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Trust the process on this one.

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With some of last round’s ducks finished, it’s time for some more!

Featuring America’s smallest duck species.

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Forgot to post these guys! They’re all done now.

The flying pair have already gone home.

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All finished!

Man, sometimes I wish I could keep ‘em.

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Do you have any advice on skinning and mounting the fleshy parts of a turkey/pheasant head?

Hello!

Typically—at least here in the states—turkey mounts use artificial heads. The skin is cut off at the feather line on the neck and the head is discarded. You’re really not going to get a good result out of using the real head unless you send it off to someone who can freeze-dry it. If you’ve already skinned it, then that’s not an option.

Genuinely, if I were you, I’d go the artificial route.

As for pheasant, I only have experience with Ringneck Pheasants, so my apologies if this doesn’t exactly translate to whatever species you’re working on.

I use artificial beaks on my birds, so this may not apply to you if you don’t plan on doing the same. Again, I recommend the artificial route. It gives you a better product in the long run and it’s easier to work with.

What I do with my birds is I’ll skin out the body, then carefully pull the skin off of the neck like a sock until roughly 2-3in” from the head. Basically, stop when there’s any amount of tension. You can and will rip the neck skin off of the body with too much force. Then I sever the neck, leaving just the head and a little bit of neck still in the skin. Get the head back out, since it’ll be inside the folded over neck skin.

Typically I start skinning the head from the beak. I make an incision right where the skin meets the beak and then skin back towards the eyes. (Let me know if you need a tutorial on how to skin eyes. They are deceptive little things.) Then keep skinning backwards, skin the ears, and off the head. Then just skin off of whatever’s left of the neck!

Pheasants skin exactly like ducks; their wattles don’t get in the way at all. Pheasant heads don’t really need to be fleshed much, if at all. You don’t have to split the wattles or anything. I do invert the neck again to flesh, however.

The thing with pheasants is you’ll have to be gentle with the face. The tiny red feathers that make up their wattles and the skin around the eyes can fall out if you’re being too rough. This can be fixed with some paint or pan pastels after the mount is dry, but it’s something to avoid if possible.

Hope this helps! Good luck with your bird!

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Thought I’d seen the last of the giants for a while…then this guy rolled in.

This beast is a bull Bison, and he’s twice as large as the cow bison I did a while back.

And, yes, that is the same buck I used for a size comparison last time, just so you can see just HOW much bigger this monster is.

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It’s funny to me how much more attention my recent ducks have gotten vs my recent deer.

We are all bird freaks 🤝

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Last mount of the week!

This mannequin series is my favorite for whitetail wall pedestals. It just looks so handsome <3

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absolutely stunning duck mounts, I don't think I could pick a favorite but the diving pose especially is drop dead gorgeous.

but also the blue tape immediately sends my brain thinking it's in photoshop finishing rendering the background/checking there's no stray feather coloring outside the lineart :') (out of curiosity, is it really just painter's tape, or is it a specialty type for keeping feathers in place while the mount dries?)

Hello!

Thank you so much! Genuinely this made my day. (That one’s my favorite, too <3)

As for the tape, yep! It is just painter’s tape lmao. Straight from Home Depot.

It’s sticky enough to hold the feathers in place, but removes easily enough as not to damage them!

I know, the “fresh” duck mounts look silly with the tape, but I just can’t wait till they’re dry to share them on here lol

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And with that, all the ducks for this week are done!

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Itchin’

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Hope y’all like bird mounts because that’s all I’m doing this April

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I found this guy in my fridge. Anyone know what it is??

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