" Game Head Of The Month " July 2020

Giant Nebraska whitetail.

 

Another sika

 

great job Brian, what a nice looking deer

 

Both these deer are awesome, guys definitely know what's going on.

 

Great work everyone.I Havnt posted on here in a while !

 

Have a great 4th everyone. A muley I mounted for my brother.

 

A Javelina I just wrapped up.

 

NM rocky ram.

 

A whitetail. 4 more to go for the. Season

 

And a Mule Deer wall pedestal.

 

A Great 'Re-Birth'

This is the FINAL remounting of my own Whitetail Deer ... a full-on ten-pointer! A small ten, but a ten all the same ... and my first and ONLY Deer I ever killed. After I killed him, that's when I discovered, that I wasn't cut out to kill animals. I prefer to "restore" them ... the phrase preferred by my friend, the late Henry Wichers Inchumuk - Master Taxidermist and Mentor - when he was still with us ... bless him! Since I first mounted him as a standard wall mount - over a paper form - back in 1974, a newer floor pedestal headform came onto the market.

The chosen headform - the Research Mannikins WT-8838, Floor Pedestal head form - is a wonderful sculpture, and has the detail I was looking for, plus a SYMMETRICAL HEAD AND FACE! And ... it's a floor pedestal, sculpted in the very pose my buck held when he was last alive! It still needed some minor reducing here and there, as well as some refining of details here and there, until I was satisfied with it. Now, bear in mind, I killed this buck back in 1973 ... December 1st, 1973 to be exact - the day before my 18th Birthday ... and when I originally mounted him, it was back around 1974.

So now, here he is ... in all his glory! Thank you to Research Mannikins, and Bill Lancaster, who sculpted this and many of the forms I use.

I will say this mount was a labor of love that took many, many years to fulfill. Yes, I'm happy!

I took the first photos of my buck without his final habitat addition of an artificial Dawson Fir Tree from Autograph Foliages, so I could photograph him alone from all around ... as these photos attest.

Here's the start of the photos with the tree ...

The little surprise is the beautifully wood-carved Cardinal ... a splash of color, created by top wood-carver ... Michael A. Beaver. The year I shot my buck, Cardinals were EVERYWHERE, and I wanted to create that memory here as well!

 

Very nice!!!!!

 

beautiful nice clean mount John. You did his memory well. Would loved to have seen him before you tore him apart for the re mount

 

A couple big Ky bruisers

 

Very very nice , and definitely some big boys

 

Thanks! Here is his first version done in 1974 ...

I still had him in 1987 ...

His second version from the early '90's on a Sallie Dahmes headform, and I tried Bondo ears ... never again!

His third version from the mid to late '90's on a Buckeye Mannikins #WT713 Upright LT Offset - 7⅛''x 13''x 18½''x 19¼'' - this was to be his final incarnation. ...


He would have stayed mounted, but for a shop fire ... some flames and LOTS of smoke!!!

I cleaned him best I could, but the smell of smoke was still in him ... really bad! So, I decided to do a final remount, and wanted a pedestal. I was originally gonna use a Joe Coombs Classic #94-7020L full wall pedestal, that I would have altered to a floor pedestal, then Research Mannikins came out with their floor pedestals, and he is now as you see him in the above photos.