Spectacular Taxidermy Photos

In 1964 I started doing taxidermy, when I was in the 4th grade.( For Christmas, my Grandfather had gotten me 4 pamphlets on all aspects of taxidermy, from Bossier City, LA on methods from the 1930's.) That's how I learned to wrap mannikens and through the years I developed better methods. Instead of a boring animal just standing there, I wanted a lot of action.
Maybe I was a wildlife photographer wannabe, but couldn't afford the time to capture the shots I wanted. So I mounted up animals, put them in the woods and photographed them.
Here's some of my favorites. What do you think? Are any spectacular? None of these were done for competitions. (If you're going to tell me what's wrong with an aspect of a mount, provide a photo of what you've done, with a mount of similar difficulty. If you haven't done
anything similar - shut up.)
Most of the pictures were taken years ago and then scanned to be on computer. I've lowered the quality of these photos so that they can't be stolen and used by someone else.
3 or 4 years ago, someone sent me a photo essay called "The 100 greatest wildlife photos".
One of the photos was of a mount I did of a fox jumping up and biting a goose on the tip of it's wing as it was trying to fly away. So I haven't shared my mounts with this forum for the last 15 years. But now I want to see what my fellow taxidermists think of my work.
If you have a spectacular photoed mount, in the outdoors, you're welcome to add it to the one's I'm putting up. I've got a lot more that I'll dig up and add in the future.
I'll be posting similar threads in 'Birds' and 'Fish'.
Cheers,
Terry Doyle

"It's A Restaurant Out There". I did this mount for an education school district museum near Denver in 1986. They paid me $100 for the eagle sitting on a branch and $40 for the kangaroo rat. I couldn't waste the eagles beauty so I grabbed a fox from the freezer and made this mount, all for $140. The museum was happy. (All under permits from the USF&WS).

"FOXD". The fox is going to get .... The foxes toe touches the coyote's tooth. This is one piece. I had to have the twine come up my pants leg and through my shirt and out to my hand to wrap these bodies without getting the twine and excelsior all tangled up. (I'll show this mount again from the angle where you can see the foxes expression - later).


I had to carry this mount over 100 yards to get it to this spot. The 'feather' the fox is biting is made out of sheet steel, texturized and painted to match the other feathers. One piece excelsior using my methods for extremely strong manikens.

All these mounts are wrapped excelsior. A one piece mount like this takes careful planning to pull it off. Only that one rabbit foot touches the ground.

I only had 45 minutes to drive down the road, put this mount near some trees, get the shot and get it back before the client picked it up. It's a shame that the snow in the background dilutes the wolf's colors. Because of my wrapping methods, I can do stuff like this. The wolf has a 1/2" square steel tube in it's neck. The lion has a 1/2" square steel rod coming out of it's paw. So the lion can be pulled off. This mount was around 1999.



'BOB'S THANKSGIVING'. The bobcat has a 1/4" square steel tube in it's chest and the turkey has the steel rod sticking out of the center of it's foot. I made the support feather out of sheet steel, texturized and painted to match the feathers. On other photos, there are feathers flying behind the cat (cut off in this photo). Around 1995.


The hardest part of this photo was suspending the eagle in the water and making the splash.
This was the first mount done for the International Endangered Wildlife Museum, that I was attempting to create in Aspen, Colorado. (Rick Laurienti did the trout mount). Around 1987.
Besides getting the permit for the eagle from the USF&WS I had to get permission from the National Parks Service to take this photo. Then I had to worry about other people getting the same shot without putting all the time and effort in to create the mount. So I had a couple of buddy's off camera that would stand in front of tourists trying to photograph the scene.


The foxes hind feet are 2 feet above the ground (but grass hides that fact). Fake steel pheasant tail feather, painted and texturized....


Close up of the pheasant from a different angle.


Only the deer's left front foot touches the ground. There were lots of lion killing deer mounts but I hadn't seen any where the deer has no choice but to try to gore the lion. I bought a manniken for the deer and altered it. I made a fake steel antler where a 1/2 " square steel rod sticks out 2" from the inside of the antler. There is a 1/2" tube in the lions foot that slides over the rod. I casted the lion in 6 pieces.
This is enough for now.
Cheers,
Terry Doyle

 

Thanks for the supportive comments. Here's some more mounts:

These excelsior wrapped mounts were done in 1979.(Above and below).


(Below) The front coyote's hind feet are over 2 feet off the ground. This was in 1980 and I wasn't knowledgeable about painting the coyote's mouth. The best thing about the wrapped excelsior is that they are much stronger than foam, although not as light.




These fighting bobcats were done in 1988. It's a one piece mount, so wrapping the twine and thread around the bodies was a bitch.


(Above). This mount was done for that museum near Denver in 1979. There is a 12ga spring steel wire that goes up the squirrel's foot, through the body, up the tail and into the owl's foot. The problem was that the owl would swing side to side, so notice the piece of grass on the left that is bent towards the owl, touching it on the leg. That's a 14 GA. wire that anchors the owl.



This squirrel, done in 1976, is anchored to the base by the tail wire.
All of these mounts are excelsior. I couldn't afford to buy mannikens and when I finally could, I decided to keep wrapping the animal bodies because I can mount any animal in the world to do anything I want it to, (now) from practice. (Up to wolves and mountain lions, although now I would make plaster moulds of each limb and body and head and fill with foam. With the meat still on the head I would use water clay and put in the mouth muscles
and any meat cut off with the skin and then it would be 95% done when I foamed it. Quick and easy).


Around 1980, I saw an add in the Ft. Collins Coloradoan (newspaper) about 'The Laughing Dog Saloon'. It's logo was a cocker spaniel walking upright, on one leg, holding a glass of beer. Instantly, I decided to do the logo with a coyote and sell it to the bar. (In those days I would mount anything and hope to sell it.) So I mounted the coyote up and put it on a 15" X 15" X 3" piece of wood as the base.
I had never been in that bar before. I was surprised that it was a biker bar, when I walked in, carrying the mount. Everybody stared at me. I put the mount on the floor.
The owner walked over and asked what the deal was. I told him that it was his logo without the hassle of getting bad reactions with a stuffed dog (which I've done 3). He said " What do you want for it". "$325", I replied. He took two $100 bills out of his pocket and said "I'll give you this for it". I said "I have to get $325 for it". He said, "no one else will buy that ,
just me, so take the two hundred". I said "I'll tear this thing limb from limb before I sell it for $200" and walked out (even though I really needed the money). Eventually I sold it for $400 to another bar in that college town.
The photo below was taken before I filled the mug up with tinted resin - that came out fantastic and had froth on the top. (Yeah, wrong color in the mouth).



(Below) Here's a different angle on that fox and goose mount. The 'feather' that the fox is biting is sheet steel (textured and painted) welded to the fake (1/4" steel rods) wing bones of the goose.



It's hard to see, but that mongoose's tail is about a foot above the ground. Here's a closeup of it's face: 2010. On Maui where I lived for 15 years. Black pheasants and mongoose were abundant.

Well, that's the most I can upload at a time. I'll post some more soon.
So are these believable wildlife shots?
Cheers,
Terry

 

Here's a few more.
This was the 8th largest wolf (skull measurement) in B&C at the time. That's a big wolverine
trying to bite it. All off of that one foot. (about 1999). Nose to toe connection.


This is a one piece job. I wrapped the wolverine and bought the largest wolf manniken and connected them.

Around 2002 I mounted this double mouflon mount. They were shot on the Big Island of Hawaii. I bought the mannikens and altered them. They are two separate mounts. The one with the foot touching the ground has a 12" square steel tube in it's horn. The other one has the 1/2" square steel rod sticking out about 3 inches. So they can be separated easily:

Here's an indoor shot:


This is a mount that I did just before I started photographing them in nature. The grey fox gets bit by a rattle snake and jumps away but the fangs pull the snake with it. (Below, around 1981).


Here's another one I wish I had put some dirt on the base in a prairie setting. Two jackalopes with their horns locked

 

This was done around 1981. Wrapping rabbit bodies is pretty tough, with those skinny legs.

The feral cat/ nene gosling was done for Hawaii Volcano National Park Museum around 2003. The cat had killed over 30 of the endangered geese, probably all goslings. The cat's canine teeth were all worn down. But the Museum director told me to make them big and mean looking! Money talks.

Besides spectacular photograph taxidermy, I've mounted scores of 'regular' mounts
like this fox and pine martin on an old elk skull, done in 1979.


Thanks for looking. Best wishes for the future. We're all gonna need it. Terry

 

What do you think of this shot?