Firstly, may I wish every here at Taxidemy.net a merry Christmas or similar religious greeting for this time of year. I hope that you all have a great break and I'll "read" you again in the new year.
My question is straight forward but does not appear in the archives (although I am sure it is there somewhere).
QU When using a mammal body form and an artificial (Acrylic) mouth set; does the mouth set need to be just glued striaight onto the mouth part of the form (if so, where does the skin tuck?) or do I need to cut a channel to sink the gums into the foam. This is a basic question and I know that having a lesson on this is the best solution but financial I can't afford hence this question. I do hope that it is not too confusing. I look forward to your responses
Kindest regards and seasonal greetings
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McKenzie on line how to page.
http://www.McKenziesp.com/KB/HTML%20KB/cast_lip_instructions/cast_lip_instructions.asp
Thank you,
I have not seen this page before but answer my question.
Kindest regards and more festive cheer
Do a search in the archives because using a standard jawset with an open mouth form is quite diferent than the McKenzie setup in that article. In short, yes the jawset would be glued into the mouth of the form and then the lips glued into place, apoxie sculted, textured, then painted. it's not real easy the first time. Just take your time and have fun. Hope this helps, Carl
I will try again but i suspect that I have not used the correct words in the search. Many thanks
Seasonal and festive thank yous'
Ken Walker is responsible for this tip. On larger game, make sure you leave all the lip interior and exterior skin. Flesh it and tan it. Install the mouth (He used a few drops of foam to hold his. Then the next thing he did was to remove ALL the lip area surrounding the jawset so that the jawset was exposed completely. Then he mounted the skin. He rolled Critter Clay up into cigar sized pieces and put it inside the lip skin and folded it under so that both sides of the lips were exposed. Then he laid the lips around the exposed jawset and pushed it tight against the teeth just like an animal in real life would have it. He kept pressing the clay until it finally hardened. Then he masked the teeth and painted the mouth interior. No lip line was ever exposed, no epoxy putty ever had to be used.
This method works especially well on animals that you put other mounts inside their mouths. The lips will conform to the shape of their "prey". It works on all animals, but it's easier to do on the bigger guys.
In my training, I was taught to put rolled clay (on squirrel) under the lip and roll up the under skin around the clay to form a life like lip line - similar to the Ken Walker method you described. In the WASCO demonstration, I can't see how a good lip line is created by gluing the mouth skin flap to the jaws. I suspect that this due to me not doing it before and a case of "trial and error" is needed. Thank you for your help I will try it on a red fox I have in the freezer.
Many thanks and seasonal festivity