Dan Chudzinski ’07 poses with his sculpture of Bigfoot.

He began creating a 10-foot Bigfoot sculpture during the COVID-19 pandemic to appear in an exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Eight months in, the museum asked for a smaller piece due to space, and Chudzinski simply cut the head off of Sasquatch and pivoted to a Bigfoot bust.

More than a year of work on the “Evasive Species” bust included hundreds of pounds of Monster Clay; gallons of silicone; hours of molding, sculpting, and painting; and 117 hours of hand-punching each individual hair for Bigfoot’s fur.

The Bigfoot bust was a launching point for Chudzinski in more ways than one. It fueled a public interest in his sculptures and cryptozoology, earned him an international award, and landed Bigfoot on the moon – literally. An image of Chudzinski’s sculpture was sent up to the moon in one of the Lunar Codex time capsule launches.

There’s many more cryptids around Ohio waiting to be brought to life, according to Chudzinski.

“The Bigfoot equivalent in Ohio is the Grassman,” he said. “You also have Pukwudgies, first described by the Native Americans, which are one of my favorites … Then you have the melonheads up near Youngstown, Ohio. You have the Loveland Frogman, who I just finished … The Defiance Dogman is like a werewolf, and then in Oxford you have one that is shared with Elmore, OH, nearby my hometown: the headless motorcyclist.”

A lake monster, an alien predator, a scuba-diving bulldog, a turtle with a jetpack, a massive owl, and more creative creatures pack Chudzinski’s artistic portfolio. Some pieces pack his home and studio.

“It takes a lot to spook me,” Chudzinski said. “As a kid, I wanted to live in the Addams Family house when I grew up. I pretty much do now. My collection includes exotic animals, both living and deceased, historical oddities, and hyper-realistic monsters”

What may have been his mother’s version of a haunted house – waking up to find a 30-foot line of red lipstick on the wall leading down the hallway – became the origin story of Chudzinski’s artistry. She found her two-year-old son hiding behind his father's new recliner, drawing various dinosaur species on the chair with her lipstick.

“Fortunately for me, my mother had the foresight to return to my room with art supplies and paper instead of just reprimanding me,” Chudzinksi said of his parent’s support.

Although an artist from a young age, Chudzinski did not always intend to do it professionally. He came to Miami University to study art and history, with the intention of becoming a lawyer like his father.

It was during a trip – one Chudzinski described as “life-changing” – to the Sistine Chapel in Rome where the artistry of the greats literally moved him.

“I remember catching my first glimpse of the ceiling (painted by Michelangelo),” he said. “The simple way to describe it would be sensory overload.”

A similar feeling washed over him in the Raphael rooms, and he had an epiphany.

"I thought, if Raphael did all of this 500 years ago, without any of the modern technology and supplies that I have now, what's my excuse?” Chudzinski said. “My next thought was: ‘I'm not going to be a lawyer.’"

He fell in love with sculpting at Miami after taking a course from professor Jim Killy, pivoting from his initial interest in painting and illustration. He still maintains a friendship with his mentor to this day.

Two days after finishing college, he snuck on to a special effects studio during a tour and left with a trial position sculpting bodies for celebrity wax figures. His first subjects? Hugh Jackman, Tom Cruise, Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, and Ben Affleck, among others.

Mix in that he started at the Toledo Zoo as a teenager working as a taxidermist and classically trained in Italy sculpting marble later on, and you have a recipe for monster making.

While working late nights, Chudzinski has become desensitized to things that go bump in the night. While working late in at the special effects studio, animatronic figures would randomly release trapped air in the mechanism that enables them to speak.

“You'd have a giant dinosaur or Abraham Lincoln start talking to you,” he said. “I joked that if there's ever somebody in here with bad intentions like Michael Myers or a serial killer, I am gonna walk right into it.”

Even growing up, he would go into his mom's college biology lab and would participate in dissections and preservations. And, the eerie runs in the family; his sister works as a mortician.

One thing is he is scared of: not having enough time for all the projects and creatures he wants to bring to life. He is working on a few now that he’s been itching to get out of his head.

“I joke that (sculpture ideas) kind of live in your head. That's the only haunting that happens to me,” he said. “They haunt you until you bring them into the world, and if you don't, then they die within you, which is kind of the pressure you feel as an artist.”

And when the monsters do make their way into the world, Chudzinski is happy to embrace the strange.

“My inner 4-year-old is extremely fulfilled to see these creatures come to life in the studio,” he said.