Painting A Fish Form (not A Blank)

I believe someone else posted the same thing here about a year ago.

 

I'd see if I could find it for you if I had more time.

 

I'm pretty sure I started the other fish form post. If my memory is correct, I didn't get much helpful advice and it didn't seem like anyone had tried this.

I started the original post because I was getting frustrated with the high expense of buying forms/blanks/heads. I did a lot of web searching trying to figure out a way around this. I found a fish wood carving website that really caught my attention. I came to the conclusion if I was going to spend hours upon hours painting and tipping a fish it would be pretty cool to do it on wood. I was amazed at how detailed and realistic the carved fish turned out on the fish carving website...especially those with wood-burned scales. The more I looked into wood carving the more sense it made for my particular detailed fish work. The price of wood and materials was a chunk cheaper than buying a form/blank. Wood carving scales takes an incredible amount of time for meticulous work...but boy the results are just as impressive as the same amount of time tipping layers upon layers on a fish form/blank. It obviously takes time and experience to burn scales but possibly worth the additional effort.

Anyway, if there is anyone interested....here's a fantastic website: http://artistryinwood.proboards.com/

The members on the website are more than willing to help out. There also is a lot to learn and gorgeous mounts (pieces) to drool over on the website.

 

If you seal it with mod podge and prime it, it will be a better service to paint on. Drawing all the scales in will be very time consuming. If you do it please post your results. Good luck!

 

I know of a guy in Switzerland that does it, Bo Wessman. If you are on Facebook you can look him up, and he has some videos on YouTube as well.

~S

 

This is one of Bo Wessmans foam carvings;

 

But WHY? To me from a BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE, this is just a dumb idea. If you think fish blanks are too high, I'd ask you what you think your creation is going to cost you in time, AND MONEY for the supplies necessary to pull it off professionally.

 

Indeed, I believe Bo does them for personal and competition pieces. Another reason would be to create something new and unavailable in commercial blanks.

~S

 

I pretty much do my fish for personal use. I have time to burn on each fish so $ has been my biggest concern. Commercial blanks are super expensive while fish forms are dirt....dirt cheap! Did I say dirt CHEAP!!!! A quality 30" trout blank will likely cost around $200+ while a trout blank the same size is roughly $35 (without head or fins). That's a savings to me of $175/fish! If I mounted 10 fish from forms it would be only $350 while 10 blanks would be closer to $2,000+. My wife would choke if I told her I spent $2,000 on 10 fish while she could likely care less if I only spent $350!

Even though I spent a small fortune on larger fish blanks I still ​

always spend a great deal of time customizing, modifying, and putting a lot more detail into them. I came to the conclusion that if I was going to spend that much time and $ on a blank that there must be a better way! That's what prompted me to start the fish form post. I also came to the conclusion that I might as well start from scratch with a piece of wood, carve it, and create my own piece of work. Fish wood carving is awesome and produces life-like results!

If you think about it and are a fish taxidermist and could figure out a strategy to use fish forms rather than commercial blanks that didn't take a lot of time and produced stunning mounts you would save you and your client a gob of cash! Another obvious choice is to make your own blanks...which is still fairly expensive and time consuming!

There's gotta be a way! ​

 

Jim, your math is as bad as mine. Your $35 blank doesn't include the $20 fins and the $40 head, nor the $50 Apoxie for supplies. A fish that big will take you 3 or 4 days worth of work and just for spitz and giggles, lets say your time is only worth $10 an hour. That means that you now have $240 in labor with $110 in supplies. So your souped up fish blank now cost you exactly the same as if you'd bought one ready to paint. Hmmm. In the 3 days you were diddling with making a repro, you could have finished half a dozen of the premade ones. But AGAIN, we're talking PROFESSIONAL taxidermy.

 

WOW! Somebody needs to take a chill pill!

If you want to get technical. In my latest taxidermy catalog a fish form is $35, fins $12, head $22. I believe my math is correct and that adds up to $69.

Many of the fish blanks I've bought over the years aren't ready to paint out of the box. Even the best blanks usually take time to attach the head, tail, and fins, etc. I modify all the blanks I work on so none are ready to paint! If I buy the same sized fish

blank from the same taxidermy catalog it is $240 and I would spend 10 to 20 hours modifying and putting details on the tail, fins, and head before painting. I would likely use the same supplies to get blanks or forms into shape....so really don't see any reason to add on a bunch of $ and time for supplies needed for modifying a form. ​

I'm doing the work for myself so there also is no reason to add on a bunch of $ for labor! I guess that's were we will agree to disagree!

A form with head, tail, and fins would be around $70 and a blank would be in the $240 to $300.

I also have the option of buying a nice chunk of bass wood for around $50 and carving a body, head, and fins for a lot less money than an expensive fish blank! Again, my labor is free for fish carving. That's why I have pretty much converted from buying expensive fish blanks and switched over to wood carving!

I only do fish for myself and I'm not trying to make a living off fish taxidermy! If I was a fish taxidermist there is a pretty significant price difference between a $70 fish form and a $240 to $300 blank. If there is a quick and easy way that doesn't take many supplies and time to whip a fish form into shape....it may save some major $. That's what this and my original post is all about in the first place! Is there a quick and easy way to prepare a fish form for painting that produces quality work? The carp in the photo above looks mighty good to me!

 

Jim, if you're putting in 10-20 hours to clean up commercial blanks then you need to find a new distributor - lol!

I think the key words in your post (and the disconnect with some others in this thread) are "I only do fish for myself" because there is no way you will ever recoop your time spent carving a finished body. Unless one enjoys being paid below minimum wage for those hours! You're in the wood/urethane carving realm now - not fish taxidermy nor fish replicas. Ask any wood carver how hard it is to sell their pieces for what they SHOULD get paid for them! Very time consuming AND it takes a ton of talent. How many out there could actually produce a wood/urethane carving that even a customer wouldn't be able to notice it's not a mold??? I suspect not many. So, not only is the thought of doing this NOT cost-effective, it's also talent driven - most of us could not pull it off.

You do it for the love of carving, period. There is no way, no how it will ever be cost effective in commercial fish taxidermy! Down the road with 3D printing maybe??? Who knows??? P.S. BOTH your numbers and George's are off btw - lol! Actual cost is somewhere in the middle I believe. George's epoxy number is way off and your head and fin numbers are off (including shipping) for QUALITY heads and fins. And of course size matters here too. Plus, add in your time making that fin set and head fit too! JMO!

 

Jimss,
A suggestion. Find a source for some 10-15lb HDU (high density urethane). It's very firm urethane foam that you can carve shape and texture. A block of foam will cost about the same as what a pre-made body would run or a comparable piece of basswood but you can make it in any pose you want and you can press in scale detail instead of having to carve them in wood. You can still add cast fins and cast head or eventually evolve into doing it all from wood or foam. If you can make it to the next world show you can accelerate your learning curve by setting in some of the fish carving seminars.
If you are just doing your own stuff for fun, enjoy and have at it. If the goal is to make money then you are barking up the wrong tree.

 

I totally get the idea of making them for yourself!!! I retired from doing fish about 1992 or so, and didn't have any for myself. My (now ex) wife didn't like them, and wanted all the molds tossed to make room.

Now I find myself wanting a few "perfect specimens" of my favorite species! Hang the time or expense! I want them MY way!!!!

~S

 

Check out Gene Bahr from Maine. He is a taxidermist but also does catch and release woodcarving of fish. They are usually smoothies with textures on the fins but without scale detail. His paint work is really nice. Might give some of you some inspiration.
I've been to his shop. He usually carves them from basswood and on the larger ones cuts them in half, hollows them and puts them back together to keep the weight down. It's not as bad of undertaking as one might think.