Recent projects

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, I have been doing a lot of artwork as well. You can find my art blog here: http://foxtrailart.blogspot.co.uk/

Today I mounted two rats using the traditional wrapped method. This time I did not use foam or casted heads, but instead built them with clay and woodwool. This was a bit of an experiment, but I am quite happy with the results for a standard ebay mount. For a more professional mount for a competition or art gallery, I would probably make sure to use the original skull, or make a cast.

Champagne coloured rat

The first rat was a young, champagne coloured rat. I really like his colour! Below is a hooded rat, that I don't think turned out as well, but still an improvement on my earlier rats!

Hooded rat

Here are the rats together! The champagne rat stands up on his hind legs :)

I am going to make a follow-up post to this showing my process of wrapping bodies. I will have photos of the full process including skinning, wrapping and mounting in my future e-book on mounting rats and mice.

I am also working on some mouse 'rugs', with multimammate mice. These mice are LARGE, the size of small rats! These are beautiful white and grey coloured, and I hope to also get some mounted this week.

Here is a WIP rug, it needs to be mounted on felt still:

Please keep an eye on this blog for the future blog about wrapping small animal bodies! :)

Alum Tanning and New Blog

Today I made a new alum tan/pickle as my previous one was unsuccessful; the skins didn't tan  - they seemed to just be stuck in a suspended state of preservation. After asking a taxidermist I know for exact measurements he told me:

2 pounds salt
1 1/2 pounds alum
1 pound borax

All dissolved in hot water, and then left to cool.

Well, my mixture has been made, and I have stirring it every now and then to help all the powders dissolve before the water goes cool. Hopefully it will all dissolve and go cool by tonight, and I will then put the pelts back in. If this doesn't work, back to the white tan!

Apart from this, I haven't been working much on taxidermy things this week as I was at home the weekend and also have been working on commissioned artwork.

I have a new blog for my pagan and fantasy artwork here: http://foxtrailart.blogspot.co.uk/

I will be posting sketches, commission slots, tutorials, photos and all that good stuff on there! Be sure to follow if you are interested in that kind of artwork :)

Tomorrow I will be preparing some rats for a client, and also working on some mice for another client. They want them hanging dead for some owls, so that will be interesting! They are house mice by the look of it, I have only ever mounted their domestic counterparts so I am hoping I can pull them off.