Can you do something for all us newbies? Rate in order of difficulty to learn as a beginner from easiest to hardest the following: shoulder mounts, full body small-med mammals (squirrels,coon,coyotes and the like), fish, and birds. Just curious as to the different opinions. I started with whitetail and then learned squirrels and now am on fish and dreading ducks.
Thanks for your opinions in advance
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I would think for a newbie, the game heads would be easyest as most of the work is done in sculpting a form and all, but ,you still have to put the hair patternes in the right place, set the eyes correctly, and ears and so forth.
I personally think that birds are harder than animals as the feathers are tough to move around and the skins of birds get larger as you remove the flesh and fat between the feather roots. You can put a lot larger body in and make them look absolutly terrible simply by taxiing the feathers in the wrong place or streching the neck to long or pulling the wings out straight or what ever.
Most animals mount up pretty good on todays forms, but I still see shortcuts being taken all the time with leaving cartilige in noses, not splitting the lips, and thinning the face details, also not skinning the ears and carding them so they look flat and thinner than real.
Fish are tough as well, you have to get the form very smooth, the right size, and be very carful with the skin so as not to damage scales. You also have to paint the whole thing so there is a artistic eye to doing that. If you do not have it, you will not be as good as another.
Over all, the best things you can start on is something you can get readily. The more times you mount a Mallard duck, the better you are at mounting them, same with squirrels and Deer heads.
Also, if you have help by somone that knows what they are doing, it is a lot easyer than with no help at all.
Remember in the 60's when we got our first J.C.Ellwod book.
BIRDS ! easy right, lots of feathers to hide screw-ups
Newbies want trail by fire...
Start with a woodcock, move up to a popcorn mallard from Old Mcdonald, then move on to a snowshoe rabbit, follow that with a lifesize least weasal...Go for it,Start with the hard stuff, the rest is cake.
Scott worried about ducks? Get a hooded merganser or canvasback
Darn near indistructable...
theyll test you .
You must be old, it was J.W.Elwood. I agree though that was definately the hard way to learn. I started with a starling. The new teqhniques will spoil you.
Todd B
...On this, is that the easiest to learn is the one that's the easiest to learn the anatomy of. Fish, it's all there to see, no hair or feathers to cover it up. Deer heads would be next, mostly because of the quality of today's forms, much of the anatomy is done for you, you still have to use your reference to put things together correctly. Next come mammals, again because of the correctness of modern forms and the availability of reference for so many species. Last, and most difficult, are birds. The anatomy of a bird is really covered by feathers that change the shape of the bird is ways that reference doesn't tell you. Learning the anatomy of a bird without feathers is the most neglected part of bird taxidermy.