African Hunting Dog Deadly Art

I'm Steve Backshall. And this is Deadly Art.

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

But in this show, my artists take my Killer Moments...

..and turn it into art.

And we'll reveal another unique creation.

You'll 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'm in South Africa, looking for top predators.'

We've got a fantastic view!

'The Deadly Artists paint an exciting Killer Moment.'

Check out those teeth!

'And we have a cool Deadly Doodle.'

The plains of Africa may be known for incredibly fearsome felines.

The cat family. The lions, the leopards.

But another predator found there is perhaps even more efficient,

and actually comes from the dog family.

This is the African hunting dog.

African hunting dogs form packs

that could be 40 animals strong.

But it's the lead pair who take charge of running the pack,

and they hunt using teamwork.

Their scientific name means "painted wolf," and you can see why.

They look like a mix of a wolf and a dog.

The markings down their back are unique to each individual.

They can hunt prey much larger than they are.

Antelope, zebra, wildebeest.

They can reach 60 kilometres an hour.

But it's their stamina that really sets them apart.

I'll explain more later. First, here's today's Deadly Art team.

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

I'm Michelle, and I love working with different materials.

I'm all about getting stuck in.

The Deadly Art team are always up for a challenge.

Here are today's Killer Moments to inspire their art.

The dogs can chase their prey down for miles and miles,

surrounding or ambushing them.

They're very efficient predators.

An unbelievable amount of hunts result in success.

Time for some more Deadly Art.

I love that this is the "painted wolf."

Perfect for Deadly Art.

The way they run in packs, chasing their prey,

makes a great Killer Moment.

A dramatic, comic book, action-packed painting would be great.

-Sounds good.

-Let's do it.

A comic book tells a story. Each part is in a different box.

Our three canvasses each will represent

different parts of our story.

But it's not always in a straight order.

We'll start here with the first canvas, move here,

and finish here for the end.

I'm starting on the first canvas, the hunting pack.

They'll be silhouetted against a moody purple sky.

That'll be the ground.

That, the sky. Let's start on the first dog.

Our second canvas is all drawn out.

A close-up portrait of our hunting dog.

Next, I'll add in the vibrant-coloured sky

like in comic books.

Let's see our three blank canvasses

evolve into fantastic Deadly Art.

'Let's head over to Africa,

'where the Deadly 60 crew and I were looking for our very own

'African Hunting Dogs.'

If we're to find wild dogs, it'll be like this.

Oh, look at that!

Oh, hippos are back!

This is beautiful.

A herd of elephant, drinking at the water.

There's some real youngsters with them.

We saw pretty much

every species of animal you can find here,

but no dogs.

'We were unlucky in South Africa,

'but this footage shows why they're incredible predators.

'Working as a team, they locate their prey.'

Their camouflage lets them get close, but, unlike the cats.

they don't hope to pounce on their victim.

They're happy for the prey to run.

The teams spread out, and the chase begins.

Their incredible powers of endurance soon become apparent.

Bodies adapted to run in the ferocious heat of the savannah,

they can chase prey for up to four hours

and can reach an awesome speed of nearly 50 kilometres per hour.

They are the true terminators of the animal world,

never stopping.

Their prey finally succumbs.

And that death-dealing dog bite

makes short work

of flesh and bone.

A super-athletic display of strength and stamina.

Let's head back to the Deadly Art studio now.

It's great to see Jo and Michelle painting.

Classic art skills, Deadly style.

The silhouettes really work against this colour.

It creates drama. Which is great, as we're telling a story.

The purples look great,

and set the scene in our hunting dog artwork.

The leg's finished. I'll fill in the rest of the fur with block colour.

Now YOU can get involved. Jo will show you a Deadly Doodle.

I'm going to show you how to draw and paint

this African hunting dog Deadly Doodle.

We'll start with some basic shapes.

My first one is a circle,

near the centre of the page.

Off the top of that,

round circles.

Then a baguette, coming out the top.

Then, a rounded triangle,

for its nose.

Then, another triangle,

coming off that, for its mouth.

Now, we'll do a teardrop shape, upside down, coming from those eyes.

Then, from the top of your baguette,

go all the way down to a point at the bottom, like that.

That will create the dog's head.

Then for those huge ears.

Big, round circles.

Now for those eyes,

which are two diagonal lines, with circles underneath them.

Two more lines, up from the nose.

That's the basic shapes.

Now with the black marker pen.

Just going over those lines, and then back around.

to make his snout.

Following those lines up to the nose

and give it a bit more shape.

Colour that in.

Nice black, wet nose.

Now, lots of shaggy lines, to make him really furry.

More shaggy lines.

That ruff around his neck.

That amazing shaggy fur around his head.

I'm going over those guide lines for the ears.

A little definition on the inside.

Now for those eyes.

A nice dark pupil.

Give him a bit of a bottom lip. Colour his mouth.

And that's the doodle done.

I'll give him some colour.

I'll start with this dark blue paint.

I'll, really roughly, paint him in.

And give him a bit of shading inside his ear.

Now, I'll take some yellow paint.

As he's so shaggy, I'm being really rough with the paint.

Still a bit of shading.

There you have one African hunting dog. Deadly!

The dog looks so beautiful!

How did some of you get on?

We went to Port Talbot on a Deadly Day Out.

Here's all the action from the Deadly Art tent.

THEY SHOUT

I'm Charlie, and this is my African hunting dog.

Hello, my name's Megan. This is my African hunting dog.

My favourite bit was drawing the eyes.

They look good on the African hunting dog.

They look BRILLIANT! Keep on doodling.

Let's get back to the Deadly Art studio.

Time to colour in that fierce-looking face.

I've just finished this dog's mouth.

On to an even bigger mouth. Check out those teeth!

This is the final canvas.

As you can see, the African hunting dog is fierce!

I better get on with the canines.

We'll leave Jo painting.

Michelle has a super DIY for you.

I'll show you how to a make a deadly African hunting dog head.

Believe it or not, this is made

from an old shoe, some foam, and some fur.

With your shoe, get permission first.

I've grabbed the tongue from the inside of the shoe,

brought it to the outside, and stuck it down to the edges.

This will act as our nose, later on.

Next, I have some foam.

I've traced round the outside of the shoe

and cut a hole in the middle.

You just put your shoe back in the hole.

This acts as our framework for the hunting dog's head.

Obviously, we need a bit of fur on the face.

I have some nice brown fur here. With the same technique,

cut a hole in the middle, and this will fit securely

on top of the foam.

We have a nice "M" shape.

The same as the one on here.

Later, our eye sockets will fit in between.

To make it come to life a bit more,

I've got some black fur and cut it into a "U" shape.

It looks like a beard.

This really helps with the tones of fur on the dog.

Another distinctive marking is this black strip

at the top of the forehead.

This will stick right here.

Once that's stuck down, it looks like this.

I admit it doesn't look very deadly yet,

so we'll start adding in all the deadly features.

To create your ears,

draw out a nice, large teardrop shape.

Do the same with your fur.

For the inner part of the ear,

I have lighter brown fur. Stick it on.

Make another, and attach.

Your face is really coming together,

but it's all about the deadly details.

So, let's stick on some eyes.

I have a polystyrene ball, cut in half.

I'm blending this up.

We're going to draw a large circle in the centre.

Then, do a smaller circle

inside that one.

Colour it in.

There we go. One deadly eye.

We'll stick them on.

There we go. This guy has really mad eyes!

Next, we need to do the eyelids.

Once you've stuck the eyelids on, to bring the nose to life a bit more,

stick it on the tongue of your shoe.

In the holes where the laces were,

I'll thread some pipe cleaners through

both the holes.

Because pipe cleaners are bendy,

you can mould them.

I know what you're thinking. We need some nice, sharp teeth.

These are in zigzag shapes.

You have some glue along the top.

Stick those in.

It's really coming to life now.

There's one final thing to put on it.

That's a nice, large pink tongue.

Here you have your seriously deadly African hunting dog head.

There we have it. A DIY from an old shoe. Good stuff!

Back to the Big Art. They've finished.

I love this Deadly Art as it tells a story,

and the dogs look super-fierce.

For me, the contrasting colours look so vivid.

They'll look great, hung together later.

It's nearly time for the Big Reveal.

I asked the team to recreate these killer shots

and turn it into art.

Let's look at the finished result.

The art team set out to make a comic book

based on the hunting technique of these incredible dogs.

They've done it!

This could be one of the fiercest paintings we've done yet.

That dog looks ferocious!

It really shows up the attitude, the style,

endurance and persistence of the hunting dog.

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

What an incredible creation.

Make sure you try the doodle and the DIY.

We'll see you next time for more Deadly Art.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd