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maryssoftmounts
♀️
[30769398]
[2014-04-04 13:00:46 +0000 UTC]
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 590; Deviations: 134; Watchers: 176
Watching: 7; Pageviews: 37759; Comments Made: 9700; Friends: 7
# Interests
Favorite visual artist: Will MosesFavorite movies: Horror
Favorite TV shows: Horror/Sci-Fi
Favorite bands / musical artists: Very eclectic!
Favorite books: Horror
Favorite writers: Dean Koontz and Stephen King
Favorite games: Boring old board games
Favorite gaming platform: See above!
Tools of the Trade: wood-working, landscaping, soft mount taxidermy
Other Interests: Camping, nature walks, bike rides
# About me
WELCOME TO MY PROFILE PAGE!{If you are here to see my Tutorials, just follow this link stolen-foxes.deviantart.com/ga… }
SALE TERMS AND POLICIES
I do not do Commission Work, I make only 'Pre-made' Soft Mounts. I sell primarily on EBay via Auction, but if I have anything for sale I usually list it here and in my Facebook Groups as well.
MY SOFT MOUNTS: I make both floppy stuffed and pose-able mounts. If I make a mount pose-able, I install my own standard armature design: stolenfoxes.deviantart.com/jou…
PRICE: This depends upon the price of the pelt I am working on, how much my supplies cost, and if I install armature or not.
SHIPPING: I provide FREE Priority Shipping on all of my Mounts. I ship within the Continental United States only. I insure all of my mounts for the full Purchase amount, so if they get damaged or lost during shipping you will be given a Full Refund. I ship within two business days after payment.
RETURNS/REFUNDS: I stand by my work and I want you, the Customer, to be fully satisfied! If you are displeased with your mount in any way, you may return it to me for a full refund (Buyer pays return shipping). You must contact me for said Returns within two weeks after receiving your mount.
PAYMENT POLICIES: I only accept payments via PayPal. Once you claim your Mount, you will be sent a PayPal Invoice for the Full Amount.
I do not do Holds, Trades, or Payment Plans.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR WATCHES AND FAVS!
# Comments
Comments: 183
I really love your soft mounts, you do a great job! Are you open to questions? I have 1 question I'm curious about.
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Thank you (better late that never)! I hardly come here any more except when I need to update my portfolio.
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Happy Slightly Belated Birthday!!
Have a furry time!!
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not to bother you, but i look at your creations all the time, and its making me realize its a business and hobby i'd like to get into one point or another! i have to ask, is there any advice you'd have for a beginner?
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Yes! Learn the basics of taxidermy before succumbing to the urge to buy a pelt. Here are a couple of Tutorials to get you started The Basics of Taxidermy and Mounting.Below I will be stating my levels of knowledge for taxidermy and mounting to help out new beginners [I'm still a beginner myself, but ya'know, fresh meat.] Now I still have lots to learn! But for now, I will share what I know to help the rest of you new comers out. and The biggest mistake Beginners make is buying a 'wall hanger' pelt that is incomplete and not 'taxidermy-prepped'. Learning will get much easier once you learn ''Taxi Talk'. That means familiarizing yourself with Taxidermy terminology such as words and phrases like 'wet-tanned', 'split lips' and all the other weird things we Taxi people say without thinking twice about. Is your main interest soft-mounting? You mount the head of a soft mount in EXACTLY the same way that you mount a regular (also known as 'Life-Size') mount. I must say this is an excellent time to get into Taxidermy. It is gaining in popularity, and now that more people are hearing about 'soft mounts' they want one! Good luck and feel free to ask me questions.
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thank you, those are both very helpful! of course i am going to read up as much as i possibly can before buying a pelt of any kind. im interested in both soft mounts and life sized, but i think im going to start out with soft mounts.
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Soft mount bodies are MUCH easier to mount, particularly if you don't do armature. With no armature, the cost of doing the body work is much, much less as well. BUT, soft mounts with armature are able to compete in the Market place with 'Life Size' (LS for short) mounts. Some things to consider!
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Great! I was thinking about making something "sleepy", so in reality its mainly just a head, and maybe a wire down the spine and tail. i'm not really sure how armature works all that much. Is it just wire wrapped in stuffing?
I dont think im going to open a shop until I have everything down, so i can work an easy business and have everything flow smoothly. Id also like more experience just for caution...
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I cut cotton batting www.fabric.com/buy/qbr-011/qui… |1I367qot|pcrid|8812681148|pdv|c|&utm_source=bing_shopping&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Bing+Shopping&utm_content=1I367qot|pcrid|8812681148|pkw||pmt||pdv|c|product|QBR-011|into strips that are about 1" by 12" wide and long and glue them to the wire with my hot glue gun Did you see my tutorial?
HOW I MAKE MY ARMATURE: UPDATED 11-20-2017
SPECIAL NOTE: This is really more of a Pictorial Walk-through. I do not go into a lot of detail or necessarily show every step I take.
I hope this version will be a little easier to understand than the previous one!
I will be using photos from the armature construction of various foxes. My armature consists of 10 gauge wire and it has no true joints. I simply bend the wires at the appropriate places, using the skeleton below as a guide:
ARMATURE PIVOT POINTS:
Red: Shoulder
Blue: Elbow
Green:Ankle
Yellow:Knee
My goal was to create a simple wire frame that would allow the legs to be pose-able and allow the mount to hold it's own head up. I wrap my wires so that while petting my mount, I don't just feel bare, hard wire in som With no armature, the soft mount can't hold its heads up. The legs have an unnatural shape as well. Here is another tutorial the is REALLY good
Armature Face and EarsPart 3 of My How I Art Doll
Starting the Armature/Sculpting the Face and Ears
I like to sculpt my doll's face and feet with Sculpey Premo! polymer clay. For one doll I use about 1/6 to 1/5 of an 8oz bar. So if you don't want to buy a lot of polymer clay, a 2oz package should be plenty for a doll this size.
🌟I like to use a photo or drawing to measure the length of the doll's spine, using a guide also helps me keep the desired anatomy in check. Make sure to measure the wire longer than you want, because you lose length when you twist it together, and it's easy to cut off excess but you can't add on extra! In my experience I found it's best to make the neck a bit longer than my guide, the short
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Love your gallery.
I realised that I have a knack of confusing myself and giving myself a strange personality and I give people like you full credit 
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Thought-to-self: MANY people into taxidermy are just a little bit 'off'. This is especially true when it comes to our sense of humor. Thanks for the compliment, FYI! I'll take any kind I can get.
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No problem, I like good art
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I really like your art work, but due to a disability I have to limit my computer time. This means that I only watch the people that are in my Taxidermy group.
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Merry Christmas!!!!!
I'll be noteing you at some point.
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Hello!
Is it possible to split the lips on a already tanned pelt? The pelt I have is a coyote and his lips are intact and are not damaged at all. Do you so pose it's possible?
Also happy birthday! (Sorry I said it late!)
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To the best of my knowledge, when they do the skinning on pelts not intended for taxidermy, they just cut off the inner lip skin (as well as the inner eye lid skin) and just toss it. Skinning out a head for taxidermy work is tedious and time consuming, and requires a skillful, steady hand. Some people have been known to actually sew skin onto the inside of the lips so that there is something to tuck. I've never attempted it though. Good luck and thanks for the Happy BDay!
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hey there!
its lakorvin ^w^
this is my extra account where i'll be storing my taxidermy pictures
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Cool! and welcome to the Misfit group.
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On your profile page, at the bottom, you'll see a list of the groups that you are a member of. Click on that group's icon and you will be directed to that group's profile page. Near the top, within the blue bar, you'll see the 'Submit Art' icon. Click on it and all of your recent posts will appear. Click on the post that you want to submit. It will get highlighted in blue. Now look down,and near the bottom of the page, you'll see a box that says ''Submit'. Click on it and you're done! It will later appear on that group's profile page. First your submission will be need to be reviewed and (hopefully) approved by the Administrator(s) for that group.
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Your soft mounts are gorgeous! Your faces are adorable and I really love how much attention you give the rest of the body. So many soft mounts end up looking like blimps with dangly legs but yours don't suffer from that at all.
Also, thanks for the tutorials! I've been looking at armature-wiring a faux plush in the near future, or doing one with an open mouth, and your tutorials have given me many ideas.
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Thank you kindly! Creating good armature for soft mounts is changing in leaps and bounds. We have a lot to learn from the makers of pose-able art dolls. One big consideration is 'How much armature is too much?' 'Too much' can lead to un-huggable mounts, and that's no good!
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Hello! Since you were kind enough to comment on one of my taxidermy pictures on my other account (it was on ghost-beachart or whatever the account's called, it was an ermine mount) I was hoping you'd be open to help me once more with something I've been stuck on for a few weeks? The lower jaw of a coyote I bought is very small, I bought a head form for it and along with it being too big the jaw just won't stretch up to the upper one at ALL. The pelt was sold as something the seller said was mountable so I figured it was a common problem or something and just tried to google it. No results.
After experimenting, I just ended up ripping part of the lip and got frustrated I spent over a hundred dollars on all this and can't return any of it so I was hoping to god you had some kind of solution since you're experienced with this stuff? No-one else I've met has any idea what to do since none are taxidermists and I reaaaaaally don't want to be out a hundred dollars right now--
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Some pictures would help me get a better idea of the problem. It sounds as if the pelt you are working on may be 'complete' (in that it has all of its parts) but it may not be properly 'taxidermy prepped' OR the pelt may of been tanned so log ago that it no longer has any 'stretch' to it. And that under jaw has to have a LOT of stretch to it so that (after you re-hydrate it) it will become pliable enough to stretch all the way forward till it meets the top lip in the front (directly under the nose). I'm going to link you to a video that show Brian Hendricks mounting the head of a fox. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nroTIr… Pay attention to the 'lip tucking' part. BEWARE! Many people sell a 'complete' pelt with an old tan and think its 'mountable'. However, this doesn't really help you much right now, does it?! Here are a couple things to try. One is to buy a coyote paw and cut yourself a replacement 'underjaw' from it. It will need to be shaved so the fur is very short, and you'll have to thin the skin as much as possible. Since you'll have no lip to tuck, I'd glue it down VERY carefully with super glue gel. A way to hide the problem would be to create front armature like mine and have the coyote resting his head on his paws. To really, really hide it, put him in a curled up pose with his chin buried in his tail, like this: Hope this helped!
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You know, I even asked the person if it was suitable to be mounted and they said yes...guess I know not to buy from THAT person anymore! It's not an old pelt according to them but I've rehydrated the bottom jaw to the moon and back and still no stretch nearly enough to be able to be tucked into the form. It's supposed to be a soft mount that I hope to sell so I don't think I can get away with the trick like in the picture you showed me (but I'll definitely give it a shot if it's a personal piece I just want to take pictures of or if it's a traditional mount with a damaged jaw, that's a good idea!). After paying attention to the lip tucking part, yep, no matter how much I hydrate and stretch this and condition it, they just REFUSE to be tucked. The form is honestly too big anyway, it just baaaaarely fit into the head and I'm quite disappointed since it was around 30-40 dollars I thought I could make back easily once the mount was done...the measurements looked right and I did measure my pelt's head so I'm not entirely sure what happened with that (I think they only offered one size of form anyway). I think I may have just gotten INCREDIBLY unlucky with this or something, I googled all my questions to death and no answers were available so I'm very, very grateful you responded as quickly as you did!
The pelt is dried due to me not working on it in a while and I didn't paste it or pin it in place yet so it looks incredibly shabby atm but this is basically what I dealt with:
I didn't notice anything off at the time but paying close attention to the video, I see excess skin around the lips is missing in the first place although the skin around the eyelids was still intact. The bottom jaw is actually still a bit hydrated but even after stretching it, it still won't stretch enough to be tucked into the crease of the form. N i i i cccceeee, I'm thinking of either making it another fantasy mount and putting in a bone jaw or something if I can't find a coyote paw somewhere to mend this jaw. Once again, thank you very much for your help, I'm honestly not sure what I would've done if you weren't available..! You were very polite and helpful!! ;;;
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