Hey,
Any advice on how I should modify a Deer manikin to make the nose longer. I still relatively inexpeerienced at mamal work. So this is my second deer.
I finally streched the to get to fit the manikin, and then went to test fit the face, and after place the tear ducts in the right place the nose is off about a inch. I can get two fingers in the end of the nose skin. So its about an inch and a quarter off.
so I thought I would cut the manikin in front of the eyes, put the piece it back together with bondo. Is this the right approach? any advice, or pointers would be great
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I'd be very skeptical of adding anything on to the nose of a deer. That skin, when fleshed and shaved properly WILL fit the form if the correct E-N measurements were taken and the circumferences match. A whitetail doe often gets a mule nose as she ages, but bucks don't usually get that. There ARE change out heads available, but I also use them seldom for the same reason. A longer E-N measurement usually means and older (LARGER) deer. That extra hide will "pack" nicely if you use a good glue and pin your anatomical markers in their corresponding slots on the form.
Cut the deer head behind the mouth, cut out the correct size you to lengthen the head on a piece of wood, If you want to extend it 1", cut out that size, hot glue 3 pieces on the head kinda in a triange pattern, then hot glue the remaining piece back on, bondo in the gap or use expandable foam.
The skin will shrink a little, you can have a little extra skin on the facial area, Good luck!
Expandable foam. I cut the mannikin in two behind the mouth, insert 2 wires into the mannikn and stick the nose back on the wires, then measure the gap and adjust it to the length I need,wrap the " Gap " area with saran wrap and use masking tape to hold it in place,cut a hole in the top of the saran wrap to pour in my foam, then pour some 2 part expandable foam and let it set up. I remove the saran wrap and sand the foam to match the form.
If you have as much skin as you say then you have the wrong size form all the way around i would bet. How does the brisket fit? I bet that the brisket and armpits can be pulled completely off the rear edge of the form. I bet that if you put the tearducts in place you have a lot of loose skin under the jaw at the head neck union. I would try re-measuring your skin at the neck and ordering a form that actually fits. Be sure to STRETCH the neck as big as you can and then pat it back into the proper dimension. If you cut the deer all the way down the back, fold the skin so that your incision meets and the skin is on its side before you try to "pat" the skin to size.It is very unusal to have this much extra skin on any form if properly sized. sometimes you might have loose extra skin under the jaw and may need to alter for this but the eye to nose should be within 1/4-1/2 inch on almost any average deer. Good luck.
Im a bit suspicious of that kind of difference in size. Hard to say without being there, though. One thing amongst all the good advice here. If you want to lengthen a muzzle that much, dont add a whole inch in one place, add a 1/2 inch in two different places to add up to an inch. I still question that amount, though...
You guys are right; I do have extra skin at the back jaw. The thing that confuses me is that I like to never got the skin on the manikin. To get the skin down the neck and on the shoulders, I had to basically pull the skin down a little, stretch the skin using some large ear openers I had bought. (Heck I screwed up one of the ears with it, but it was perfect for this application) and after an hour+ I finally got the skin to fit. I stopped pulling and stretching when I got the brisket in place.
I will go back and test fit it again, and make sure the shoulders and legs are ok. This took hour+ to stretch the skin on this manikin; I don't think I could stretch it to fit anything bigger.
Thanks again, you guys are great!
Thank you
Rob