Looking To Start Replica Fish Taxidermy

Brad, I think Mudbat touched upon that. First off, none of the distributors products are perfect. The problem Mudbat touched upon with Roto-casting is you lose some of the undercuts at the base of the fins and such. The tail bases are usually off on LCR blanks too. Personally, I don't do anything to fix things because I've never had a customer complain about it. The things you (Brad) are describing though I would consider other issues. Molding the real fish has it's challenges because you're fighting gravity. Flat spots can happen then or with LCR sometimes their tight packaging/foam expanding causes flat spots on their molded blanks. Then, you have some distributor's replicas made from original skin mounts and those can have their issues too as they're totally reliant on the talent of the individual doing the original skin! There's lots of different ways other than anatomical to make a fish NOT look like a real fish including positioning as you also touch upon...

 

Thanks for the reply. Much Appreciated

 

Some of the faults I've found in forms include lack of detail in head, fins, tail, etc. From what I understand the more times a mold is used the tougher it is to get a nice, crisp detailed reproduction. Sometimes scale detail can almost be lost entirely on small scaled fish species like trout and salmon.

Other problems include flat fins. It's possible to heat some flat fins with a hair drier and bring more life to flat fins by curving them. Some fins are flat on the outside edge which isn't true to life. I often file the ends so there are proper gaps and angles. One of the biggest problems I've seen with repros is the belly sags inward....especially on large bellied fish.

Sometimes there are casting errors from materials being used that are totally unnatural. Seams are often horrendous on some forms.

Another huge fault in repros is faulty mouth parts....teeth, tongue, and jaws. It's also nice being able to customize mounts to look like the actual fish caught. As an example, bringing out the large hook jaw in a particular male brown trout.

The list goes on!

 

If your wanting a blank to practice on get a fiberglass blank
The ones from lake country and
ARP are plastic
Paint and wash clean with laqour thinner and repaint
Air brushes ?
Like picking ford or Chevy
It’s all preference
I have badgers “3” al differnt
Also 2 pashae
They all have a place in my use

 

Ford baby! Ha!

Hey, they didn't take the bailout so that helped me make MY decision!

 

I picked up a non-finished replica in e-bay, I mixed up clear auto wax on one side, mixed a thinned out pour of bondo for a mold of 3/4 od a side. Then went to Overtons or Gander outdoors bought a pint of white Gel coat for boats and made my own samples to play around with. Using different colors to paint scales, even different mediums, ( powder paints, charcoals, and water pencils.)

 

Are you wanting to start Replica Fish?
Or Taxidermy?
Look up the definition of Taxidermy. When you get great at replica fish and you want to expand make sure you call yourself ………. Replica Fish and Taxidermy and be able to do both.

 

Another newbie, here...
As far as airbrushes go...I have a Badger 155, and a Neo (got the Neo at Michaels with 40% coupon). I got my compressor from Harbor Freight...$50 or so, you can always pull up a 20% coupon on your phone (Hobby Lobby is another source, with 40% coupons). My background is in model airplanes...so I had all that stuff already. It is handy to have at least a pair of A/B's...one with a #3 for "bulk", and another with a #1 for fine detail. I like the Badger for it's ease of cleaning. I like the Neo for it's finer spray...but the tip is tiny, takes a tool to remove, hard to get clean.
For your "paint mules"...rather than buying a replica just for testing/practice...get one that you plan on finishing. You can make simple molds of sections. Say, a section of the body(just to get scale detail)...another section of the head, etc. There's mold making material available at every craft store. Cast in plaster, it's cheap and pretty quick, and you can make a bunch of pieces to try out different techniques, before applying them to a finished product.

 

Two things here. One, make sure you've got an accurate replica for proper reference if you're going to do this. And two, I THINK you're okay with molding sections for your own personal use as reference, but it is right on the Trademark borderline IMO. Certainly no copies made to sell...

 

Yeah, I'm meaning just small sections for practicing on, definitely not the whole thing! Bad mojo to steal someone elses work!
For this purpose, accuracy really isn't critical, as the goal is for learning painting techniques.
I'm working on doing this right now...taking pics as I go and will post em for demonstration purposes.

 

Alright, here's what I got...


There is definitely better mold material out there. My "mold builder" had gone south and was not usable (quite old). I had some Oyumaru stuff on hand. You just put it on a pot of near boiling water. It softens and you just mash it all together and mash it onto the surface you want molded. (I did spray the fish with mold release...probably not necessary with this particular product though)



The stuff remains flexible...just peel it off...



Cover with plaster...





Bing, bang, boom...cheap, easy bits to practice painting with!