Chimpanzee Deadly Art

My name is Steve Backshall and this is Deadly Art.

I'm lucky enough to travel the world tracking deadly animals.

In this show, my team of artists take my killer moments...

..and turn it into art.

'And we'll reveal another unique creation.

'Along the way, you'll get to pick up tips, tricks and techniques

'so you can make some art yourself.

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

'Coming up on Deadly Art, I meet a group of predators

'with strength, agility and incredible intelligence.'

They're a really powerfully-built animal.

'Our art team put together a startling work of art.'

-They look fierce and hungry.

-Hungry and deadly.

'And we'll show you another Deadly Doodle.

'So, what are we looking at today?'

With its big brain and its facial expressions,

it's perhaps not that surprising the chimpanzee

is more closely related to humans than any other animal.

They share an astounding 98% of our genes.

This is the seemingly-cute chimpanzee.

'Chimpanzees are funny, charming and often likeable,

'but when it comes to hunting,

'they're also one of Africa's deadliest predators.

'Yes, they definitely have a taste for fruit, for figs,

'for bananas, but in between, they'll also hunt meat.'

Things like antelopes and monkeys.

When they do, it's one of the most spine-chilling experiences.

'So, who's taking on the Deadly Art challenge today?'

I'm Jo, I'm a painter and a general mess-maker.

Hey. I'm Mike. I'm a cartoon artist. And I'm up for today's Deadly Art.

'Mike and Jo are representing the Deadly Art team,

'who are always up for a challenge.

'And here's the killer moment to capture in the artwork.

'Possibly a side to chimpanzees that you haven't seen before.

'When the hunt begins, they move at an incredible speed.

'Using their terrific teamwork, they are formidable hunters.'

His teeth are fierce. I always thought they were quite cute.

I didn't realise how powerful they are.

We've got to make sure we show their deadly side today

and their teamwork when they're on the hunt.

So we're doing a 2D body and a 3D head.

-I'm working on the body.

-I'll do the head.

-OK.

First, we need to draw out a chimp.

So, get myself a big piece of board

and start with the vine.

He's really long arms.

'I'm looking forward to seeing some chimps in the Deadly Art studio.

'But on Deadly 60 in Uganda, our expert local guides

'were taking us deep into the forest to track wild chimpanzees.

'It looked like we were getting close.'

Crikey!

That's not a chimp either. Those are monkeys.

The chimp's going after them.

No way! This is absolute chaos!

A lot of this is just big squabbles going on between the individuals,

the senior ones disciplining the more junior ones,

and they're just charging around in the treetops,

causing absolute havoc.

After a few hours of feasting, one of the males has got bored of figs.

Here he comes.

This way.

Coming down this vine here.

This is an adult male, just beginning to descend.

A big male chimp like this

would be a fair bit smaller than me, but a lot stronger.

The arms are proportionately much longer

and great for swinging through the treetops.

It's a really powerfully-built animal.

'Although great climbers,

'chimps are too heavy to swing from tree to tree like monkeys,

'so they come down when they need to move through the forest.'

Down and off.

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny!

(I'd give anything to be able to climb like that!)

Whoa!

They move with such purpose.

You can see the bulk of him just brought down a great big branch.

There's more coming down from the treetops here.

'I can't believe they're coming down all around us. What an experience!

'It's awe-inspiring to see their power and agility.

'Let's get back to the studio.'

I've got all three chimps cut out.

I'm painting them in a street-art graffiti style

using layers of stencils to create that fur texture.

This chimp head has been sculpted from a block of clay.

I want to make a mould from it so we can make more chimp heads.

I've got silicone rubber, which I'll coat it all with.

This takes a long time to dry.

The silicone rubber is dry.

Now for the moment of truth.

Peel it back. Now we have a mould.

The next thing to do is line it with resin and fibreglass.

'Mike's stencils and Jo's heads are coming on nicely.

'Now, fancy drawing your own chimpanzee?

'Jo's going to take a break to show you a Deadly Doodle.'

I'm going to show you how to draw this chimpanzee.

As always, we're going to start off with some basic shapes.

Two large ovals in the middle of your page.

And in the middle of them, a heart.

And then coming out of your heart, another oval.

Two curved lines, joining them up.

And then big mug handles coming down the side,

which will show us where to put his ears.

Now, chimp eyes are almost exactly the same as human eyes.

Two circles inside for the irises.

And we can join it all up

with a line going over the top of his head

and back down the other side.

Lastly, we're just going to draw a line

which will be where his mouth is.

Now I'm going to go in with my felt-tip pen.

Starting off with that lovely fur around his face...

This is just a zig-zaggy line.

Then up, around his mouth section.

Over the top of his nose.

And for his nostrils, I'm just going to put two dark circles

with little lines coming out of the side.

Up over his eyes and back down again.

And now you can put in a nice dark pupil.

And those mug handles are his ears.

And then some darker circles inside for his ear holes.

And we need some more ear detail.

Now, to make your chimp really chimp-like

is all those wrinkles in his forehead and around his eyes.

It'll give him lots of character and expression in his face.

So there we have it, one cheeky chimp.

'Good work, Jo. So lifelike!

'We went to Swindon on a Deadly Day Out.

'Here's how you got on with the doodle in the Deadly Art tent.'

OK. Down there.

ALL: Deadly!

This is my Deadly Doodle of a chimp.

Deadly!

They showed us how to do the shapes and they made it shaggy

and they taught me how to do really good drawing.

-Deadly!

-'Some cheeky-looking chimps there.

'Let's get back to the Deadly Art studio.'

The resin's hard, all that's left to do is to peel back the mould.

Wow! And there we have our first chimp head. Two more to go.

That is amazing! Look how fierce it is. Argh!

Now all that's left to do is to paint it a base coat of blue

to match the body of a chimp.

'Mike's going to take a break now to show you a DIY

'if you're in the mood to monkey around.'

Ooo! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!

I'm going to show you how to do a Deadly DIY of a chimp mask.

You need to start with your doodle from earlier.

This DIY is all about cutting out the essential elements of your face.

Cut out your ears, the face, the facial fur.

And we've cut out the jaw separately

because this is the bit that moves up and down.

Now all you have to do is trace them out.

I've got a nice piece of dark-brown foam for that.

Put your piece right in the centre,

push down hard and trace it out.

The more detail you put in there, the better.

Makes your chimp look more realistic, a little bit more fun.

All right, the tracing's done, now we just have to cut it out.

Now, a nice tip here is to cut out the main shape first

and then go in and cut out all the details.

OK, that's the facial fur all cut out.

For the other parts of the face,

I've used a nice lighter tan so they contrast our facial fur.

So I've got the ears, I've got the face with the nose cut out

and I've got the bottom jaw.

Now we're going to work on the nose.

You can see in my mask,

the nose pops out a bit to give us room to breathe.

So we've got our nosepiece, we want to fit it around our nose.

So we're going to glue this down to another piece

of the same colour foam and we're going to add in some tabs.

Now, these tabs that I'm drawing

are so that our nosepiece fits back into our hole,

but pops out just a little bit.

OK, we've got all four tabs drawn out. We just need to cut them out.

Now we just need to glue that back into our face.

So, a tiny bit of glue.

Pop it in from the front.

Bending these tabs around so the nose pops out a bit.

And there you go. You've got room to breathe and you've got two nostrils.

So now we can start gluing some of our pieces back together.

Let's start with the ears.

Glue those to our facial fur.

And we'll glue our face to the back.

Glue it on the face.

Now we need to work on the bottom jaw.

First thing we need to do is create a cup for the chin, like this.

So using another piece of foam, we're going to glue along one edge,

just glue it into a U shape on the back of your jaw.

Now we need to add two tabs to the side of our jaw.

This is to help guide our mouth up and down.

So, a little bit of glue.

Now we need to add our jaw back to our face.

You need a few pieces of sewing elastic,

so you need to glue that from the tabs back to the face.

Now we need to fit it to our head.

So with a little bit more sewing elastic,

you need a longer piece, one that fits from ear to ear.

And you're going to glue that to the back of your ears on your mask.

Put that there.

Now we need to attach the chin bit to that piece of elastic.

OK. Same again on the other side.

This piece goes down the middle of your head.

It helps your mask not to fall off.

So one bit of glue to the top of your mask

and glue that back down to the piece of elastic going around your head.

We're going to draw in some of the details,

like our doodle from earlier.

Let's see how it fits.

How's that for a Deadly DIY? Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ah!

'I could almost swear a chimp was in the room with us.

'Back to the big art.

'Mike and Jo look like they're working on the finishing touches.

'That's it. Our chimpanzees are ready.'

Using that street-art graffiti style

has really given our chimps an edge.

And the realistic moulds for faces, they look fierce and hungry.

-Hungry and deadly. Let's get out of here.

-Absolutely!

'I asked the Deadly Art team

'to recreate these killer shots and turn them into art.'

So, let's take a look at the finished work of art.

'Wow! That is really striking!

'It would never have occurred to me

'to use blue paint for the chimps, but it definitely works.

'I love that urban stencil design for the bodies.

'The fact that the heads are 3D

'really brings out their intelligence and their emotions.

'You really feel that they could be working together as a team.

'And, of course, the jungle vines

'set them in a realistic environment, too.

'Great stuff, team.

'Art doesn't get any deadlier than this.'

What an incredible creation.

Make sure you try the Doodle and the DIY

and we'll see you next time for more Deadly Art.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd