Chris Slabber's Insect Sculptures: A Unique Blend of Art and Advertising

Handcrafted Insect Sculptures for Doom Insecticide Campaign

The concept behind these sculptures was developed by a creative team from TBWA Africa. The team drew inspiration from the work of Felix Hernandez, known for his lifelike miniature sets. The decision to build solid sculptures, as opposed to digitally stitching elements together in Photoshop, was influenced by the desire to make the insects appear more lifelike.

Each insect sculpture was painstakingly built by hand, using materials that corresponded with each insect. For instance, the cockroach sculpture was constructed using an old croissant for the tail, rotten leaves and plant materials for wings, chicken bones and old banana peels for legs, and an old tea bag as a head. The sculptures were then photographed and retouched in Photoshop to correct colors, add shadows, and shape bodies.

The sculptures were built on a surface area of 250mm x 50mm, and the digital files were provided to the client as high-resolution files at a size of 420mm x 594mm. This allowed for the images to be used for large format print executions as well as digital applications.

The main use for these pieces was for the Doom insecticide campaign. The website, http://doom.co.za, was the first priority. The striking nature of the images made them ideal for outdoor media, attracting attention due to their graphic nature.

The project, which started in September 2017 in Cape Town and finished in November 2017 in Johannesburg, presented several challenges. The main challenge was to keep the respective elements in proportion to each other to make each insect look as real as possible. A wire frame was built as a support structure due to the number of elements in each sculpture. The goal was to make the viewer feel as grossed out by the sculptures as they would when seeing real insects.

The insect sculptures were awarded Platinum in the A' Photography and Photo Manipulation Design Award in 2018. This award recognizes world-class, exceptional, and highly innovative designs that showcase unmatched professionalism, genius, and contribute to societal wellbeing. The award is given to designs that advance the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology, exhibiting transcendent excellence and making the world a better place.