A taxidermist that does primarily mammals and birds ask me to airbrush the lost hair and coloring on a large Bongo. Being strickly a fish taxidermist, I have very little knowledge of this procedure. I understand that these animals easily loose areas of pigment and fur from the hides during the tanning process and the only way to restore this rust coloring is to airbrush it back trying to match the surrounding hair. Mixing and matching color is no problem for me but can I use water- based acrylics? Do I need to apply a sealer first?
If anyone can give me any pointers on this I would greatly appreciate it.
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Jeff, you will definitely need a sealer, but if I might be so brazen, acrylic paint is not the best choice here. Lacquer, by far, attaches and "dyes" tanned skin much better than acrylic ever could. Acrylic teends to "paint" instead.
I've been doing Taxidermy for almost 35 yrs and have been painting with water based (acrylic) paints for the last 20. I have never used sealer on any game head. The leather takes the paint quite well. The only problem you may run into is when brushing off the hair you may scratch some of the paint.You can alieviate this problem by wiping the hair off with a terry cloth towel. Bob C
the epidermis first...I've done quite a few bongos and most of the time its not the hair that slips...but the colored epidermis. The hair is so sparse and fine anyway on a Bongo that if you color the skin first, then clean the painted hair off with a soft terry cloth towel and then inspect you will probably see that the color of the hair does prevail as the surface color itself.