First Black Crappie

Nice job. Really like the colors.

 

the colors are good but is that reall a manufactured body? I guess Thompson needs to do a little more research on his crappies! Work on head, throat and eye positioning. Other than that, not bad for your first crappie, at least you saved the scales.

 

I try to avoid having to paint the spots on a skin crappie I struggle with paint so thats all I will say about that...... the head position is off and the body shape looks strange for a crappie...may be the photo angles but it looks strange...almost like from the vent fin forward it was cut off or shaved down ( edit ) going back and looking it looks like the top profile is misshapen as well... .. ? did you alter the form?

I never use a form for crappie carve or mold all of mine now....


I think Pushing that tongue down will help you get the head angle better by making you lift the whole head up to align the bottom line of the fish. Looks to be shrinkage in tail area and all fin unions. The pectoral fin looks to have been cut off and set back incorrectly.. The eyes IMO need rolled out and slightly forward for an open mouth. Thats just my opinion and its better then my first crappie

 

I think that is a white crappie,maybe a male which had it's darker spawning colors when you got it . Might be why you had problems with the purchased form. Black crappies have a much more rounded body when viewed from the side. Also, it looks like 5 or six spines in the dorsal fin, which would jive with it being a white crappie. Black crappie have 7 or 8 spines in the spiney portion of the dorsal. I like the colors you incorporated in your paint job, but that also looks like a white crappies colors to me(especially if you would have put in the vertical bar pattern present on white crappies). Would you have a picture of the fish before you started? Tom

 

I haven't been mounting Crappie very long but they are my favorite fish to fish for therefore I have taken a strong interest in skin mounting them. I have always had good luck with the Tom Sexton Fishworks crappie forms whether its a 12 incher or a 17. I tried a Matt Thompson the other day just because he had a size closer to my measurements. I did like how the head seemed to lock up a little easier but I'm just not a big fan of the tail up look.
Never tried carving my own form yet but you guys sure make it sound interesting. I get aggravated waiting on forms when I could be mounting.

Dave

 

Black

 

Hmmm. The coloration says black crappie. Not male white crappie colors, anyway. It has the rounded back of a black crappie, but the way it narrows down towards the tail looks more like a white to me. Maybe just an individual that is slightly out of the norm? Hybrid possibly? Anyway, I like the mount. Nice colors, and after seeing your pictures of the unskinned fish, your body shape makes more sense. I think if you reset the eye, as Joey suggested,it would make the mount much more "alive" looking. (Mind you, these are the opinions of a hobbiest who has mounted three crappies! LOL) Tom

 

I think the spots look fairley good
Just a bit too much blue in for mr
Just my opinion