Sorry if I butchered your last name,but you did a finishing seminar down at Hilton's place over the summer last year and was very useful. I had a question going over my notes about something I never asked and shouldv'e. I was talking to Hilton the other day and he said you use their apoxy paste around your eyes instead of hide paste. This is over your existing critter clay work. Does that sound right? I have had some of my eyes pull away, but very little. I had never had this problem, but some how I did on the last few deer. This gap is very small, but is throwing off my expression and this is driving me crazy. After my capes come back from the tannery, I do thin down everything including the eyes down to removing the fatty cells in both the upper and lower lid. I have natural gas in my studio and my work area is at about 62. I have bagged the last couple of deer and the eyes are looking better, but not to my standards. I have used my hide paste around the eyes (buckeye supreme)in the past, but ordered the apoxy paste from hilton last week to try, he swears by it. I have a comp deer coming up for an august show and hope to have it worked out by then. Sorry to ramble on, but any info you have will be greatly appreciated. Your whitetail attitude and expression is some of the best I've seen. My first comp deer at the world scored a 91, judged by Rick Carter, but I was far from happy. Please respond here or e-mail me if you want. Thank you for your time.
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What did you mean by the deer were "bagged" and the eyes looked better? New technique?
That means that while the deer was drying, he placed a bag over the mount to slow the drying time. It's used to be able to keep working the mount over for days, it also helps with shrinking eyelids and such.