Taxidermy Extravaganza

C of C Creatures Museum

2011-08-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

My first job in Charleston was for Technical Theater Solutions. I built this cave with the help of my master-of-an-organizer-builder-supervisor, carved it myself, then coated and painted it with the help of a very talented (and also new to Charleston) assistant. Then the three of us put on the final touches and it is now completed! The cave bears at the "Creatures from the Past" museum at the College of Charleston now have a nice looking limestone habitat.
Bears in their new home.

Kelly admires the big bear!

View from the hallway before you enter the museum - it is the first thing you see upon entering.

Final shot of the new habitat from up on a ladder.
Side views

Close up

three wishes

2011-05-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

http://birdbrainpress.blogspot.com/

This is my entry for the zine "three wishes"

ENJOY

What month is it? Oh yeah, APRIL

2011-04-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

Some butterflies I've been pinning in my free time...

A shot from the "Daily News" on "The World's Largest Dinosaurs" at AMNH. Can't legally show you anything else ... just come see the show! Opens April 15th, I've got lots of vouchers.

Artwork for "Songs for Rosemary" by Tom and Cindy Luxem

fish drawings

2011-03-06T15:20:00.001-08:00

these are for ben lear's lillian: a folk opera, for a music video. i thought they were kind of neat! check out ben's music! lillianmusic.com

titan beetle

2011-02-13T17:36:00.001-08:00

as a little side job, i pinned a titan beetle for the dino show!

2010-12-03T15:21:00.000-08:00

progress!

I've been on flickr looking at pictures of bull terriers, and I remembered that I have an account and that there are some oldies but goodies on here, so here's a link to those: Flickr Account!

bull terrier sculpture update

2010-11-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

still working slowly through my breaks... getting there.

bull terrier sculpture

2010-11-23T19:35:00.000-08:00

A sculpture I am working on in my free time at AMNH - meaning lunches and breaks. I am going to make a silicone mold with a polyester resin mother mold, and make casts in plastic and other materials. Photos here show a work in progress! More updates later.

the dinkster

2010-09-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

scratched ink on yupo paper

SMILE A LITTLE

2010-08-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

HOW CAN YOU NOT SMILE WHEN YOU SEE THESE?

Art - August

2010-08-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

A painting/drawing I just finished
Mulitple views of a dog head I am working on.

visuals.

2010-08-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

One of two dragonflies that flew into the studio and died.
The top of my dresser.

Skull Mounts

2010-07-20T15:16:00.001-07:00

I finished a skull mount today of a bobcat. It's a bit tricky to get it into the mount, but that just means it's super sturdy!

Also, here's a shot of the cabinet I'm refinishing and my little corner (for which I am eternally grateful).

And finally, THE DUEL! It's going to be a double mount - iguana vs raccoon.

new things

2010-07-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

6x6" canvas for Charmingwall Gallery, NYC, this was my "art challenge" for fun, from my boss. i may work back in to it, may call it done...
this is a drawing i did of my newly aquired cabinet, i am re-finishing it and creating an eco system inside. there will be taxidermy, bees, moss, some tree parts, and water with FISH IN IT. WOAH. it is going to take me a very long time but i am very excited. i know i am excited about something when i use a ruler to draw it. this sketch will act as my template for ideas.

tuesdays are now my art days, and i'm starting new skull mounts soon! bobcat / possum / iguana vs. fox.

Mammothly obsessed

2010-06-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Look at this amazing thing.

Tiger's finished!

2010-02-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Tiger's done!

Finished- Except felting!

2010-02-09T20:21:00.001-08:00

Replica claws - painted and ready to glue!
Finished! Now for the felting.
I need felt. Rawr.

Tiger Update - 2010

2010-01-29T14:51:00.001-08:00

Examples of tests - gluing, color matching with airbrushing, creating perfectly-shaped fills.
Water damage removed, some examples of holes.
This hole took me a day to fill.
The result - can you see it? (hint - near the left of the tail)
Take a closer look.

Tiger is looking beautiful! The fills look good and the airbrushing is really challenging but rewarding. The old felt has been removed and some preliminary lining has been glued into place around the fills that are completed.

February entails: (haha) more fills, more airbrushing and gluing, lining, re-felting, claw replacement.

Final Pics of Silk Road

2009-12-24T13:07:00.000-08:00

photos by Christopher Luxem

Tiger Rug Repair 12/3/09

2009-12-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

Tiger repair update

This is a photo of the head before I cleaned it or did anything else to it. I dusted using a rubber dust pick up and an air hose. I cleaned all the sculpted parts with alcohol.
Next, I used a dremel to get rid of the sculpted parts that were breaking, cracked, or sticking out in weird ways. I also drilled out new nose holes. Not too deep, of course!
I then sculpted with magic sculpt around all the sculpted parts to give everything a very thin, even coat. Making sure not to add too much material. The photo above shows that stage.

Then I airbrushed everything I re-sculpted. I tried not to take away too much from the vintage look of the rug, so I didn't do major surgery on this guy. I didn't want to have to take off the nose or mouth or eyes completely. I think that the look and feel of this guy is important. He had crazy eyes to begin with, so I just made sure to make them a bit more even, but not change them entirely.
A 3/4 view. All airbrushed.

Today I found fur that I believe will work for the reconstruction of the ears and for the fills in the hide. Onward and upward, Mr. Tiger!

AMNH October, November

2009-11-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

The Marketplace scene!

The ship, with the pots I worked on.

I sculpted the camel's fur back on once the head was attached to the neck. I also applied the hair in the photos above.

The camels are taking over.

I painted these garlic
Then made them into a rope!
Oregano before
Oregano after I painted it
Oregano finished!

So, I was temporarily hired at the museum to finish up the show, and all those photos represent what I was working on, which was, EVERYTHING! It was great, though. I learned a lot and hopefully I'll be back there soon.

AMNH - September, October

2009-10-13T20:10:00.001-07:00

What I've been working on this and last month.

One of four camels, fresh out of the mold. Each piece needs 2 layers of "gel", 2 layers of fiberglass resin (laying the fiberglass then wetting it down with stippling a brush over it) and then an edge layer of more fiberglass (then wet) then a gel to seal the edges. So, each piece gets about 9 layers before we can close it up. We hang it upside-down to set it so it doesn't collapse inside the mold.
One layer of gel-like polyester resin.
The mold, taken apart. There are about 15 pieces total.
The large abdomen piece.
Another view.

Pots - replicas from a sunken ship thought to be from the silk road era(s). These are cast in smooth cast and these few are broken open. I sanded the edges of the break to make it look more like a ceramic break. I also chased seams, and sealed bottoms on a lot of these pots. There will be 50-75 total. There are 30 now, 1/2 finished. A long way to go.

Unpainted Rhubarb. I sculpted the two parts together. The leaves are vacu-formed plastic to plaster molds of leaves, and the stems are cast from real rhubarb stems.
Kohlrabi - bulbs cast from real vegetables, leaves vacu-formed and in this picture, I am grafting them together.
Indian gooseberries - I sculpted these, Steve helped me cast them, then I painted them. 1/2 painted gooseberries.
Peepul figs - same process as the gooseberries.

Apartment Therapy.

2009-08-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

Along with other recent RISD grads, I have been featured on ApartmentTherapy.com.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/works-by-recent-risd-graduates-093083

Check it out!

American Museum of Natural History

2009-07-31T20:22:00.000-07:00

I'm interning this summer at AMNH and I am working on fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, textiles, luxury goods, etc. for the Turfan Marketplace scene in the November-opening Silk Road exhibition.
I am mostly making faux fruit look more realistic by sculpting onto them or painting them, or both. I am also sculpting things from scratch as well as making molds and casts of real fruits and veggies.
Here are some examples of the work I am doing.
These bananas are 1/2 finished. They've come in as generic plastic things, and by this point I have sculpted new stems and ends onto them, and airbrushed them a bit. They are missing the top parts in this photo.
These apples have been primed because when we got them they were a silly red color. Soon they will be painted, all the stems removed and replaced with real wood.
Finished apples. Hand painted.
SO MANY APPLES.
1/2 finished figs. These were all the same so I cut them up and put them back together to vary the sizes. Then I sculpted new stems on a few of them. I painted them here, but they are still missing their detail work in this stage.
Closer to being finished, but not quite.
Finished bananas.

In most cases, I am given the species of the fruit, and told to figure out what that looks like, then go from the research I do. Sometimes the designers give me exact reference.

With these apricots, I just had to make them vary in color. The shapes and textures were pretty believable.
Sometimes there is miscommunication, for example, like when the designers said "golden peaches" I found reference online saying that golden peaches were a deep red, when infact they are more yellow than apricots. I will start a new batch of peaches next week, but here are the ones I made. They came a light pink color and I painted them red and yellow.
WRONG!
These watermelons are going to be in a lead ice chest that one of the artists is making, and another artist is painting the watermelons. I sculped the stems because the ones that came on them were made of floral tape and wire. In this photo, they are of course, unpainted, but I will photograph them later when they are in the ice chest.
These plums are weird and made of silicone, I just dusted them up to make them look more realistic.
I finally remembered to take a before and after shot.
BEFORE
AFTER

This is seaweed I made from thermoplastic and a heat gun, paint and chalk.

BEFORE
I airbrushed all these, one at a time.
AFTER

And I airbrushed these too.

My next tasks involve sculpting indian gooseberries, and peepul figs, and then casting them so that I only have to sculpt about 5 of each, then painting them.
There's so much more to do!

Taxidermy Repair - RISD

2009-06-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

American bittern from 1900's.
This guy needed more work than I could give him, but I fixed his bulging eyes!
Broken wings now attached!
No orange feet anymore... and a new beak.
A new nose and no longer a neon pink mouth.
The prettiest baby deer ever.

taxidermy repair

2009-05-26T06:38:00.001-07:00

I am moved out of my apartment in Providence! This is my collection of taxidermy and beautiful things.

Repair work photos will be up soon, from the semester at the Nature Lab.
In the mean time, check out my Website that Laura Manns made for me.

Vivarium

2009-05-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

vivarium

2009-05-19T11:30:00.001-07:00

VIVARIUM

Project with Laura Manns - almost completed. Our official photography will happen soon, these are just shots I took when we set it up for critique.

Shedding a tear

Birth room.

This picture is missing the nuts filling the middle room and the dirt pile at the top of the house.

Learning to shave.

Project with Laura Manns - almost completed. Our official photography will happen soon, these are just shots I took when we set it up for critique.

Final photos coming soon!

Also coming soon: all the taxidermy repair I've done for the Nature Lab this semester.

super bambi

2009-05-11T06:04:00.000-07:00

before
after

she's so pretty!

Just a little fixing of the ears, airbrush work, and some gloss mod podge.

The birds are all coming along, most of them look a little neon at the moment with their first coat of yellow, I don't want to scare anyone.

puppet progress - april

2009-04-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

March 2009 - Golden Eagle Repair

2009-03-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

The Edna Lawrence Nature Lab's Golden Eagle

My project for the week of March 5th - Golden Eagle. Whoever mounted this guy left his original tongue and mouth-skin(?) in his beak and hand-painted it. It looked pretty gnarly. Hopefully once I get his tongue re-made I can also get his beak and feet airbrushed the right colors. I also need to spend some time zipping his feathers. This might look bad, but the other golden eagle is in much worse shape.
No tongue yet.

Finished! Now he just needs to be airbrushed.
The eyes have new membranes and he has a new tongue that isn't shriveled up like beef jerky.
All the flesh color will be made the right colors soon.

I want the corners of his mouth to look really nice and yellow like this.

Next week: ducks!

Graduation photos are up!

2009-02-18T06:04:00.000-08:00

Graduation!

Laura and I have ordered squirrels, chipmunks, meadow voles, and deer mice to begin our taxidermy/puppet making projects.

I'm SO EXCITED.

Jan 30 2009 - GRADUATION

2009-01-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

THE LAST DAY

Fox

Pheasant

Mounts Mounts Mounts
Ready to be loaded in the car.

Group photo!
Chip, Dustin, Dave, Jared, Ryan, Julie, Rodney, Greg, Brandon, Angie, James, Brenda, Carrie, Me. (L to R)

Graduating!

Today was the last day. I can't believe that these four weeks are over. It seems like I started yesterday.

I spent all day boiling out skulls. I had to babysit a fire which wasn't too fun. Once they had boiled for about six hours, I cleaned them out. They don't look as good as skulls to when they are eaten by the beetles, but they're OK. There are two bobcats, a fox, and 1/2 of a duck. There was a possum, but it disintegrated. The duck broke in two pieces. The jaw bones all fell out, but I got a bunch of really amazing teeth out of it.

Carrie took pictures of all of our mounts today against a black back ground. We took a group photo outside, and we got a certificate.

I feel good. I feel like I'm not ready to stop doing taxidermy, so I bought a bear head. All I will need to buy is a form, the eyes, and hide paste. Maybe a few other things, but I know I can do it all from studio. (Awesome.) The cape is dry tanned which means I rehydrate it in salt water for 30 minutes then bag it and refrigerate it overnight.

Saying bye to everybody was weird. A lot of people just kind of said bye, and left, but it was sad because I am really going to miss Chip. We got along really well. As I was leaving, Chip gave me a deer skull and a really nice bobcat skull. He also gave me a fox, and a bobcat.... they aren't mountable, but they are good for scraps. (YEAY!)
Carrie said he had a sweet spot for me. I thought it was really nice, especially because he really seemed like he was being hard on me the whole time. Turns out, he really liked me.

I'm going to miss the dynamic of the whole classroom. Dave and Greg just shooting jokes back and forth, and Julie messing up on everything all the time. Melvin's laugh was so incredible.

LOOK HERE! We're on the WEB!
A graduation page will be up soon.

I'm so excited to own a deer head. My deer head. And my fox. I'm so happy. I can't wait to do more taxidermy.

The skulls I boiled down.

These photos are of my cabin and how much these mounts are taking up space.
BUT I LOVE IT!

I want to say thank you to my parents for letting me come here. It's seriously changed my life and I had such a wonderful month.

I will update one more time when the graduation photos are up, and maybe again when I mount that bear.

Jan 29 2009

2009-01-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

THURSDAY

Today was a crazy day. There was a lot to do, and a lot to listen to.
This is my antler plaque. It's usually done for smaller sets of antlers that would be considered unnecessary to mount the whole deer. The white is a leather and the black is just braided ropes. There were a variety of colors to choose from but I stuck to pretty contrasty colors.

I also had to upholster the bottom of my deer mount because it is a wall pedestal. It sits off the wall in a way where you can kind of see underneath it. The white is leather with quilt bedding under it. The t-pins and staples hold it in place and it drums across the form.
Finished! But upside-down.
Finished, right side up.
Brenda's hog - she is going to flesh it and turn the ears tomorrow. (That is hard on a deer, and harder on a hog.) Here's a short video of it:

We painted turkey heads today. I didn't feel like spending $45 on an artificial head or $75 on a freeze dried head, so I painted an extra one that Chip had in the shop, and I won't get to keep it. I'm not terribly heartbroken.
Believe it or not, this is actually the colors they are.
Colors in a bottle.
Painted, glossed, spotted and finished fish! The bass will belong to Mom and Dad, and the trout is for Mimi and Papa. Enjoy! (Finished meaning they lack bases. But I think I'll do those when I get home from school because it would be dumb to ship a piece of driftwood.)

We sat for a long time today and listened to Chip talk about tanning processes and other things that are very important. I took so many notes, I could practically write a short story about the history of tanning. Apparently, you can boil out a deers brain and tan the hide with the brain juice. You can also just pee on the cape and that's called a urine tan. Both of those methods are not used anymore, but actually work.

Today we watched Chip skin a life sized mount. We got ours already tanned, so we needed to learn how to actually skin. We used Dave's fox as an example. It was really interesting. I kept the fox's skull. It is a grey fox and it is beautiful. It was at first a little weird because I kind of fell in love with the fox when it was not skinned, I examined it for about ten minutes, looking at the way it was all put together and feeling how its ears were attached, how its eyes fell around the inner membranes. I looked at the lips and counted the raised spots on the insides and noticed exactly how the teeth fit together. I touched its legs and feet and felt the tendons and how they worked to move the ends of the legs. Seeing it skinned was weird but instantly turned intereststing. It's actually pretty difficult, especially when it comes to flipping the ears inside out and laying out the skin around the nose, eyes and mouth flat so that when you tan it, you don't miss any spots.

!!!

The following images and videos are of Chip skinning the fox. Don't watch them if you don't want to see it. The photos below will also be graphic. I'll make them small so they aren't gorey, but you can click on them to make them larger.

!!!

*****************************GRAPHIC IMAGERY BELOW**********************

VIDEOS - if you listen, it's kinda funny. It's not one of the more hilarious moments, but what we talk about is just kinda ... boring. I guess there isn't much to do while we are just ... watching this.

Jan 28 2009

2009-01-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

I arrived at 8am and left at 7:45pm. LONG DAY

First of all, let me first say that I am sorry for the delay of the following image. This is the fridge where the most recently-being-worked-on deer capes are kept, and where we put our lunches when we come in the morning.
My lunch is on the top left. That's the lucky spot. Sometimes it gets moved to the goo-water on the bottom right. This is not ideal.

Today, Carrie made apple danishes.

We began today with painting our life-sizes.
We hit the ears with black and shaped them up.
We hit the nose with black, too. Then with matte gel all over, and gloss gel in the nostrils to have the nose appear wet.

To begin with the fish, we had to gloss them outside with an aerosol can of "super fish shine."
Julie and Brenda wait to spray their fish.
Julie took these of me. I am holding HER fish because mine were inside already. I am laughing because I teased her about how I didn't want to claim them as my own.

The paint schedules for the fish are similar at first, but then differ as you build up colors with the airbrush. If you get too much on or mess up, you have to start over with white. There are nine colors on each fish. Some of the colors are sprays in general areas, but some are detail work.
The trout is on the top, the bass below.

The trout is almost done - it needs a darker line on the top, plus its black spots. You can do those with sharpie or a paintbrush. Airbrush spotting is hard because of those "freak drops" and other accidents.

In this photo, the bass is completely painted. This eye protect is still on so his nice glass eyes are covered underneath. The trout has some spots but will have much more by tomorrow. In fact, I am painting them for homework. Tomorrow, we will put a high gloss on them that will make them look wet.

Tomorrow and Friday are going to be absolutely crazy. We have to build bases for our mounts, finish our antler plaques, and I have to sew some leather to the under side of my deer mount.

This is a video of what it looked like outside as we sprayed our fish with sealer.

This is a video of Missouri Taxidermy's showroom. It's the room you come in when you enter the building. The office is straight ahead, to the left is the work room and classroom area, and up the stairs is where Chip and Carrie and Cam and Caleb live. Oh my, that's a bunch of C names. Just picked up on that.

WOW! Jonas sent me a link to Kate Clark's work ... totally inspiring and disturbing.

Jan 27 2009

2009-01-27T16:25:00.000-08:00

So, I'm sure it sounded like yesterday may have been the last tedious day ... BUT IT WASN'T.
Painting began this morning after we set out bass eyes in place, only, painting didn't start with fish.

We began with our pheasant's waddle. It was so frightening to take an airbrush to the pheasant. An airbrush is amazing if you know how to hold it, to operate it, and if you're comfortable. I knew none of the above. The airbrush is a dual action, which means that you push down for air and back for paint. If you want a sharper line, you move closer. If you want a mist, you move back. Well, it sounds easy enough, but if you're close and you pull back for more paint without moving the brush away at the same time, you get what Chip calls a "freak drop." You do NOT, by ANY MEANS, want a "freak drop" to happen. It's a mini-explosion of paint.

Chip put himself through college airbrushing shirts and other novelty items down at "the strip" which is where Osage Beach gets touristy in the summertime. He painted my name on a board as an example today. I can't keep it because it's a 2x4 but it's pretty cool. Note the palm tree and shiny star type things. And the waves. And the seagulls.

We also had to paint the legs on our ducks. With airbrushes, you work in color layers. We hit the legs with a "mallard orange," then a "vivid orange" then a dust of "gill red." We had to build what Chip called hazmat suits for our ducks out of paper so the paint wouldn't get on their feathers. In most cases in taxidermy, you can fix stuff if you make a mistake. Even if you have a terrible hole, or missing fur, or feathers, you can fix something. Well, you absolutely CANNOT fix orange across the breast of a gray mallard.
Hazmat suit
Painted feet!
Then we hit them with a clear gloss that will make them look leathery and less dried out. This will dry clear and matte.

A classmate brought in an elk mount he wanted to fix.

Then we moved on to deer. We had to use "bass belly white" then "natural flesh" (which is pink, practically the color of nobody's flesh, and is politically incorrect,) then "deer brown" (which Chip made up out of rich brown and dark brown,) then "jet black."

The inner ears are white with natural flesh color.

The eyes are painted white, then brown, then have a bit of black on the inside of the lids.

The nose is painted black and then dotted with glossy gel to make it look leathery and wet.

The final result!

Today ended short because of the bad weather. Tomorrow we are going to paint our fish (maybe ... that's been the plan for a while but it keeps getting changed) and airbrush our life-sized mounts the way we did our deer. I will make my fox's blacks blacker and whites whiter. The fish will be frustrating. Thursday we finish our antler plaques, and then build bases for our other things. Friday is the last day! I can't believe how fast this month went.

I came with the idea that this month would help my 3D skills and introduce me to working with new materials and techniques. I figured I'd apply them to whatever I was doing at school (and beyond) and I can't wait to go home and try some new things.
BUT
I think I want to open a taxidermy shop after school. Not right away, but at some point.
I was sent this interview with a woman in Brooklyn and I was really inspired by her. She gets to mount beautiful animals for people who want them ... it's less about going on a hunt and mounting your kill. I like that a lot. Plus, I like the idea of owning a real business, and doing art and taxidermy all in the same studio.

This is a short video of how snowy it is at my cabin.

This is a video of me applying the deer's moisture to his nose. Note Chip's appearance in between my deer's antlers. Kinda funny how his face fits right there.

Jan 26 2009

2009-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

Monday

Aside from spilling a thing of toothpicks, having a leaking bottle of denatured alcohol, dropping stuff, hearing multiple instances of racist jokes aimed at our new (and wonderful) President ... today turned out to be alright.

We took every mount we had done so far and perfected it so that we can start painting tomorrow.

We made the eyes, nose, and lips of the deer ready to paint black.
We did the same for the life-sized mounts.
Can you spot the fake part? I had to fix a cut in the face my fox had before I got it. I fixed it by adding texture to white epoxy, and then I'll airbrush it to match the patterns around it.
We filled holes on our fish.

We fixed the eyes and legs of our ducks and pheasants.

The main tools of the day were toothpicks, Q-tips, a dental tool, denatured alcohol, and this stuff called "magic sculpt" which is really just a resin and a hardener that you mix and it becomes extremely hard in ten minutes. It's basically a two part epoxy that is clay-like.

The eyes had to be sealed off, and though it is pink around the edges now, we are going to airbrush it. It's really cool, actually. The pink around the deer's eye will be black, but the inner membrane will be wet-looking and the outer one will look dry. It gives the deer a real-ish look. The lips and nose will also look wet and black. We will even put spit on the whiskers if we want to.

Anything we didn't want to get paint on it (mostly the eyes) has to be painted with latex. It will dry clear and be peeled off later.
The eyes look like this because of the wet latex. It will dry, be painted all over, and peeled off to reveal the nice glass eye underneath.
The fox's nose is white now but when we paint it, it will be black and glossy. His pink lips (which I had to sculpt on) will be airbrushed with a bit of dark brown.
We have to build new noses because the old ones (the real ones) look like raisins. This photo was taken before I was finished sculpting, so don't worry , I know it's bad! It looks better now, and it's drying overnight.

Tomorrow we paint our fish! Ewwwwww.

Jan 23 2009

2009-01-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

Antlers. This is how behind the shop is. It's not a bad thing... it's just that they have so many customers, it takes about a year for you to get your deer back. This (obviously) doesn't include all the fish, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, etc in the freezers.
Peanut butter cake.

Bass on the top, trout on the bottom. They both need to dry for the weekend before we can paint them.

The trout before we set the eye and added the fins onto the front.

Today was kind of boring. We basically just spent the entire day making the fish ready to dry/paint. It was a lot of attaching and re-attaching and waiting.
Fixing the fins was the only really technical thing. You take the broken fin, use a clear medical waterproof tape on the back, shape the end of it, and then you paint it with silicone caulk. You have to make the texture match the existing fin. Setting the eyes was easy, as was covering up the back seam with caulk. We also had to epoxy the head to the body and make it seamless. Apparently, every flaw shows on a fish.

I really hate fish.

Jan 22 2009

2009-01-22T17:30:00.001-08:00

Today a bunch of animals came in to the shop, here they are. I took a lot of photos because I thought they were really beautiful.

We finished our bass today ... tomorrow we are going to do some finishing touches on the trout, and then Monday we are going to paint our fish.

Before
After

Jan 21, 2009

2009-01-21T16:58:00.001-08:00

Taking up room in the room!
Mounts everywhere.

When I got home tonight there were a million wasps, all dead and dying, all over my floor.
Actually, one is alive, and he's been bumping into walls for a few minutes now.

Today we came in and started right on our trout. They were not terribly difficult to mount. The heads are reproductions, so we mounted the bodies and we will attach the head later. We had to carve the bodies from scratch, which was probably the hardest part -- getting it to fit. I made a long movie of skinning the trout, but didn't get to take many pictures of today because my camera started dying.

FISH

Carrie made chocolate cake.

I'm really not looking forward to tomorrow - we're doing the same thing with Bass, and we keep the heads on this time so they're harder to skin and flesh. With the head on, they won't lay out flat.

Jan 20 2009

2009-01-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

T U E S D A Y
Almost finished fox! (Just needs the touch-ups)
Me with the fox.

The antler plaque! I got the cutest set of antlers. The skull plate was broken so I had to fix it with wires. We built up that empty space with a paper mache type substance. Then we will cover it with leather and border it with a pretty ribbon.... it will make more sense later.

Everything is set! We will finish off the airbrushing and the lip building later at the same time we do the eyes and nose of the deer. You have to seal everything up and make it look glossy. We also airbrush the blacks blacker and we make the patterns look more vibrant.

I cut the (expletive) out of my thumb today. It shocked me more than it hurt, but it is a/an (expletive) to try to do taxidermy with a hurt thumb. The cut is pretty deep, and it goes right down the middle of my thumb on the tip. I didn't boo-hoo, but tears were streaming out of my eyes!

What it looks like before we glued the mouth around the edges and before we set the eyes.

Dad made an appearance today via stamps.com.

Carrie made muffins today but I didn't get a picture because everyone ate them before I got a picture. Tomorrow we are doing a bass and Thursday we're doing a trout. Chip said we are going to smell to high heaven for two days straight.

Here's my cut and my crazy hair.

We spent two hours straight blow-drying our animals. It seems like a ridiculous amount of time, but we literally had to dry every bit of them to make them look their best. Here is a video of what today was like.

So the rest of the week is fish (sea kittens) and stuff, then next week is detailing and air brushing and going over business things. I am going to see how the week goes, but I might be ready (next week) to do some skull boiling and stuff. I've got two wal-mart bags full of deer skin!

Tomorrow I might smell too gross to touch my camera or computer, but we will see.

Jan 19 2009

2009-01-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

Deer is drying, and doing well.

A case of the Mondays!

In the process of sewing. You fit the animal then you pin everything. You start with the back, going from the head down. Then you do the legs, one by one. My legs were particularly hard to do because the fox is sitting, which creates lots of folds in the legs. I had to do some tucking and cutting to make it look like the legs are folded in the right way.
Earliners in place. The deer ear liners were made of plastic, but these were made of wire mesh and clay. They serve the same purpose, but they are just smaller and hand made.
Eyes are in place. The photo behind was used for reference.
Before fox was fluffed and before the tail was sewn. The legs and tail are sewn up in this one.
Carrie's pineapple cake ... it was way too early for that when she brought it out today.
The fox is a bit fluffier now, all parts sewn and the tail is, too! The face is bagged because it's not in place yet. We keep it wet by having the bag on the ears and the face.

Back view.

my fingers
They were wet all day from sewing, and got pruny and painful after the eight hours it took to sew up the fox. The cure is superglue! It seals the parts that are raw so the salty fox doesn't sting the cuts.

A video of Chip giving a talk on the shape of feet.
A video of blow-drying the fox.

Jan 16 2009

2009-01-18T19:15:00.001-08:00

Friday's Adventures...

Fitting the fox took about 6 hours ... no joke. The form has to be shaved down to fit, and you have to fit the animal leg by leg, and you have to do it by pairs, then all four, then you have to fit the torso ... all while your animal is getting stretched out and possibly ripped up. Sewing, shaving, sewing, shaving, pinning, re-pinning ...

The jaw set for my fox.

The jaw set is set inside of the form, which came with a closed mouth. We had to cut it, then scoop out the inner styrofoam, then set the jaw, then seal the top of the skull in place ... like this

The fox finally fits! We ended class early on Friday because once it fits, you have to start sewing OR take it off the form. Once you start sewing you have to stick with it or else the skin will dry out. We start sewing Monday and we will probably have to take them home to keep sewing them.
I imagine this will allow for a funny video of me sitting on the couch in my cabin, sewing up a fox and watching American Idol. Or something equally as awful.

Wet rat?

Jan 15 2009

2009-01-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

Furball ... my fox. We started our lifesized mounts today. Mine is a red fox that will be sitting and panting. This is what it looks like right now. (Pretty awful, no?)

Before the eyes were set.

One eye set!

Other eye set!

Deer! Done!

Paper towels help the nose to dry in shape.

View from below ... probably how it will be seen.

Angie with my deer.

From above.

Our deers actually turned out really nicely. We used a whole bottle of hair gel on them, pretty much. The eyes were hard to set and to get even. The back seam was easy to hide -- we used a hammer to push it in to the form and then we put T-pins in place to hold down hardware cloth. (This is so the hair won't dry in little tufts along the seam line.)

A look around the studio!

Today we were talking about how serious mounts take up serious space.
"A bear is a love seat. A turkey is a La-Z-Boy."
"Yeah, we're remodeling our house so I can fit that elk in the living room."

Chip says "Like I said" about every other sentence. I didn't notice that at first, and thought he was saying that to make a point -- like, don't ask me this again. But really, he just repeats himself and says "like I said" about everything. Some times I actually think back to see if he said it or not.

Chip also told us a story about his sister's horse that died, and how she just HAD to bury it that night, so he and his brother in law took a shovel and dug a horse-shaped hole in the ground so as not to dig unnecessarily.

"Tag it and bag it." -- Another phrase I hear every time we have something to put in the fridge, which is often.

It is about 0 degrees right now, and I am freezing!

Jan 14 2009

2009-01-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

WEDNESDAY!

Deer cape in a bag. The ears have been glued to the ear liners and they are supposed to dry, but the actual skin should stay wet since it hasn't been stretched yet.

TUESDAY!

Setting the eyes on the form - building up clay to make eyelids. Those will be under the actual skin, but give it shape.

Both eyes are in.

Carrie's Sweet Treat of the Day - Banana Bread

Apparently, PETA wants to rename fish because nobody thinks of them as cute, cuddly animals. They have decided to rename fish "sea kittens." Chip says this is not a joke.

The cape is just pinned on in this picture. You get it on right, sew it up, then you finish off the back end, then you do the ears and the face. Tonight we got as far as sewing and finishing the back.

The back is all stitched up! You can't see the sewing because I AM SO AWESOME. (The deer has long hair and we use a baseball stitch to keep it tight.)

This is Greg's deer. He said it looked like a deer-Aunt Jemima hybrid. I do not really know what that means.

This is my deer! It kind of looks like a victim of sorts, I know, but the bags are to keep those parts wet overnight. Tomorrow we come in at 8am and do the face and the ears.

This is a tiny part of an example of a demonstration by Chip. Today he spent an hour telling us about how you CAN STILL HUNT if you are a FULL TIME TAXIDERMIST. DON'T WORRY. (I wasn't worried.)

Jan 13 2009

2009-01-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

Me in front of my cabin.

Antlers mounted on the form!

All you need to mount a deer ... a cape, ear liners, and a form. (Thread, needles, staple gun, paper pulp, screws, popsicle sticks, antlers, stand, T-pins, hide paste, ear glue, toothpicks, lip saw, fake eyes not included in photograph)

Bags of animals. A deer and a fox.

CAKE - Carrie's Sweet Treat of the Day.

Monday!

More work on the deer. Mostly just detail work, like sewing, fitting... making the ears... etc.
Here's a video of a look around the shop.

Here's a video of what I did for about two hours.

Jan 12 2009

2009-01-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

Stitching on the inside of the deer's ear.

Today we had to cut cartilage and sew holes. We also turned the ears inside out and removed all the bits we didn't need. It took all day to do that... seriously.

Tomorrow we're going to mount our antlers onto our forms... which involves sawing the skulls the right shape then drilling them onto the forms. Then you put clay around it to hold it in place and give it the shape it's missing. I think.

I've chosen to mount a red fox for my life-size mount. Tomorrow we are going to rehydrate them and measure them, and order their forms. Apparently the red fox is the hardest to mount because its skin can get really thin when it's wet, but I'm ready for the challenge. Plus, I really want a fox.

The insides of a deer ear! Kinda looks like people ears.

Carrie's treat of the day : cheesy jalapeño bread.

Chip told us today about a guy who brought in a deer to be mounted.
"So this guy asks me to 'fix the antlers.' Apparently, he didn't like how crooked they were, and blamed the crookedness on the fact that he and his brother had to drag the deer out of the forest. I guess that's when the antlers got bent. .... Yeah, that doesn't happen."

There are two tiny love birds (or something similar) in a cage in the shop. They aren't really annoying or anything, but they do make lots of noise. I noticed today they chirp particularly loud when they hear the saw turn on or when there is some other loud noise. I wonder if they live in constant fear. If you were an animal in a cage in a taxidermy shop, wouldn't you think your end was just around the corner? Maybe it's not the bandsaw they're worried about, maybe it's the fact that it must be terrifying for them in there.

Bubby just has no idea where he is... he's just kinda slow.

Jan 9 2009

2009-01-09T20:45:00.001-08:00

Today was another good day. We finished our ducks.

Some really good terminology from today.
To "Hulk Out" is to rip something open because you've taken a strong arm to it.
A "Hoss" is a big ol' ____ (horse, deer, turkey, whatever)
A "Dandy" means really awesome ______ (horse, deer, turkey, whatever)
To "CSI" something is to skin it and discover what types of things it was shot with or what it was eating when it died.
When you "got people," other people do your work for you.

Finished duck mount! Tape is applied to keep the feathers in line as they are drying. In about two weeks I can take the tape off and airbrush the legs a nice orange color.
Artificial duck head attached to wire and string neck.

Artificial duck head, airbrushed.

Airbrush set.

My deer... 7" from eye to nose and 20" around the neck.
Today we got our capes and ordered our deer forms. Exciting! I found myself being really proud of my deer. We were talking about tanning capes and someone asked if you can do a soft tan yourself. Chip said, well, what we do here is a hard tan, it dries hard, and the tannery does the soft ones. I guess you can do it yourself if you have an old Indian woman on hand."

Carrie's sweet treat of the day: delicious.

I also learned about this guy, who sells the beefiest, most sterroidal deer mounts on the face of the earth.

Grandpa's Drill Bit
In the shop, we like to tease people when they break things. We like to say "that was Grandpa's ____!" Today, someone broke off a drill bit into an artificial duckhead. Chip immediately jumped on the joke, and said that was Grandpa's drill bit, but he took it a bit farther.
"That was Grandpa's drill bit!"
"That drill bit came over from the old country."
"I drilled my first hole with that drill bit."
"That's all I have to remember him by."

It was a long day, but a good one. Time for rest.

Jan 8 2009

2009-01-08T17:41:00.001-08:00

Today we chose our pair of antlers. Mine has "character."

Carrie's sweet treat of the day- peanut butter cake.
Every day, Carrie bakes. About 11am, she brings in some kind of treat. The first day it was brownies, the second day it was cheesecake, and today it was peanut butter cake. Everyone devours it, they are all really delicious. I'm going to start taking a picture of it every day.

My frozen duck.

My frozen duck head. Grosser pictures here and here

Bubby begs like this if you look him in the eye. Today he ate a hershey's kiss right off the floor, choked on it, spit it back up in perfect form, and then ate it again. Good ol' Bubby. His owner, Melvin, is the nicest, funniest guy. He is one of those people who only speaks when he has something brilliantly funny to say.

Today was a good day. There was a whole lot of fleshing, which is kind of gross because of all the "butter." Butter is the stuff that flings off of the skin in the flesher. It was all over my arms and trust me, you don't want to clean it off of the glass guard. I haven't gotten sick at all, but that made me want to puke. My favorite expression pertaining to the butter was "well, that's nothin' you'd want to put on a ritz cracker."

We also talked a lot about duck, and eating duck, but I don't really eat meat, so I mostly listened. I pretty much got the following - remember it's about 10 people all just - shooting the shit.

"Man, you can't make duck taste good no matter what you do to it."
"Yeah, it's nasty, you ever tried duck jerky?"
"Aw hell that's disgusting."
"I've tried goose jerky- now that's pretty good."
"I put bacon on duck that makes it taste better."
"You put bacon on just about anything and it makes it taste better. You put bacon on dog crap and I'll---"
"Now that's just gross. I don't know about that."
"I give most of the ducks I kill to my Mexican workers. They go and make pitas out of 'em."
"Nah, if you just marinate that duck it'll taste better."
"Look, I figure anything you have to marinate longer than a year to make it taste good..."

Chip told us a story about a guy who called him up and asked him to mount a turkey that he'd skinned himself. Chip said, well, that sounds kinda weird, maybe I should see if you skinned him right, and we will see what we can do. The guy brought in a totally bald turkey with all the feathers organized by color and placement in separated bags.

Also, I heard the word "greasy" (pronounced : greezey) about a million times today.
Also, Chip gave me two bobcat skulls (one for Laura!) I have to clean all the meat off/out of myself, which is a lot grosser than you could ever imagine. It involves cutting, washing, and boiling.

Jan 7 2009

2009-01-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

Pheasant is almost finished!
This morning, the pheasant didn't look so good. But, today we rubbed the insides with borax, and filled the eyes with clay. Then we set the eyes, fixed the waddles, and actually mounted the bird! We spent about an hour making the bird look just right- pinning the wings, shaping the feathers.... then we lightly wrapped him in string so that he could dry perfectly shaped.

Today, Chip, Melvin and Dianne told us stories about people who come in and talk about how large their deer or turkeys were before they killed them. They call it "shrinkage." It's not real, but Chip just goes along with it. Also, there was this one guy who was just sure that he had killed an albino mallard, but it was really just a regular white duck. They mounted it for him anyway, but there's no way it was albino.

Jan 6 2009

2009-01-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

This is the dog, Bubby, who hangs around the shop. He begs by sitting completely upright on his back legs, and he eats bits of stuff. He got in a fight about a year ago with some big dogs and they hurt him really bad, but he is doing fine.

My pheasant's tail.
My pheasant.

Today I feel like I made a lot more progress than yesterday. I'm still afraid to handle my bird too roughly, but everything always seems to work out- even if you rip something you're not supposed to.
This morning I fleshed out my bird on the flesher (a machine with a spinning wheel that scrapes away fat from the skin) (click here - kind of gross) and washed my bird inside and out ten times each with Dawn. Once the bird was washed, I put it in a tumbler (a low powered turning barrel filled with dried cornmeal, dust, and borax) and once he was dried from that, I sewed up the holes from the inside.
The hard part of today was getting the tendons out of the legs via the bottom of the feet, and then feeding a wire up through the leg and attaching it to the bone. We also had to carve out a body shape and make a neck for our birds. The body is made of styrofoam and it was pre-ordered from a supply place. Chip said you almost always have to cut down a body to make it fit. Your bird looks bigger if it has a smaller body, and, when the skin dries out over time it will shrink and your stitching will pop if you don't make the body small enough to give when that happens. (this is the body with the bird)
Chip spent a lot of time today explaining tips on how to run a store today. There has been a lot of talk about that because everyone there is there to own their own store. I have to sit through a lot of tips on how to tag and get liscences and stuff, but it's all generally pretty interesting. I learned today that you punch holes inside of a deer cape that correspond with their customer number so you never it it confused. I also learned how to "cape" a deer.
(chip, caping a deer)

There is a lot of jargon I don't understand. Most of it has to do with hunting, but I am most definitely the only one there who doesn't know how "scoring" a deer works, and what a "telecheck" is... the list is long.
I stayed late today, and Chip gave me a deer jaw that he was going to throw away. I told him about my collection and love of spair parts, and he told me he'd load me up before I left. (yesss.)

Jan 5 2009

2009-01-05T06:06:00.000-08:00

I woke up a few times in the middle of the night because I heard things, but I was only spooking myself out. There were, however, three wasps that I have had to kill, but they haven't been a major threat. They seem to be sluggish- drunk, almost. There was also a beetle next to me on my pillow when I woke up, and even when I put him on the floor to smash him, he still managed to crawl around. I put him out of his misery. I wonder if being out here makes you want to kill things. Or maybe it's about survival.
On a lighter note, I'm wearing flannel and boots, and I made coffee, and packed myself a lunch. Tonight I get the car, and today, I learn how to taxidermy a pheasant. Carrie said they get all the animals from out of state, except the fish are raised here in Missouri. The Pheasants are from North Dakota, and the deer are supposedly hairer and thicker skinned if you get them from more nothern parts of the US.
I'll add more words and maybe some pictures to this later, if I feel comfortable taking some in class.

-

Class was great. Carrie got me at 8:30, and I put my lunch in the refrigerator, which already had some lunches in it... and a few carcasses.
The instructor, Chip, was kind, friendly, and patient. He was also hilarious... it is nice to know he has a sense of humor about everything- it really took the pressure off of things.
We started by watching a demo of starting a Pheasant mount that Chip did himself. He did a bit at a time, and sent us to start our own birds. It turns out, it's really not that gross. There's not a lot of blood, or guts, especially with birds. It's a lot like dealing with a chicken breast before its cooked. My pheasant is really pretty. Well, they all are. The hardest parts were making sure you didn't cut through the skin, and turning everything inside out. The grossest part was scrambling the brain and getting it out with a Q-Tip.
The fleshing machine was a spinning brush that takes the fat off of your skin. That's as far as we got today. The pheasant looks pretty much like regular one does, but today was definitely labor-intensive. Click HERE and HERE to view more graphic images.

"'Vent' is another word for 'butt.' If somebody calls you a 'vent,' it's not a nice thing. It's not like 'yeah! I'm a vent.'" - Chip

I got my car and went to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and had a nice dinner in the cabin.
AND
There was a bat in my cabin and Julie and her husband came to get him. They scooped him up in a foldgers can and sent him out into the night.

Jan 4 2009

2009-01-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

The day started at 6AM today. Mom drove me from Charleston, SC to the GSP airport and we met Will and Dad for an early lunch. The flight for Chicago leaves in 20 minutes, and the flight for Springfield/Branson arrives there at 5PM . I wonder what Chip and Carrie will be like, and what my cabin will be like. I'm going to get the car tomorrow, and meet Jerry for the first time. I think having a car is going to be very liberating.

-

Carrie picked me up at the Springfield/Branson Airport right on time and it took about two hours to get to the cabin. Julie and her husband let me in to my cabin, which is incredible. The wood is nice and new, there is a fridge and a freezer and there is even a coffee maker! I'm really happy and I feel right at home. Carrie took me over to Wal-Mart and I got a few things to eat so I can hold over until I shop tomorrow night. I'm excited to start class tomorrow!