he's definitely protecting his family.

Fantastic!

That's a top Deadly Rating from me

but will it make it into my Deadly Gallery?

Maybe. See you next time for more Deadly Art.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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