Goliath Bird Eating Spider Deadly Art

My name's Steve Backshall and this is Deadly Art.

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

But in this show, my team of artists take my killer moment...

..and turn it into art.

We'll reveal another unique creation.

Along the way, you'll pick up some 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 come face-to-face with the biggest spider in the world.

Look at the size of her!

The art team build one of the largest models

ever attempted on Deadly Art.

I'm using the airbrush to give it lots of definition.

And we'll show you how to draw a spider, too.

So, what are we looking at today?

These amazing creatures are huge, hairy and pretty scary.

With fangs twice as long as human teeth and much sharper.

It's a tarantula.

But not just any tarantula, this is the Goliath bird-eating tarantula.

Found in the rainforests of South America,

they live in burrows that can be a metre underground.

This is the biggest tarantula in the world

and they can grow to be as big as a dinner plate.

And yes, as the name suggests,

they can, very occasionally, eat birds.

This animal is seriously deadly.

Time to meet today's artists on standby in the Deadly Art studio.

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

and I'm up for today's Deadly Art.

I'm Jo, I'm a painter,

a sculptor,

and a general mess-maker.

Mike and Jo will be representing the Deadly Art team,

who are always up for a challenge.

Here are the killer shots to inspire the artwork.

This spider is truly a giant,

with a massive, hairy body and huge fangs.

I can't wait to see the artwork.

There's only one thing for it, this artwork is going to be large.

I like it - big legs, big fangs, everything oversized.

-It's going to be terrifying!

-Time for some more Deadly Art.

I'm not sure what part of the spider requires feathers.

I'm sure we'll find out!

This is where the back section of the spider will be

and this is where the front section will be.

This arc is where the legs are going to end up.

Same again.

Just the same.

This spider is going to be MASSIVE!

This art has got to be huge.

On Deadly 60, we made our way through the incredible Amazon rainforest,

home to lots of creepy-crawlies

and it didn't take us long to find a Goliath bird-eating spider.

This spider's venom wouldn't kill me

but you really don't want to get bitten by those gigantic fangs.

She does, however, have another form of defence

that I've got to be really careful of.

That kicking her leg against her abdomen,

sending hairs up into the air.

If those get into your eyes or nose or the back of your throat,

it can be very irritating and itchy

and it's actually the spider's primary method

of getting rid of an attacker,

despite the fact that it has gigantic fangs.

She's got fangs that are about as long as a cheetah's claws

and a good deal sharper.

She could give me a really, really nasty bite.

So, I just want to be ever so careful.

This is the Goliath bird-eating spider.

Goliath was a giant in the Bible

and this is a giant among spiders.

Now, although they are certainly capable of it,

birds don't actually form a large part of their diet.

Most of what they'll eat,

rats and mice, lizards and crickets invertebrates,

but really, they'll take almost anything

that is unlucky enough to wander past their burrow.

Look at the size of her!

I can feel those hairs that she kicked up into the air,

I can feel them in the back of my throat and I want to cough

but it's not really a good time to cough

with that on your hands.

As she relaxes, she decides to go for a wander

and though it's still a little nervy,

I think I've earned this spider's trust.

That was a phenomenal experience.

How are Jo and Mike getting on with their deadly giant?

This is the front section of the body

and all the legs attach to these blocks of wood.

I've got one last one to put in place - give it a mark.

Now we just have to screw it in.

This block of polystyrene is angular,

whereas the body of a spider is rounded,

so, I'm cutting off the edges

and then smoothing it into shape.

-The body is looking good.

-Woo-hoo, it's Christmas!

Jo's is loving this a bit too much!

That's the leg support finished.

Now to make a leg.

Our spider has two joints in its legs. Here's one right here.

We've flattened the end of our chrome tube,

drilled a hole through it and attached it with a bolt and a nut.

Now we need another one attached right here.

Mike and Jo are trained professionals.

Don't try any of our big art techniques at home.

We have to drill a hole.

This is really exciting. This art is going to be terrifying.

Time to draw your own spooky spider now.

It's Deadly Doodle time.

I'm going to show you how to draw this truly Deadly Doodle

of a Goliath bird-eating spider.

We're going to start with some basic shapes.

A long, large oval near the top of my page.

Then some elongated ones inside.

Over the top, a circle which acts as a guide

for those beady little eyes that go inside.

For the front section, the palps, which look like two shorter legs.

Then we're going to go in

with angled lines coming down for those big legs.

As with every spider, there's eight of these.

So, repeat this eight times.

OK, now I'm going to go into it with a felt-tip pen,

starting off with those deadly fangs.

Those fangs are massive!

Up, around the fangs and those beady, dark eyes.

OK, using those lines as a guide,

I'm going to go around with a jaggedy line

to make them all furry.

All I'm doing at the bottom of each leg is a little zigzag

with fur hanging down.

This is going to be one hairy spider!

This is the fun bit.

Make your spider nice and furry, too.

Then around the whole body, again, zigzagging, making it really furry.

Add a bit of shading.

A bit more fur around his body where his legs are joining.

The last thing I'm going to do is go underneath all of those legs

with a bit more shading, really take your time with the shading

because the more effort you put in,

the more your spider will jump off the page.

Th last thing is the little hairs on his legs.

One Goliath bird-eating spider, is that deadly enough for you?

Great spider, Jo.

Keep hold of your doodle because Mike is going to use it in a DIY later.

Here's how some of you got on with this spider

when we visited Swindon on a Deadly day out.

OK, I want all those legs...

Brilliant.

ALL: Deadly!

I'm Leo and this is my Deadly Doodle.

ALL: Deadly!

It was really good fun because they told us how to do the tarantula

and it's helped us improve our drawing skills.

ALL: Deadly!

On the TV, when people draw, it looks quite hard

but when you do it in stages, it is quite easy.

ALL: Deadly!

When you're bored, you can just have a pen and paper with you

and start doodling everywhere.

I reckon your spiders are almost as good as the real thing.

Keep on doodling. Let's get back to the Deadly art studio

and our spider.

We've got our legs laid out everywhere here

and they're all at different stages.

The first stage is the skeleton you saw earlier,

made up with those three pieces.

The legs have been covered in this pipe lagging to bulk them out a bit

and then covered in this nice material

to give it that spider texture.

Lastly, I'll pick out a bit of our feather

and glue it down.

So that's what the feathers were for!

Doesn't it make those hairs look realistic?

The back section of our spider

is covered in this stretchy velour fabric

but the front section is much more detailed.

I'm going to go in with an airbrush and give it lots of definition.

I love the spraying.

The shading makes the front section look so lifelike.

We are moments away from the Big Reveal but now,

grab your doodle from earlier and let's join Mike for a Deadly DIY.

I'm going to show you how to do your very own sci-fi movie picture.

It starts with a cutout of your doodle from earlier.

I've made sure I've got this detail of all the fur left in there

all cut out really nice.

That's just the spider, so we'll put that to the side for now.

We're going to work on the background.

For the background, I've chosen bright orange

to offset our dark spider and I've put that on a piece of foam board.

All comic books have this starburst kind of style

so to get that effect, I'm going to take a piece of grey card

and we are going to to draw out our starburst.

That's just a simple circle in the middle

and you can draw out a whole bunch of points.

It's like drawing in a giant sun.

Just cut it out.

Making sure to cut out the inside, leaving the outside,

because that's the important part.

It's looking good. Awesome! I'm going to stick that down on top.

Now we need to move on to the town,

where our spider has destroyed all of our buildings.

We'll start with three lines.

I'm going to join those lines at the top.

I'm going to do it the same again by adding a little tiny roof

and maybe even a little dome.

Now I'm going to draw in some windows

which are upside down U's,

getting smaller as we go down the building.

Just split the building in half.

These lines come together at the bottom

to give perspective. We're going to colour it in.

I'm going to use a grey crayon and a purple crayon

all around for the grey.

Then a little purple highlight.

Happy with that.

The last thing we add are a few cracks in the building,

as if it's about to fall to pieces. Get a nice, thick, black outline.

The more detail you put in this, the better it will look.

Now we just need to cut it out.

OK, we've got our finished building.

A little double-sided tape on the back.

I want it to look like our buildings are falling over

so we're going to place them in at a few jaunty angles.

The smallest buildings being in the middle,

working out to the biggest buildings on the outside.

I'm going to add in a road. Stick that down over our buildings.

Perfect! Now we need to add in our spider.

I want him at a jaunty angle also, as if he's rearing up.

All right, there you have it - the attack of the 50-foot spider!

Now we can make our DIY even more deadly

by adding a picture of me and Jo running away from a massive spider.

Run for your lives!

Nice one, Mike.

Right, back to our giant spider model and a few finishing touches.

And it looks like they're just about finished.

This has got to be the biggest tarantula in the world,

quite literally.

The sculpture's great, it's massive, hairy and very scary.

And it makes me feel so small!

So, it's nearly time for the Big Reveal.

I asked the Deadly Art team to recreate these killer shots

and turn it into art.

So, let's take a look at the finished result.

Oh, wow, the spider is huge in real life and in art, it's even bigger!

I love this giant deadly spider model with its realistic hairy legs,

massive body and scary fangs

and, now it's moving, it looks even more terrifying!

Well done, 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

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