Dick's Taxidermy Hunt Report

Friday, April 1, 2011

Eland Project

We have posted on these problems in the past. This is another trophy mounted in Africa. This eland represents craftsmanship at its poorest. This was to be a pedestal mount. When it showed up from Africa, there was no base for it to set on. It only had a rusty old metal plate with screws that they must have found beside the road. The backing is black felt. It was glued to the back and looked like a child had done it.

Here are large pin holes in the skin that added to the poor quality of the mount. We find more and more problems as we move forward.

Here is the felt being removed. The white lines are hot glue used to hold the felt in place. This is why the cost of getting trophies mounted in Africa seems to be less expensive. The truth is, the craftsmanship is very poor. There is nothing cheap about it. When the daily rate and trophy fees are considered, this is not a bargain.

Here we are removing the skin on the back. Notice it was sewn down the middle and then felt glued over that. We will now reshape the back for a more desirable look.

This form material was the worst foam we have ever seen. It was very soft in spots and other spots where rotten and old.

Notice here eye set was not even considered. Nothing about this mount is correct.

Around the eyes it was just painted black. There was no artistic imagination used in the detailing of this trophy Eland. Body color was wrong and it was just a mess.

Here the back has been remodeled and a nice piece of creme colored buckskin added to cover the back. We also added a rope braid for some texture. Then the Eland was completely painted to take out all the dark spots in the skin that were showing from the poor tanning this skin had gone though. Adding some habitat helped to hide those lager pin holes we had tried to cover.

Here the Eland was placed on a cabinet that the client had made by a local cabinet shop.. The cabinet was not top quality either. By this time the client had spent more money at this point than he would have if he had the mounts done in the states. There is no deal in Africa. The mounts done in Africa are mounted by the local staff. These are the same local people used for other labor jobs. The trophies are not mounted by professionals. Do some homework before making the mistake thinking that there is money being saved.

The finished Eland looks much better. It is far from being good.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Remounting a Blacktail Deer

This tutorial is on remounting a Blacktail deer. I will show where mistakes were made by the first person mounting this head.

Notice here the eye set is very distorted. The eye was not sculpted in correctly in the beginning. This issue is cause by a number of problems I will show as we proceed.

Here from the front the nose is to wide. It was this way on the mannikin in the beginning. The head on this mannikin is to large for this deer. I measure across the eye sockets to get the exact width.

Here the ear looks very ruff and ungroomed. There has been no ear butt sculpted into the mount. I found the ear was just stuffed with clay and left as is. This is just very poor execution.

Here see another look at the other ear. No ear butt at all. There was no skin left to make an ear butt. The skin was used up because the head was to large. When the mannikin is to large, artist will begin to steal skin. Down the line it will show.

Now for the next problem. Here the skull was placed on the mannikin incorrectly.

After removing the skin, I can see that the skull was screwed flat to the top of the mannikin. The back of the skull should have been blocked up so the bridge of the nose lines up with the mannikin.

All this clay added to the distortion and just made the project more problematic.

Now we see how wide the head of the mannikin was to start with. The skull (eye sockets) is 5/8 of an inch narrower on each side than the form. The head should have been split and reduced by 1 1/4 inches. This is why the skin could not have been placed correctly.

Here I have removed the skin from the mannikin. I then removed the earliners, glue and unwanted clay.

I removed the head from the mannikin and reduced the width by 1 1/4 of an inch.

After splitting the head, I foamed it back together and reattached it to the mannikin. I use foam for all these steps. I do not use bondo, because the foam is stronger and will take the shock of being dropped.

Now here is the skull attached to the mannikin. Notice, that it lines up with the bridge of the nose. The mannikin is now the same width as the skull. I always leave the eye sockets on the skull when I cape out the game heads. The skull is the most important part of the mount. Without the eye sockets, the taxidermist is just guessing at the width, in fact the width is not even taken into consideration.