I just got this on Saturday. I was very happy that the taxidermist was able to recreate the Roman Nose on the deer. Please give me your honest opinions about the quality of the mount so I can learn what to look for next time.

Thanks,
Dave

We have some horrible taxidermy on these pages, yours is not very alive looking.

Something looks very un-mule deer about him.

I'm used to the Taxidermy Net where such mounts are fair game. HOWEVER, since you've asked on this forum, here's what I see.

1. A major distraction is the ear pose. Drooping ears like that are not realistic to the deer species. This was set up by the butts being placed too low on the head. Anatomically, the ear canal enters the skull behind and slightly below a line drawn from the nostril through the center of the eye. The ear BUTT should center this line as the ear canal runs along the bottom of the ear butt. If you look at your pictures posted here, you'll see a slight discoloration on the antlers right about the curve. That's where the ears have rubbed as they've swivelled in front of and behind the rack.

2. The "expression" of the deer is bland. Again, the ears is what did it. Were the ears positioned properly and tipped upwards, it would give you an "alert" appearance instead of a longhorn standing in a rainstorm.

3. The neck skin is bunched up right below the white spot. Perhaps the taxidermist was intent on giving you "the biggest neck he could get" either at your encouraging or his own beliefs. A good taxidermist doesn't allow the customer to call this shot. The SKIN of the animal dictates how big a neck will be. Anytime you overstretch it, it's going to be like me (fat) putting on a large T-shirt. The shirt MIGHT fit, but my belly hangs out under the bottom. Look at your brisket area. See how high up the neck it comes? That's a 3X guy wearing a XL shirt doing that. You can't increase girth without paying the price in length.

Now I'm just going to suppose that your taxidermist is new to the business and/or unfamiliar with the mule deer. It's not a terrible job by any stretch though I have to agree with D99. If it were my deer, I'd take it back and ask him to reposition those ear butts. It's a rather simple job of injecting warm soapy water under the skin to soften the clay (I HOPE he used clay)and the skin, wrapping them in plastic for a couple days and just moving the butts under the skin. Since I'm sure the animal was dorsal cut, he COULD open the seam, rewet the hide and resculpt those butts if they were done with papier mache or to get them proper. You'll probably have to live with the neck.

Dla,

First thing that jumps out are the ears. They are airplaned straight out to the sides too much. Looks like the hair could be groomed a bit better, but that could have happened when it was handled being hung up. The ears could be an easy fix if it was just mounted. Your taxi could rehydrate the ear butts and reposition the clay to move the ears in a more alert or a relaxed position. That would really improve the overall appearance of the mount. JMO

Kind Regards,
Mary

And . . .

The symmetry of the ears is off. It appears that the deer's left ear butt is higher than it's right ear butt.

Symmetry is a common problem in taxidermy mounts. I've seen several mounts on AR, including some expensive leopard mounts, that had horrible symmetry but folks raved about how great they looked.

I just sat on my hands so I couldn't type . . .

JDS

The ears have already been addressed. The throat patch is off centered quite a bit. The antlers looked like they are too far forward. One thing I do like is the face from the antler burr forward. If I put my finger over the ear and just look at the face it has a nice detail/expression.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate everyone's comments.

The thing that I was looking at was the size of the neck. To me it looks too big and odd. That could be because I haven't seem enough mule deer mounts. The only instruction I gave her was to recreate the Roman nose he had. I provided pictures of that feature.

With the ears in a more realistic position, I would find little to fault.