In a repurposed old building on Main Street in Sutton, a creature of colossal proportions slowly comes to life.
World-renowned sculptors Bill Hopen and Ai Qui Hopen – West Virginians by choice – transform Ai Qui’s carefully crafted work of art – a 4-foot clay buffalo sculpture – into an 18-foot-long, 12-foot-tall, three-ton metal monument for the city of Buffalo, New York.
Morphing a hand-formed sculpture into a larger-than-life beast is a gargantuan task in itself. How does one reproduce exact features to scale? And perhaps more importantly, how does one ensure the structural integrity of the buffalo once it’s enshrined atop a 10-foot-tall fountain, where it must withstand fierce ice storms and the buffeting winds off Lake Erie?
Bill had an idea but wasn’t sure where to turn. If the clay model could be scanned and digital files created, his engineer would have the exact shape and dimensions to conduct structural and wind test analyses. Bill began asking around about scanning capabilities in West Virginia. Someone suggested he contact Marshall Advanced Manufacturing Center (MAMC).
“That turned out to be such a game-changer,” Bill said.
The clay buffalo was transported – ever so carefully – to MAMC South Charleston where Design Engineer Chris Shaffer used precision scanning technology to capture each nuanced contour, then generate three-dimensional computer models. One big problem solved … but another on the horizon.
Ai Qui’s winning design wasn’t a typical enclosed statute designed to be cast in bronze or some other metal. Instead, she envisioned the body of the buffalo to be a lattice-like metal configuration of birds in flight – 15 species, in fact, each native to New York.
Birds are a common feature of Ai Qui’s sculptures. “The symbol of the wings is uplifting,” she said. “And the 15 species of birds connected together symbolizes a message of unity and diversity.”
Each bird would have to be individually welded together to create the torso of the beast. That would require some sort of inner structure to guide Bill as bent each and every metal bird into just the right shape before permanently affixing them.
“I was thinking of physically slicing the [clay] model on a bandsaw and photographing the slices, then blowing them up, copying them to plywood and then cutting them with a jigsaw,” Bill explained. “I was like, God, what slavery that would have been.”
When he mentioned to the folks at MAMC what he was hoping to do, they said, “oh, we can do that.”
Shaffer used SolidWorks 3D computer-aided design software to generate slices of the buffalo every eight inches to serve as a guide in creating the outside silhouette of the sculpture. He also told Bill that the plywood pieces could be contour cut on MAMC’s waterjet cutter in a matter of hours.
“I don’t even want to think about the weeks and the lack of accuracy that would have resulted from me cutting the plywood with a jigsaw,” Bill said. “The more drudgery tasks that are involved in the process, the harder it gets. As an artist, you just want to get to the good stuff.”
The plywood profiles cut at MAMC South Charleston were transported to Sutton and connected with metal rods to hold them in place as Bill began the painstaking process of welding each bird along the contour. Because the bird motif can’t replicate the fine details of the head, tail, horns and feet, those sections of the sculpture will be fashioned from 316 stainless steel alloy through a process called lost wax casting.
Shaffer cut blocks of Styrofoam on MAMC’s waterjet then shaped them on a CNC (computer-numerical-control) router using the scanned files of Ai Qui’s design as a guide. The Styrofoam shapes will be used to generate the castings to produce the detailed body parts.
Back in Braxton County, the body of the full-sized buffalo is taking shape in three sections. The left and right side and the animal’s hump are being welded separately. The two sides will be joined when all the birds are in position with the hump affixed after the sculpture is transported to its final designation at Buffalo Harbor State Park. That is expected in the spring of 2026.
“We’re lucky to have the support of your team at Marshall University,” said Ai Qui. “Through your assistance with the crucial 3D scanning, we are able to create the sculpture precisely, to reflect the original vision of the New York governor’s office, which was very involved in the design process.”
Nov. 24, 2025
