Submitted by John B. on 2/2/1999. ( falconer@u.washington.edu )
I am a scuplture student interested in learning to incorporate taxidermy into my work. While I realize I have a lot to learn, my eventual goal involved the mounting of some euthinized racing greyhounds. My concern is that they have very little body fat and what seems to be very thin skin. Does such a project seem possible? Thank you for any advice, John.
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This response submitted by John Bellucci on 2/2/1999. ( ArtistExpr@aol.com )
Greetings John,
As a sculpture student you've certainly picked one great animal subject of ahtletic physique! The fact that the overall body-fat mass is nil on a Racing Greyhound is not a hinderence in the preservation - by tanning - of the hide.
Their skin structure is a bit thinner than say... a German Shepherd dog, but not unusually so. It's not going to tear as a rabbit's skin would.
The fact that there is virtually no body fat beneath the skin, and the fact that the skin is "drawn tight" across the highly-developed musculature, make the skin "appear" thin or fragile -- but it's really not.
You would also do well to make some "partial" carcass castings for reference purposes... remembering they are in fact from a dead animal. They are very useful for building proportional structure when sculpting the mannikin over the dogs' skeleton.
Also, studying the live, vibrant dog will give you the proper "lift" found in the living dogs' muscles. Use the live dogs, and photos of the live dog while modelling-up the mannikin as well as during the mounting process itself.
Hope this has helped some. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask, and let us know how it goes! Good luck to you... John B.
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