i have a question...

when you're putting multiple deer heads on a wall, and the mounts are different total heights...

what do you align?

keep the tops of the antlers along a line.

keep the bottom of the chests along a line.

or try to generally align the center of the shoulders

what say you?

my mule deer is approx 3" taller than my whitetail in total mount height. i'm thinking to put the bottom of the chests on the same line, but the whitetail will be 3" further down from the ceiling than the mulie's antlers are.

I much prefer to have the tops of the antlers align as very few people will even look at the bottom of the shoulder mount. The viewer's eyes will go to the antlers.

There is nothing in my room that aligns. When out of space it came time to cram stuff in. I have stuff high, low and in between. By offsetting them it doesn't look like you are trying to line up everything like at a jail for someone to pick you out of a lineup.

In general, for a group of similar animals, I try to line up the eyes, e.g., keep all the eyes at the same elevation. This allows the natural variations in horn configurations to show, with some taller, some wider, etc.
It really is a personal preference.
Bill

if i had several more mounts on the wall i would not be as worried about alignment. but since its just the 2 deer, i wanted some sort of symmetry.

llama i inadvertently aligned the eyes of the 2 deer, and i really like how it turned out. at first i just tried to drop the whitetail antler tips just below the mule deer's, but the whitetail overall looked too high. i dropped him a couple inches, the eyes are pretty much in line, and it looks much better.

now i just need a coues to go in the middle of them.

I had several springbok's I wanted to put on one wall, I aligned them by the top's of the shoulders. It was easier to get the mounting hardware lined up and you can now see the difference in the size of the trophy's.

I have a real issue with symmetry, it drives me crazy if things are not lined up. Lining up the shoulders worked for me.

i don't worry alignment - just if i can find room for just 1 more, but haven't been able to do that for quite some time

I'm with Little Joe and butchloc. I've basically run out of wall space, so if something new will fit into an opening, that's where it goes. It's also easier to condense mounts by staggering them one up, the next one down. I've also put quite a few on floor pedestals.

Random placement to a great degree.

If they were paintings or photos, you would line up the bottoms. I would the same with mounts.

ended up accidentally getting close to aligning the eyes.

i need another whitetail turned to the left to replace him, so he's looking out into the room. then a coues in the middle

I would say in my house the trophies are mounted sort of random but I think it depends on the species. I have two sable in the living room on either side of the TV with one turned left and the other turned right. I was pretty careful to get the briskets the same distance off the floor with these. Where I lived before my present home I had longer stretches of wall and mounted several different species on any one wall. I made no effort to line up anything and I think it looked fine.

Mark