Taxidermy Class: Shoulder Mounts

I just got back from another class with Prey Taxidermy.  Today my regular teacher Allis Markham was joined by her mentor Tim Bovard, the head taxidermist at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, who has been working in the field for 51 years.  Also helping me was Katie Innamorato, a visiting East Coast taxidermist who specializes in foxes (and has a live pet fox of her own for reference).

 

Two foxes in the class (mine is on the right). There were also two raccoons, a coyote, and a beaver.

Last time, Dev and I did a partners class together where we prepped a raccoon, my first time skinning, cleaning, and tanning an entire large mammal.  (I won't post pictures from that class since they were pretty graphic.  Dev did really well, though, he's a natural.)

Today I learned part two of working with a mammal, putting it all back together.  I worked on a grey fox while someone else in the class mounted the raccoon Dev and I had skinned.

We started with a skinned, tanned pelt and spent eleven hours reconstructing it, using everything from a Dremel to a hammer and anvil. 

My fox form

First we prepped the skins and did a little extra defleshing and cleaning. 

Then we fitted the pelts to polyurethane body forms.  We started with a premade form and then custom shaped it using saws, Dremels, and files as well as Bondo putty and epoxy.  We also used clay to sculpt the body contours and fill out the facial features.

My form being fitted with glass eyes, clay, and glue

Much of the class dealt with making ear inserts out of lead or plastic, shaping and inserting them, and locking them into place in the polyurethane "skull."  We also spent a long time on eye placement and on creating a realistic, detailed nose and lips.

Finally we stitched everything up, did a lot of fine-tuning, and worked on details like ear tufts and whiskers.

A lot of the class focused on carefully studying reference photos of live animals in different poses to create accurate reproductions.  I learned a ton about foxes, especially about their eyes (did you know that a fox's pupils are set at a slight angle? Or that in a resting state their upper eyelids cover all of the iris and part of the pupil but the lower eyelid reveals a band of iris below the pupil? etc.)

After the fox dries in 2-3 weeks I'll go back for the final steps: washing, conditioning, and fluffing the fur; mounting the fox onto a wooden plaque; and painting the nose and eyelids.

Next I can't wait to do a full-body mammal mount and then maybe some more practice with birds . . .

(I also got to keep the scrap fox fur we trimmed off his neck - I think I'll make it into a bracelet.)