Eben's first giraffe began as an unlikely material choice: paper mache, built when he was just seventeen. It didn't last long, the ducks on the property kept eating the feet, drawn to the flour paste underneath. He switched to copper for what became his first major animal sculpture, a life-size female giraffe with her head bent low, as if reaching to graze. A customer at Restoration Performance Motorcars saw the piece and bought it on the spot. Not long after, another customer who'd seen the female giraffe commissioned a companion, a male, standing tall with head raised. Together, the pair marked an early turning point in Eben's work, the moment his materials and ambitions grew to match the scale of his imagination.