Please give me honest feedback on this mount please.
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You didn't say if this was your first, second third deer? Anyways, assuming it's your first or one of your firsts, it looks nice. My constructive critisizm is that maybe the ears sit a bit to high on the head and the ear butts are a little unnatural and not semetrical (look at the bottoms of the ear butts in the straight on shot). Atleast that's the way it looks in the pictures. The nicest thing is the nice shiney nose and the thing that seems to need the most improvement on is the inner ear coloring. Seems off... and maybe too shiney? Eyes are okay but not great. Overall I'd give it a B+ for a begginer but a c- for a seasoned person.
Take it easy on the PAINT
nose pad could use better texture - perfectly fine for commercial taxidermy
If this is your first mount it's a pretty good job. Better than my first mount. But, when you asked for a critique you opened yourself up for some honest opinions.
Firt of all I noticed that there is paint all over the hairs inside the ears. Also, you could do a better job in blending the right color combination for inside of the ears. Need to study ear reference especially the contour of the muscles. Now down to the eyes which I consider that you are not familiar with the proper shape of the eyes. I noticed that you don't have a flow from the tear duct to the eye; this is called the cornucula area. You need to study the eye reference and get you a good cast of an eye which shows the eye lids and nictating membrane.
On your nose again you must get yourself good reference. The nose texture is away off base. Mainly to smooth and the anatomy of the inside of the nose could be a lot better. The color of the interior of the nose could have been blended a lot better if you had looked at live reference.
All I can say is keep trying becaue you are doing great for just a beginner. But try to concentrate on the shape, color and size of things. Like the size and color of a proper eye. How do the eye lashes lay? Where is the nictating membrane? There are hundreds of questions you must ask yourself when putting a good mount together. Good Luck in the future.
John Griffith
www.griffithtaxidermy.com
I agree with John, with the following additions: The eyes appear set in a bit much, too. And the paint looks pretty shiny all around them. The bottom lip looks crooked (thinner on one side than the other).
It looks a lot better than what a lot of the locals here are doing, though! Yours just needs a little 'tweaking' here and there, nothing major.
Best thing you can do is attend your state taxidermy show (or Regionals, Nationals or the World) and enter some mounts. The judges will go over them with you. You'll come away inspired and with a wealth of information on how to improve your mounts. Don't go to win, go to learn! Who knows, maybe down the road YOU'LL be the judge helping out others!
=)
The angle of the picture makes it hard to get a good look! As stated above the first thing that I noticed was the nose - texture is off and too black. The paint on the ear hair is an easy fix but needs to be done. Hair patterns from what I can tell appear good. The eye symmetry is good.
If this is your first deer then it is great if it is your 100th then not so great.
John Morley
www.realisticmounts.com
one that I shot and paid $400.00 for 4 years ago and was done by a taxidermist here in Southern New Jersey who is from what I gather thought to be the best around by hunters. Since I have gotten involved in taxidermy I too can see the flaws that John sees and what I see from this guy is just ok commercial work. I know 4 different people that have had mounts done there and the only difference you can see in them is the antlers yet it seems that people around here are ok with that, go figure.
We are too hard on ourselves. Bill Yox is 30ish miles from me. The other direction I have a $275 guy 30ish miles from me (a dry tan get 'em out type of guy). Ironically I'm in between (both my work and my location). There are guys that more than satisfied with all three of us. The average guy has no clue what a live deer really looks like as they have never taken the time to study deer. IF they did I'll bet we would all be mounting more doe - their features are so much more attractive than a buck - in my opinion anyhow. Thank goodness what drives most of us is our own personal commitment to do the best that we can.