Painting Deer Ears

[Jeff F.]

I use wildlife colors and I found it helpful to get the different colors of flesh so I can compare to different reference and make a decision from there. The flesh colors I have are flesh, special flesh, and soft flesh. Very much the same but very unique in their own way. I also use colored earliners and scrape pink pastel chalk into my epo grip before doing my ears. This was suggested to me from Steve Steinbring(epo-grip creator) and it seems to help. In the photo Glen posted  I see two different flesh colors with a light white overtone.(IMO) Try stuff and see what matches your reference.

[Glen Conley]

jcompton, I just added computer generated color swatches under the photograph on the previous page, you might want to check it out.

The last time we got into the debate over deer ear color I believe was either last Mother's Day, or the Mother's Day before that.  Regardless, it inspired me to take a number of different deer ears that I had photographed and create a collage.  I then posted it on the WTDS site as a free download, a Mother's Day gift to the participants.

For all you mothers that didn't get it the first time, here it is again.

[Dean]

The photos Glen posted are mainly summer deer. You do get a flesh look with them because of the light going through the ear and less blood flow through them. They are not pink or white. If you look at the photo toward the upper right side of the collage. Third one from the right, you will see one fall picture of a deers ear. It is fairly dark, like I said. That is what the critique was for with the original post about color of ears. Every one seems to think the color stays the same all year  long. They don't. It is about blood flow to the ears with the temperature changes also the amount of hair on the back side of the ear preventing light from coming through in th fall and winter. Summer deer photos give you nice pictures of shape and musculature and nice sharp edges to the ear because they don't have much hair so  it makes it easy to get photos of them with out the hair blocking the view. Get close, I mean close enough to lift the hair and see inside the deers ear in the fall and winter. They are not PINK. Check it out youself, you guys and gals are taxidermists, reserch your reference instead of guessing. Note: the ear in the upper left is also a fall deer but the hair is blocking the inside view. Like I said before,the amount of light hitting the ear, also camera angle and distance, developing or moniters all  effect the look of the ear. Look at the real deal to know for sure.

[jafrebear]

I do agree with all, one thing the man that i learned from had me in the mixing proses of ear glue splash with a couple of drops of red,
takes a couple of trys but the results were great.The color just shows threw to give a great pinkish or flesh tone color.Hope this helps!

[Glen Conley]

Whoa!  Time out!  The ear debate always gets almost as good as DP vs. Tan.

First there is MORE blood going through the ears in summer.  Ears are part of the cooling mechanism for the body.

The upper right hand photo of the dark ear shows green grass cropped out with the ear.  Across to the left shows another dark ear interior. 

The largest ear in the middle shows about 1/2 fleshy color and the lower half dark.  Right below that is a doe with ears forward that displays fairly symmetrical pigmented blotches.  The black pigment melanin can vary anywhere from a blotch marking to the whole ear interior.

Pigment is the reason for the dark ears in two of those deer, not the time of year.

The ears showing "color" are ears that have tranparent/translucent skin-devoid of skin pigment.  What you see as color is what ever the inner workings of the system are at the time.  For example, the higher oxygen content of the blood, the more pink/reddish the ear could appear from a DISTANCE.  That's the reason I did the swatches, and the brass look visuals.  It's a sum total of the assembly of all the little pieces parts of color that gives the illusion of a solid color.  Fact of life, not all people perceive color in the same fashion, we even have color blind people.  If humans aren't "standard", why expect animals to be?

This gets almost funny anytime.  It was not very many days ago I was pointing out brown sceleras on deer eyes.  They didn't exist either, except in queer deer.  So, Dean, do your deer have white sceleras, brown and white sceleras, or brown sceleras?

[Becky P]

Ok, I'm not going to get into wether or not deer ears are light, dark, pink, white, brown, but just a question, bare with me here.
IF light is what affects what WE "see", and we SEE white/pink, even if in reality up close they are dark, then when the deer is hanging on the wall and you're standing across the room, shouldn't it "look" like what we "see" in the field, light play and all? Since you don't "see" the dark out in the field because your are not parting hair and looking inside, then wouldn't it make sense to paint it the way we "see" it?
Anyone understand what I'm trying to get across? If you paint it brown, it's going to look brown, but that is not normally what I "see" in the field when the light is doing it's thing.

[Michelle Nelson's Taxidermy]

Becky P,

  You hit it right on the head.

[KBauman]

Hey Michelle, those are really great reference pictures.  Where did you get them?  Just give the photographer credit, that is all I ask.  The top photo was taken in a shaded area in Aug.  The little digital camera takes excellent photos in the shade and not so excellent ones in the bright sunlight.  The deer, "Prince" does appear to have a fleshy tint, but not hot pink.  As his hair thickens up in the fall and winter, his ear coloration appears much more whitish with hints of tan and brown.  The lower shot was taken in the sunlight in July a few years ago of the exact same whitetail buck.  I think most of the points above are viable.  I know Glen has done his homework and Dean seems very knowledgeable, though he must remember, not every deer is exactly like the ones he is studying.  There are numerous variations to numerous anatomical features.  An other large buck (Lobo) in the same pen as the one above is very different.   His ears rarely show the a strong flesh look, they normally appear whitish.  Attached is a photo of Lobo on the same day in the same shade.  He is correct about the colors of late fall and winter deer.  Those fleshy tones are lost due to the thickening of the hair.  Pretty accurate postings Dean.
I always though Meder mannikins looked a little bottled nosed, until my friend spent a week at Joes and wasted about 5 rolls of film on his live deer.  Those bucks all looked just like Joe's mannikins.  I learned one thing relatively quick competing with whitetails.  Never say never, as long as the anatomy is not out of wack, a whitetail can probably do it.  Good luck and study your reference.  Oh yeah, if you are interested in some off the whitetail reference Michelle uses in her post, they can be purchased at www.geocities.com/kennethbauman/reference.html

[btaylor70]

I paint the ears of every white tail with a natural flesh color and then a mars red,  and a little bit of pure white, using the wash metod and it works really well.