I am looking for either a commercially available, or a substitute material, for creating the fleshy eyebrow on a spruce grouse, and sharptailed grouse. This fleshy growth tends to flatten and dry out on the few grouse I've done in the past. Any ideas? Thanks, GW.
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When your bird is dry, cut out the brow. From your local craft store by Chennille Bumps (they may call them jumbo pipe cleaners, but the bumps are undulating like a snake with a belly full of eggs) Use the red or yellow as the species dictates. (Van Dykes sells them in red for artificial gills, but I don't think they carry the other colors. When you get them, cut to size and use a little fast set epoxy to hold them where the cut outs are.
I have only done this once and had very good luck. Normally I leave well alone, I just paint the red membrane and have not had a problem but if you want replace it, this is what I tried one time. Take some epoxy sculpt and buid up the "Brow", texture it with a stiff paint brush or toothbrush. Craft stores sell a velvet finish paint, most of the time you won't find the color you need but that's ok. Paint the epoxy sculpt with this velvet paint that will provide a nice looking fleshy texture, spray over that with you transparent paints (proper color) and bingo you will get what your looking for. The nice thing about this technique is you can practice it off the bird. Roll up some epoxy brows, texture, paint with velvet paints, and color accordingly. Once you feel comfortable, apply to your mount.
In one of the past issues of Breakthrough, Dave Luke explains and demonstrates the entire process that George explained. I'm not sure which issue it was in but, if you check the index in issue 60, you should be able to find it.
MC