Jwar Still Wants To Do Taxidermy: Keep It Fucking Positive

[$harkToootth]

Greetings Astral Traveler!!! Welcome to the thread. Please skip to page 2 as this started as a thread about taxidermy but then Verizon was a bunch of cunts and spotify is a disease so the thread became about that now.

Now, if you have actual taxidermy you would like to post, honestly, PLEASE DO! We're all really nice people. Verizon just sucks. As does spotify (for different reasons). The people who matter will know what you're doing and will praise you for your contribution if you post actual taxidermy. Heck, maybe a nice story or two about your process and/or acquisition would be nice. Thanks and have a safe trip.

I remember once my dad got a taxidermy bear vagina as a gift from a client. He desperately wanted to throw it away, but had to keep it so he could display it every time the client came back. I found out he quit that job once he told he finally got rid of that thing. I think he secretly found it hilarious/loved it because he would not shut up about it. Still ended in the trash though.

Now watch when he finally dies I'll go through his stuff and find it dusty in some storage corner.

Does anyone here do taxidermy? Is anyone into it? I feel like... I could get into it. I really don't need another hobby but... I could see myself taking a class if it's inexpensive.
I totally have the collector/hoarder blood... so maybe this is just an extension of my creative ways of enabling my habit/hobby? Probably is... not denying... NEXT!!!
But seriously, who is into it? INB4 isaac brock. What do you do with it? Any preferred 'subjects'? How did you learn? I want the details.

If you are a collector, what do you look for in a piece?

[Jwar]

I have wanted to do it for years but my wife has veto'd it. I'm still tempted to do it. Most recently I found a dead owl, that would have been cool to do something with but it went to the earth instead.

[frodog]

Taxidermy?! Jesus fuck, why would you ever take up such a hobby unless you're a retired, alcoholic hunter who hates his family. That's the only reference I have for people who do that, anyway.

[Jwar]

Same reason that once upon a time I was going to do crime scene clean up or be in EMS. It doesn’t bother me.

With taxidermy you can make what is gone beautiful once again. In my eyes it’s a form of art. It’s not like you’re killing the animals. You certainly don’t have to at least. Birds die all the time. It would be easy to amass a collection of just those out here.

[frodog]

Yeah, but crime scene cleanup or EMS is actually helping people, taxidermy is just an archaic hobby or side business at best. I mean it is a way to study animals up close if you're really interested in that, but these days it seems more urgent to focus on conservation. I just think an animal is more beautiful alive.

[misterstomach]

...unless you're a retired, alcoholic hunter who hates his family.

You say this like it’s a bad thing? I’d love to be retired.

[$harkToootth]

Yeah, but crime scene cleanup or EMS is actually helping people, taxidermy is just an archaic hobby or side business at best. I mean it is a way to study animals up close if you're really interested in that, but these days it seems more urgent to focus on conservation. I just think an animal is more beautiful alive.

In the spirit of full transparency, I meant finding already dead animals. I couldn’t hurt a fly. Cave Crickets are my spirit animal. I’m just saying... Mr. Beaver had a bad day and is taking a “permanent nap” on the side of the road... I might pick him up and pay tribute.

It is archaic which appeals to me tbh. I kind of grew up around kitschy things and now have grown to love them. But again, I wasn’t clear, hurting animals is not a prerogative of mine.

[Olin]

I have a cousin who has gotten very into it over the last few years. She's 23 and definitely not alcoholic for reference lol.
She's done a bunch of classes and they seem to start you out on smaller birds and rodents before going up to bigger things. The regulations on what you can and can't use, which animals you're allowed to use etc are pretty strict and penalties are harsh for not abiding by them, she's spent a few days driving around looking for "good roadkill" and has done I think a raccoon that way. Her dream is to do a deer/moose, upright with handles on the ribcage so that you can open its torso to find an alcohol cabinet inside, with LED's in the antlers.
I asked her for referencing in this thread and she said the hardest thing is finding a place for storing carcasses and chemicals, and setting up an area to do it in properly is expensive because you need a pretty serious ventilation setup for some of the chemicals you'll be using to preserve certain types of animals for it to all be done legally.

My biggest takeaway is that there's a strong market for bootleg taxidermy and that "the man" is the enemy of hobby taxidermists.

[frodog]

I did not think you were about to kill animals just to stuff them $hark Toootth, that would be weird. Using roadkill or what you already hunt for food I guess is usually how it's done, but yeah I know nothing really. As long as it's not an endangered species I'm ok with it.

Have you looked into cryptozoology/chimera taxidermy? I've seen some pretty cool/disturbing examples of that on the internet. If you really want to freak people out that's the way to go I think.

[D.o.S.]

. Her dream is to do a deer/moose, upright with handles on the ribcage so that you can open its torso to find an alcohol cabinet inside, with LED's in the antlers.

Her dream is now my dream, too.

[qersty]

...so i couldn't be the only one who just HAD to image search "taxidermy bear vagina"?

[Achtane]

Wtf kind of gift is that? What the hell?
Taxidermy will always be weird although I can appreciate the effort that goes into a successful one, as well as the hilariously shitty ones.
I have a deer skull that I painted shiny silver and toxic waste green

[$harkToootth]

I asked her for referencing in this thread and she said the hardest thing is finding a place for storing carcasses and chemicals, and setting up an area to do it in properly is expensive because you need a pretty serious ventilation setup for some of the chemicals you'll be using to preserve certain types of animals for it to all be done legally.

Thanks for looking out brother. Also, thanks for killing any interest I had on this. I can’t take up any 1. Expensive hobbies 2. Logistically involved hobbies.

Not going to lie, started this thread excited and it’s more or less dead to me now.

[Olin]

Mods please taxidermy this thread.

[Eivind August]

Her dream is to do a deer/moose, upright with handles on the ribcage so that you can open its torso to find an alcohol cabinet inside, with LED's in the antlers.

This is amazing.

I've never really thought about how others view taxidermy, just now realizing that I'm indoctrinated. Looking at a grouse up on the shelf at my dad's house right now. Think he has some others around here somewhere. I seem to remember a stoat. There are many hunters in my family, so there's taxidermied animals almost everywhere I go.

My dad was the principal of a college of forestry when I was a kid, and they had a large collection of typical 'wegian wildlife. It was pretty interesting. But yeah, I totally get how it can be seen as weird. It kinda is.