Taxidermy

>>2241478
What are you having issues with on smell?
During or afterwards?
I believe hydrogen peroxide and/or bleach will help with that, although it bleaches the bones also.

I only tan hides myself.

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>>2241479
During the process the smell can be less than desirable. Some animal meat and fat just smells gross to me. It gets particularly bad if the meat is starting to rot.

>>2241478
How does one go about preserving an animal through taxidermy? And is the process any different for a creature of human size?

>>2241482
>"of human size "
kek

>>2241479
>macerate because its faster than burying and do not have the room for beetles
>the fucking smell when you're dumping out tubs and buckets
>the worst being mummified steer skull and half a bear

Thanks, Vick's

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>>2241529
>half a bear
Where did the other half go?

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>>2241531
Lower half of the fur and paws were used for a replacement of a rug. I assume he tossed the rest.
I was suppose to clean the skeleton and pose it like pic related. He skinned the entire carcass himself and went off to a tannery, then drops off the skinned upper half with me. He used a chainsaw.
I don't know what the fuck he was thinking because he could have had a full skeleton. He'd only have to buy replacement claws if he used them for a mount but I guess he really wanted the half mount to match what I assume he was going to pose the upper-half of the skin.

Some people are weird, like dropping off actual rotting, dripping carcasses asking to 'save it'.

>>2241482
Take skin off. clean skin through tanning, or smaller thinner skins through rubbing with a preservative like borax or salt.

Place skin over a premade base, set certain areas in place with needles or cardboard. Let it dry.

Its too complicated to just type out in a 4chan post.

>>2241478
I've always appreciated good taxidermy but it's pretty much a dead art here as far as I'm aware.

>>2241482
>creature of human size
please don't

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Rabbit skulls, old cow teeth/molar , some deer jaws

>>2241583
I see. Well thanks for the info...
Would an artificial skeleton work as a base?

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>>2241732
rabbit skull alone

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>>2241736
No. Not that anon but you can buy forms like pic related(with added eyes, sculpting and nose). A skeleton isn't going to work. You'd have to build onto the skeleton with clay and foam to but thats just a waste of a skeleton. You can sculpt your own base, but its more effort than it's worth and you have a good eye for anatomy, reference and art for that. The people who do that usually can't find a form even remotely close to what they want, its an animal that does not have a form, or they weren't able to get the carcass to make a cast out of it.

Before you set a skin over it you'll have to sculpt in/around the nose and eyes. Add/take away where you need it, if its an open mouth mount you do all that first, etc then you can fit and pin the skin over it. Wet tans are always better than dry tans. You have to soak dry tans too for mounting but it's just better to not let them dry at all before you start mounting. Wet tans also give you a better stretch.

For birds its pretty easy since you don't need a real form. Plenty of people just start on chicks, rats, mice, etc so basically all of them look fucking horrible. You don't have to tan bird hides either.

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Seagull skull.
european robin.
gull
parrot? tropicalish bird, very long ago.
western jackdaw (Corvus monedula)
and a red fox

background has a rabbit spine

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>>2241757
robin close-up

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Two red fox skulls, one with bad/old-age teeth one very healthy looking teeth.
small skull is a European polecat or close to that. Next to it a shoulder bone of a fox

background has part of a deer skull.
jaws are from a red fox too.

and more

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>>2241760
close-up fox skull

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>>2241760
polecat. never seen a live one in the wild yet though

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I believe a dolphin vertebrae (Harbour porpoise)

I don't have much but I got a mounted cat skeleton my mom bought from a science lab supply place. No pics because it's packed away in a box but it's pretty cool.

>>2241772
pretty neat. where did you find it?

>>2241480
is that your pet birb?

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>>2241870
I found it on the beach in the Netherlands,
This seems to be an Atlantic cod skull, the top part.

>>2241736
Thats not how it works. The base needs to be sculpted so the skin sits on top. Imagine the base being an animal carcass with everything (meat, fat, cartilage) without the skin.

I make my for small animals out of foam, which I carved into a body shape.

>>2241478
Idk why but I love finding skulls to turtles

>>2241732
They look so clean and beautiful. DId you process them yourself?

I boil the meat off my rabbit skulls, scrape excess meat off then bleach with hydrogen peroxide.

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>>2241876
Yeah. She always wants to take bites out of the fresh carcasses of any animal I take home.

>>2242023
What the fuck dude

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>>2242205

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>>2242021
if "boil" them at around 80 degrees, at boiling point they tend to break the tender parts.
after that i put em in a pan with tablets to clean dentures. it's makes the hard parts come off and makes them whiter.
sometimes skip the tablets to avoid losing the yellowish bone color.

I am not a hunter so most of the time they are pretty clean of meat

What do you guys do when you see an animal suitable for taxidermy but its still alive?

Do you visit pet stores and pick out animals to kill and process?

And yes, I'm starting to get into the slippery slope.

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>>2242398
some sea stars and parts of vertebra, also big black one part of vertebra

>>2242400
I don't think about taxidermy until i have a dead animal available.

I bet lots of sensitive snowflakes who hate taxidermy would love to think that taxidermists would visit pet stores to pick animals to kill for the sake of display.

>>2242394
And people scoff when you say birbs are dinos.

>>2242400
I only receive dead animals. The only time I see an animal that was alive was things like farmed foxes, coyotes still in traps or pheasants who will live on until they have a buyer. Both the fox and coyote thing came from individuals and I haven't seen anyone else do it. I could be wrong but I think the coyote dude has permits to keep coyotes. I've bought from neither for no real reason other than it doesn't interest me. The guy with the 'rare' foxes is actually someone who also raises them as pets, I didn't figure that out until I noticed some certain colors specific to him.

It's fine if they're treated good but not my cup of tea. It's rare I'll buy my own anything these days but I also stray from snared, bow kills, drowning or some other shit I don't find unacceptable like injecting beaver kits with shit you find under the sink. I rather deal with bullet holes in my specimens.

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some fossils and parts of clay pipes

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>>2243191
world war 2 shells and bullets from the dunes, cow bones and snake skin.

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>>2243191
some shells from jura time i assume, from france

>>2242407
Your collection is fantastic. I need to get myself a display cabinet like that.

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>>2243591
Thank you!

Some crab claws and fossilized coral

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>>2244124
Last glass shelf

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>>2244130
close up of jaws