New Life Taxidermy | Taxidermy Tips, Tutorials, & Training

How To Install an Artificial Nose

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The tutorial for today is how to install an artificial nose. I am using a black bear for this example, but the same method works for small game, deer, etc. To get started, you will need to make sure that your artificial nose is comparable in size to your form and your skin. As a general rule, you can measure the width and height of the nose (with calipers) on the animal before skinning. When you order your form and nose, buy the size nose that most closely matches your measurements. In this case, the artificial nose I chose was slightly larger than the real nose, but worked great. If you are confused on which nose to order to fit a particular form, you can usually call the technical support staff at the taxidermy suppliers. They have always been helpful when I have needed their assistance.

After selecting the proper artificial nose and form, the nose must be fitted onto the form. To do this, I use a set of calipers to measure the depth of the nose from front to back (taken at the top). After measuring, use the calipers and a marker to transfer this measurement to the muzzle of the form. See the pictures below for how I did this.

Next, measure the height of the nose at the tip in the same manner in which the depth was measured. Transfer this measurement to the form. Use a marker to draw the outline of the portion of the form that will be removed.

I measured two points to outline the portion of the form to be removed. If you want to be super accurate, you can use more than two points and “connect the dots” to do this. After drawing the outline, I used a hacksaw to cut along the lines to remove the foam nose. Then, I test fit the artificial nose onto the form to determine if I made my cuts correctly. If the cuts are off and the nose sits too deep or too far back, you can make up the difference when gluing the nose in place. If the cuts were not deep enough, you can grind the nose down to fit or, preferably, just use the hacksaw to make the cuts a little deeper.

When I installed this artificial nose, it was too wide to fit the form. It stuck out about 1/8″ or so on each side of the muzzle. I used a dremel with a sanding drum to grind down the area behind the nose pad. I test fit the nose again to make sure that the level of the plastic sat below the level of the muzzle foam. Once I was satisfied with the fit, I drilled a few dimples in the nose and the form to allow for best adhesion. I then used hot glue to secure the artificial nose onto the form. After applying the glue, I placed the nose on the form and held it in the proper place until the glue cooled. Make sure to keep the nose properly aligned and centered.

After the hot glue has hardened, I like to test fit the skin just to make sure everything fits OK. If not, make any necessary modifications at this time. Once all modifications to the form are complete, I rough/sand the form, cut the lip slot, and use clay, bondo, or apoxie sculpt to blend the nose to the muzzle. In this case I used a combination of bondo and clay. Once the nose is blended to the muzzle, proceed with mounting the animal.

I will not go into the actual mounting of the bear or securing the skin around the nose today, but those are potential topics for future posts. As you can see installing an artificial nose is a relatively easy task. As with any other task in taxidermy, use reference and measurements to properly set the artificial nose in place. I cannot stress enough that you must make sure that the nose is properly aligned and centered until the hot glue sets. Artificial noses can save time or they can consume more time than conventional mounting techniques. There are too many variables to discuss the time aspects of using an artificial nose. I can tell you that it took me about 15 minutes to install this nose (including taking pictures). As with all my posts, I hope this helps my readers perform better taxidermy.

Product Review: HQ Taxidermy Supply Bear Rug Shell

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Today’s post is something I have yet to do on here, a product review. The product I am going to review is the new bear rug shell line that Head Quarters Taxidermy Supply is selling. The sculptor of this line of forms is Aaron Connelly. The rug shells come in three different configurations: form only with foam nose, form with mouthcup and foam nose, form with mouthcup and artificial nose. Additionally, you can have the parts assembled for $15. The rug shell I am reviewing was purchased with the mouthcup and artificial nose. For this configuration, the prices currently run from $172-$183 without assembly. I chose to assemble it myself. I’d like to mention that I purchased this rug shell so that this can be considered a truly unbiased review of the product.

When I unpacked the form and artificial parts, I observed that there were four pieces to the set: the main rug shell, the nose, the mouth cup, and the lower jaw portion of the form. The form was sculpted so that the artificial nose fits right onto it with no adjustments needed. The mouth area was sculpted to accept the mouthcup and the lower jaw was sculpted separately to allow easy installation. I tested the fit of all the pieces and everything fit together well.

I like the fact that the mouthcup is prepainted and needs no apoxie work to blend the mouth to the gums. This has been one of my biggest disappointments with the McKenzie line of cast lip rug shells. They have to have the jawset blended with apoxie to the gums and then the gums have to be painted. Assembly of the components of the rug shell was simple. All that is required is to rough the inside of the mouth portion of the form and the nose area. Then, the pieces can be assembled with hot glue. Total assembly time, including roughing/sanding the entire form, took less than 20 minutes.

Another nice feature of the rug shell is the preset eye sockets. Unlike other preset eye sockets on other forms, this form has foam that is rounded out to fit inside the divot in the Tohickon 170 series bear eyes. I checked the fit of the glass eyes into the socket and they were in the proper alignment with no guesswork. To install the eyes, I used a small dab of hot glue to hold them in place.

I also like the fact that the exterior part of the form next to the nose and mouthcup is made of foam. This makes it easy to prep the parts to hold the skin when it is glued down. This is unlike the McKenzie cast lip forms that require you to glue the skin to plastic.

Now, you might think this is the perfect rug shell based on what I have written so far, but nothing this side of heaven is perfect. I did not like the fact that there was a small gap between the form and the mouthcup in many places. I mounted the form without filling these voids with apoxie or other material. This made finishing the lip line take a little more work than it could have if I had filled in the gaps first. In the future, I will fill these areas with apoxie sculpt before mounting. I can guess that it would take 5-10 minutes to do this. This is one area where the McKenzie cast lip form is better. I don’t want my readers to think this was terrible. It is an area that could be improved.

When I mounted the skin onto this rug shell, it went very fast. I clayed in the eye lids on the form and sculpted my ear butts inside the skin. I applied hide paste, slid the skin over the shell and went to work. I tucked the eyes, set the ears, and then glued the skin to the lip line and artificial nose. Total mounting time (after form/skin prep) was about an hour and a half. This included bondoing the ears, taxiing the skin, and grooming the hair patterns. After the mount dried, I spent a little less than an hour blending and texturing the lip line and artificial nose to skin transition.

Yes, the cost of this rug shell is pretty high, but it is a really well-done product. The cost is comparable to the McKenzie line of cast lip bear rug shells, but the improvements make the few extra dollars well worth spending. The time savings in not having to paint the cast lips is great. When I painted this mount, all that I had to do was apply a little dusty rose to the sculpted in transition areas, followed by a little burnt umber and black. Total painting time for the whole mount was 15 minutes. Clean up of the overspray and application of gloss to the eye lids, nose, and mouth areas was another 20 minutes. The total time required to prep the tanned skin, prep the form, mount, and finish the rug shell was around 3 hours and 45 minutes. Add that to the time required to turn, flesh, and salt the skin and the total time in the mount is 4 hours and 15 minutes (customer rough fleshed and partially turned the lips, ears, eyes, and nose). The total cost to the customer will be $1250. Subtracting the supply costs (form, eyes, clay, glue, bondo, apoxie, paint, etc), tanning, rugging, and shipping, I will gross around $600 or more on the mount. Had I gone the traditional route and used a rug shell with a regular jaw set, I would have had to spend way more time fitting the jawset, dremeling the nose, and finishing the mount. There is no way I could have made up the $90 cost difference with my labor to mount a rug in the traditional manner.

Overall, I would highly recommend this line to anyone needing to mount an open mouth bear rug. Again, the cost is high, but the time savings make the difference worth every penny. The features I have mentioned also allow most any taxidermist with moderate skill the ability to produce a really nice product and make money doing it. Try one of these rug shells from Head Quarters Taxidermy Supply for your next bear rug project and I am sure you will be as pleased as I am with the results.

Business Logos

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I had a reader ask me to expound on the importance of a logo for your business. The question arose after he read my ebook, “How To Market Your Taxidermy Business in the Dot-Com Era”. To begin this post, I’d like to do a little exercise. I am going to post pictures of 4 logos. I’d like for you to see if you can guess the companies that they represent.

That was easy, wasn’t it? The point of that little exercise was to show you how powerful a logo can be. Without any words being displayed, you can easily identify the companies associated with those logos. The reason companies design logos is because they want you to associate that image with their product or brand.

As a business owner, it is up to you to build your brand. While it is unlikely that a taxidermy studio’s logo will ever be as well-known as those I posted, you should still consider developing a logo to strengthen your brand. Let’s look at a few more logos.

While these logos are not “household names”, those of us in the taxidermy industry easily recognize those logos and know the companies that they represent. McKenzie, WASCO, and VanDyke’s have built strong brands in the taxidermy industry. While their logos alone did not build those brands, they are a part of the overall brand-building enterprise. So, you can see the important part that a logo plays in developing brand recognition.

Let’s talk about what makes a good, quality logo. A logo does not necessarily need an image associated with it. It might simply be the name of your company in a certain font and color. Look at the Van Dyke’s logo, for example. Whenever you see a Van Dyke’s advertisement, you see “Van Dyke’s” in the same font and the same gold color. You also see it in all capital letters. That logo has no “picture” with it. The McKenzie logo also uses the same font/color everytime you see it and you always (or nearly always) see the same black deer in front of the red dot.

What makes your mind remember or “associate” the logo with the brand is repetition. Successful companies always have their logo prominently displayed on their ads, website, corporate apparel (shirts, hats, uniforms), or other promotional materials (catalogs, brochures, business cards, banners, etc.). They almost always use the same colors, fonts, layout, etc. Occasionally, they will switch things up. For example, McKenzie puts their logo on their shipping boxes, but the logo is in all black. The reason for doing this is to save money with printing. Printing a full color logo on every box that McKenzie ships out would cost them lots of money. I would assume they made a determination that the cost of printing a full color logo on a shipping container is not worth the benefit. Nonetheless, the logo font, layout, and picture are the same as the logo on their catalogs and other promotional items.

Another thing you will notice about the logos of major successful companies is that they are relatively simple. None of the logos posted on this page have intricate artwork. There are several reasons for this. For one, the simpler the logo is, the easier it becomes for your mind to recall. Another is the fact that simple artwork is easy to print, embroider, or screen-print on a variety of media. For the most part, the machines that produce logos on shirts, banners, etc. are incapable of replicating complex artwork, especially at smaller sizes. A nike swoosh is a simple design that can be easily embroidered on a shirt, even at a small size.

So, we have talked about the fact that a logo should be simple and easy to replicate. Let’s look at some other factors that go into designing a quality logo. Font selection should be considered. Any font that is used in a logo should be distinguishable from other fonts, but easy to read. Color selection is also important. I will not go into all the ins and outs of color, but different colors give the mind different responses. You can read online about the different effects different colors have on the mind. One of the main reasons to pick a particular color over others is your preference. As with fonts, your color selection should be pleasant and easy to replicate.

When it comes to actually producing a logo design, you can do it yourself or have one designed for you. If you do it yourself, there are a number of computer programs that you can use. I use Adobe Photoshop or a free program called GIMP. If you would like to hire someone to design a logo for you, the world wide web is full of companies that design logos for a living. While pricing structure and quality varies, you will most likely get a better product by hiring a company or individual to handle logo design for you. These folks have studied art, computer graphics, and even psychology to become good at producing logos that will easily associate with your brand.

I’m sure I could expand even further, but I believe I have covered the basics a business logo. Depending on where you want your business to go, a logo can help you get there. For folks like myself who want to remain a small, part-time operation, a high octane logo might not be warranted. If you want to reach the “stars”, I cannot imagine you doing it without a logo. One last note I’d like to share is that you should pick a logo and stick with it. Don’t change it frequently. Major companies will sometimes change their logos, but when they do, the changes are usually minor. When John Deere went to their new logo, most folks did not even notice. They changed the deer from landing to jumping to show that they had a vision to grow. Pepsi has changed their logo from the one I used at the beginning of this post. The colors and “idea” are the same, but they stylized it a little more. Since it is important to not make major changes to a logo, you should put a lot of thought, planning, and evaluation into your choice.

If you’d like to purchase my eBook on Marketing Your Taxidermy Business in the Dot-Com Era, follow the paypal “BUY NOW” link below or EMAIL me (jamesp@newlifetaxidermy.com). The book covers how to use modern technology to promote and market your business. The cost is $12.95 and the book is delivered to your email in electronic (.pdf) format within 24 hours of payment. Since I no longer use ads or affiliate marketing, your purchase helps fund this site.

Frozen Storage

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I know that storing specimens in the freezer is elementary, but it took me a while to figure out how to prevent freezer burn. In today’s post, I am going to give some ideas on how I have had success storing skins and specimens in the freezer.

BIRDS
With birds, I tuck the head against the body and place it in a large garbage bag. I then roll the bird up in the bag to get the air out. I then place that bag inside another bag and roll it up, again removing the air as I go. This adds several layers of plastic between the bird and the cold air. If you can skin the bird, flesh, and wash it, this will allow you to freeze the skin wet which really eliminates the possibility of freezer burn.

GAMEHEADS/LARGE LIFESIZE
Unless you have a large freezer, you will skin these specimens out before freezing. What I like to do is lay the skin flat in the freezer for half and hour to cool it completely after skinning. I then take the skin out and roll or fold it with the head in the center. I then double bag the skin in trash bags, removing as much air as possible. This method does 2 things. It helps prevent the eyes, ears, and nose from freezer burning and it helps prevent slippage. If you have time, it is best to skin, flesh, turn, and salt these skins. It saves freezer space and you don’t have to worry about losing the skins if the freezer were to go out.

FISH
When I place a fish into the freezer, I first wrap it in a dripping wet towel, if possible. I then place this in a garbage bag and roll it up as I do with other specimens. This not only prevents freezer burn, it protects the fins from damage as the wet towel forms a stiff protective layer when it freezes.

SMALL GAME
On small game, you can skin them or freeze them whole. I do both. Time constraints dictate which route I go. I prefer to skin them, if possible, and freeze the skins like I do large lifesize or gameheads. When you thaw out the skins, they will thaw much faster than a whole animal. This helps prevent slippage. Again, if you have time, skinning, fleshing, turning, and salting is the best route to go.

As I stated earlier, this is basic stuff, but important nonetheless. Proper storage of specimens is a key part of producing a quality mount.

I Need Topics

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The further I get into this project, the harder it gets to bring you fresh content. Since I started posting tips and tutorials, I have covered all kinds of subjects that I believe are helpful. Now, it is getting to the point where I need your feedback to keep things interesting and informative. What I need are suggestions of the topics you’d like me to present. I can cover most anything dealing with mammal, fish, or bird taxidermy. Reptiles are not a subject that I’m well versed in, so I will not cover those.

So, what I’m asking is for you to send me questions, comments, ideas, or requests so that I can provide the content that will be most beneficial to my readers. All you have to do is email me. My email is jamesp@newlifetaxidermy.com. I will try to get to all the topics as quickly as I can. You can also send photos of your work and I will critique it for you. When I provide a critique, I explain what is wrong and how I would recommend fixing it or preventing the same mistake in the future.

Thanks in advance for all your participation in making this website the best it can be.

Cash Flow Management

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Business operation topics are often overlooked in taxidermists’ conversations. However, I believe good business acumen is as important, if not more so, than good taxidermy technique. In today’s post, I am going to share some tips that I believe will help many of my readers with cash flow management issues.

During the fall and winter, most of us have a large volume of cash rolling in. Not only are we getting paid for completed projects, we are taking in deposits (if you aren’t, you should be getting at least 50% up front). It is all too easy to spend these deposits on things other than their intended purposes (paying for supplies and tanning, etc.). As a responsible business owner, you should avoid this at all cost.

Instead of properly managing cash flow, the situation often arises where a taxidermist has to complete a project to buy supplies for the next. Again, this is a bad situation to put your business in. If you have several customers who fail to pick up their mounts, or are slow to pay, this plan will cause much distress.

I have several recommendations to help with this problem. First, I recommend pre-paying for your tanning. At a minimum, I believe you should send the tannery a deposit when you send skins in for tanning, even if they do not require it. Even better is to pay for the entire tanning bill, except for shipping, up front. While some tanneries might not want you to do this, I cannot imagine any of them turning your money away. By pre-paying the tanning charges with the deposits you received, you will eliminate the stress of having to save the money for this.

Next, I recommend buying forms and other supplies, if possible, as soon as possible after taking the customer’s deposit. This might not be an option if you have limited storage space for forms or if the skins come in salted without measurements. In this case, you can ask your chosen supply company to accept a check from you to be applied as account credit. Then, when you place an order, the total for that order is deducted from your account credit. Some suppliers will not do this and others will. All you have to do is ask someone who is in charge. There is a risk that smaller supply companies might close up shop (and keep your account credit), so keep this in mind. If storage space is the problem, you can look for creative places to store forms for a short term. I have stored them in the crawl space of my house and up in the rafters of my garden shed. Another option is to take the cash from the bank and store it in an envelope marked supplies, preferably in a safe. When you are ready to order supplies, simply deposit enough of the cash to cover the order and shipping. Regardless of which route you go, if you cover the supplies up front, you will not run into the situation of using the proceeds from a completed mount to purchase supplies for the next mount.

Another way to help with cash flow is to prepay shop expenses with deposit funds. You can send the electric company (or other utilities) extra money and they will apply it as an account credit. You can also set the cash aside to help cover shop expenses. By setting cash aside in an envelope labeled shop expenses, you will be much less likely to spend that money on other things than if you left it in your checking account.

If you go ahead and encumber the deposits funds as I have suggested, you will reduce the stress of having no money and needing to buy supplies or pay a shop bill. I realize many shop owners don’t run into this, but I personally know many who do. I have seen many of these folks get into deep credit card debt to cover things that should have been covered with deposit funds and they have a very difficult time catching up.

Two things I should also mention along with these suggestions are discipline and charging enough for your work. You need discipline to not spend deposits on things other than supplies and shop expenses. No suggestion can change that behavior unless the business owner makes the decision to handle their business finances properly and then follows through with that decision. That is discipline. Also, I cannot stress enough that you must charge enough for your work. I have covered this in the past, but looking at the taxidermist across town’s pricing to set your prices is a bad idea. Figure up all your costs and your labor and then, add in some profit. Failure to charge enough will get you into a cash flow crisis quicker than any other business mistake I know. However, if you charge well for your work, it is easier to recover from a mistake, such as spending deposits for things other than supplies and shop expenses.

The last point I would like to make as I wrap this up is about using credit cards for supply purchases. I recommend using a debit card or check by phone if possible. If you do use credit cards for supply purposes, ONLY do so if you have the cash on hand to cover the bill in full when it comes in. Then, pay that bill in full the day you receive it. In my opinion, business debt is only acceptable for real estate purchases or really expensive equipment that you urgently need before you can save for it. Getting into debt to finance the day to day operations of a business will only lead to catastrophic failure.

With all of that said, you as the business owner are ultimately responsible for your cash flow management. If you have questions about how to handle business finances, I would be more than happy to help. Shoot me an email and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks for reading.

Hangers For Large Mounts

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Today’s taxidermy tip is on hanging extra large mounts. We’re talking elk, moose, bison, and the like here. You can use a variety of options, but the best option I have found is the Peace of Mind Safety Hanger from McKenzie Taxidermy Supply.

To install this hanger, I place it on the backboard of the mount and trace the complete outline of the hanger. Then, I cut out the opening for the lag bolt with a jig saw. Finally, I screw the hanger in place.

When hanging the mount, all you have to do is install a lag bolt into a stud on the wall. Then, simply set the mount up to the lag bolt and allow it to ride in the channel of the hanger. With this system, the mount cannot come off the wall unless you want it to come off. The exception would be for mounts that are extremely heavy on one side or the other (ex: wall pedestal). They could spin and fall off. The good news is that we typically do not mount these large animals in wall pedestal fashion. If you do have a mount that is heavy on one side, you will need to look at other hanger systems.

Below are a few pics of the Peace of Mind Hanger installed on a bison mount.

Color Blending

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As taxidermists, one of the hardest things we try to achieve is realism in our finish work. One of the keys to doing good finish work is color blending to produce a soft looking paint job. Today’s taxidermy tip will cover some techniques that can help you achieve a well-blended, realistic coloration in your mounts.

The first thing I would like to mention when talking about paint jobs is the “Rule of 3″. This is a term used by flat artists to describe how they add depth to their work. What the “Rule of 3″ says is that you should use 3 (or more) shades of a color together to obtain a rich, deep looking color. An example of this is how I paint mallard feet. I use a Wildlife colors lemon yellow and pumpkin. The third shade I use is Hydromist candy vivid orange. Though yellow and orange are “different” colors, orange is essentially a shade of yellow with red added…if that makes sense. Another example is the layering I use around deer eyes. I employ Wildlife Colors chocolate, milk chocolate, and burnt umber to build a nice brown coloration. When trying to achieve a “black” coloration on a gamehead, you can use burnt umber, paynes grey, and warm black. By using 3 colors, you will have a coloration that has depth and softness.

In addition to knowing the “Rule of 3″, you must understand how to build the depth of coloration. What I usually do is start with the lightest shade as the base coat. I then blend in the darkest of the 3 colors. Finally, I tie all 3 colors together using the middle shade. As an example, I recently painted a drake surf scoter bill. I began by painting lemon yellow as a base coat on the yellow/red/orange area. I then sprayed the red on the area that is darker. I followed that up with candy vivid orange between the two colors. Finally, I tied it all in with pumpkin. So, in this case, I used 4 colors to blend together to build the depth.

While this is nothing ground shaking to many of my readers, I believe that it will help my readers who are new in the craft. For commercial work, I do not always use 3 shades (or more) of a color, but I do always try to blend the colors well. Simply using one shade to produce a tone will almost assuredly result in flat looking finish work. Try this technique on your next mount and I believe you will see your finish work improve dramatically.

Waterfowl Heads

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In today’s post, I am going to cover doing a nice job on your waterfowl heads. No matter how good the rest of the mount is, if the head is poorly done, it will ruin the mount.

Achieving a nice bird head starts with what is under the skin. I use artificial heads on waterfowl. After painting the head, I use a dremel with a small grinding bit to remove the paint along the edge where the skin will be glued. If you fail to do this, your glue will not hold the skin in place. After cleaning the excess paint off the head, I drill out the eye orbits. Then, I set the eyes in black apoxie sculpt. I use Erling Morch’s acrylic eyes as I believe they are the most accurate eyes on the market. They are available from McKenzie Taxidermy Supply, Headquarters Taxidermy Supply, and others. After setting the eyes to the proper depth and alignement (use measurements taken from carcass), I place a small piece of black apoxie along the front of the eye to recreate the nictitating membrane.

After installing the head onto the neck, I pull the skin over the head. On some waterfowl, the head skin will be too tight to get over the artificial head. In this case, I make a small cut on the back side of the head at the bottom corner of the mouth to help get the skin on. I would rather make this cut than have the skin rip. When gluing the skin back to the artificial bill, I work in small increments. I glue the top V notch first, then the bottom. I then work one side in 2 or 3 steps. If you look closely at the skin, you will see the key alignment points. Use enough glue to hold the skin and no more. After the skin is completely glued, use your airbrush to blow air on the skin/bill transition. This will allow you to see if there are any areas where the glue did not hold the skin in place. If you have any of these spots, re-glue them.

Next, I caulk the head with a curved tip syringe. I insert the caulk through the ear holes. Caulk the top of the head, the cheeks, and the neck junction. After caulking, insert a pin through the ear hole in the skin into the ear hole in the head. This will ensure that your skin is aligned perfectly.

Moving on to the eyes, I pin the front corner of the eye onto the nictitating membrane. Then, I shape the eye skin with tweezers, pins, and brushes. Tuck the fuzzy white feathers under the eye unless you are going for a sleepy eye attitude.

As a final step, check symmetry and groom the head. I use a stiff brush to align and groom the head feathers. Following these steps and using reference will allow you to achieve a better looking bird head.

Reference Study Exercise

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I recently purchased some aluminum duck decoy molds. The molds can be filled with 2 part foam or EPS beads to produce nice foam gunning decoys. After pouring several different bodies and heads, I had to accomplish the task of painting these decoys. As I began trying to paint them, I had a lot of trouble getting started. I tried using my memory to lay out the colors and feather patterns. I quickly realized that even though I have studied reference for taxidermy purposes, I really needed more in-depth reference study to do a good job painting my new decoys.

So, I sat down at my computer and pulled up different pictures of live birds. Additionally, I used mounted birds to get an idea of the colors I needed to use. As I was doing all that, I realized that studying the colors and individual feather shapes more closely will in turn help me with my taxidermy interpretation of reference.

As a result of my experience, I am challenging my readers to participate in a reference exercise. What I would like for you to do is get a couple old decoys that need a touch up and some paint. You can purchase the cheap craft paint at your local craft store or you can use house paint. Another option is to lay down a base coat of Kilz primer and then use airbrush paint. Either way, I’d like for you to paint those decoys. First, do one without using any reference. Don’t look at other decoys, live birds, mounts, or photos. Simply paint the decoy from memory. Then, paint another one, only this time, look at pictures, live birds, dead birds, or mounts. After you have painted the 2 decoys, compare them. You will quickly see that reference study does make a difference.

I hope all my readers will take this challenge and participate in this exercise. Send photos of your decoys to jamesp@newlifetaxidermy.com,/a>. I’ll post them up on the blog. Thanks again for reading.