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Daemonikk

Date Joined:Feb 4, 2007
Comments:15

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About
Strange kid who wants to be a taxidermist, with a large collection of skulls, growing collection of home-stuffed taxidermy items and a talent for cooking (these things do not necessarily overlap). I write really damn well if I do say so myself. I'm in my last year of school and am in the process of freakin out my teachers so badly that they'll never forget me.

Interests
Taxidermy, tanning, cooking, writing, craft, bones

Location
Mildura, Vic (Aus.)

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Comments 1-10 of 15(view all)

» Glass frosting spray, to put it in an obvious way, frosts glass. It gives the glass tha…
» Check out Bunnings, it's usually in the paint or crafts section. :)
» In Australia perspex is the usual name, maybe you could try that?
» Beautiful! I must make something along these lines for my cow-collecting mother. Thanks…
» Parakeets and budgies and the like are on the easier side of difficult :P Still hard, a…
» A single bb to the head or heart would make such a small hole that the mount would look…
» That can be fixed with a "fluff-up" in borax or cornmeal before mounting, and then afte…
» Mmmm, yummy! Maybe you should post some pigeon recipes :)
» I've never known the brass to react with the skin, if you use enough borax it will abso…
» Yes, just carve the styrofoam to match the carcass' size and shape :) (An exacto blade…

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141

Feb 7, 2007. 4:40 PM

canida says:

Hey there, Your "about" section sounds like fun! What have you stuffed so far? I've only done rodents, and would love to learn more about birds and larger animals. --canida

Feb 7, 2007. 6:46 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Hi, thanks for writing me a message. I'm only just a beginner, but I try to practice my taxidermy skills at least three times a week (I got a friend at the local pet store who freezes and saves anything that dies in the shop, so I can have them for free). At the moment I have two small mice (one made to look like Igor from the Frankenstein movies :P), one large white rat which I nemd Sid (he's kinda mangey, he had the worst hair slippage problem, but if you don't touch him he's fine. He's gonna be a bookend soon), bits of falcon that I found dead by a roadside that I salted and Boraxed and sundried till they were all safe and ready to be used for stuff, and I'm working on a fox head mount and a rabbit full-body mount. And my freezers full of assorted things I haven't started yet :P I'm dying to try a duck mouse. I need to learn more about chemical tanning before I get up to the bigger animals, dry preserving apparently only works up to a certain size. When I get to borrow a camera I'll post up some pictures. --Daemonikk

141

Feb 7, 2007. 8:02 PM

canida says:

Cool! I'm just a beginner with taxidermy too, but had the advantage of years working labs dissecting easily hundreds of mice (and a few seals, dolphins, and porpoises), so that part's pretty easy. The stuffing afterwards is the challenging part. ;) I definitely need a pet store friend. My freezer currently holds a crow, a squirrel, lots of duck heads, feet, and wings, and a few more mice. I need to find a good book on taxidermy before starting on the larger animals, OR a good Instructable to learn from. You should invite a friend with a camera over to take pictures while you work on the rabbit and the fox head; it works much better if someone else is around to take the pictures. I'm really looking forward to seeing how you do it! --canida

Mar 8, 2007. 12:13 AMDaemonikk (author) says:

Hey, long time no speak. Anyway, just a little tip I stumbled upon just last night; air-drying clay makes an excellent voodoo doll. You can make a basic form, then squish and manipulate it around even after you've sewn up, to get everything lookin right; faces look absolutely perfect when done like this. Much easier, and not too expensive either. Plus you can sink the eyes right into the clay, so you need very little fiddly sewing bits :) I recently did a "no-sew rat" (I was out of thread in the right color, and had a brainwave) and managed to make a pretty perfect rat with just clay, some wire, a pipe cleaner, soe superglue and two beads for eyes. :) I reccommend using terracotta colored airdry clay, it looks more natural should it show through the skin. Take this information, use it as you will :P

141

Mar 9, 2007. 10:31 AM

canida says:

Cool! If I could just send you a camera I totally would- i want to see an Instructable on all this neat stuff. How do you find it affects the drying time?

Mar 12, 2007. 9:39 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Got my cousin to lend me the camera for a couple minutes, so I took a few pics of Frankie (yes, I know its pathetic, but I name all my taxidermy projects :P) for you :) I know its not an instructable (though I will put one up, if its the last thing I do!) but it shows the good work that can be done.

141

Mar 13, 2007. 12:31 PM

canida says:

Cool! I'm going to have to try this for sure. So you shape the clay in the skin, remove it for drying, then reinsert? (Am I following you right?) Do you think it could be successfully dried without removing it from the skin? That would seem easier for shaping/modeling. Not sure if it's the angle, but the head looks a bit bigger than the body. I always find that you need a body slightly larger than the one you took out, since the skin will shrink and dry tight instead of hanging loosely like it does on a live animal. Thanks for the pictures! Frankie is a good looking rodent.

Mar 30, 2007. 9:32 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Hey, thought I'd write a message. Just got the internet at home (FINALLY!!! :P) and finally got to see your video duckmouse instructable, looked awesome! I can't wait to try it, or something similar. Hmmm interesting... birds are tricky, a huge surprise to me. The pet shop gave me three green budgerigars (I think Americans call them parakeets), more pet shop casualties. One was ok but the cat took it, but the other two seem ok so far, just tryin to figure out how to get the wet feathers to dry without matting. Tiny... fiddly... things.... gaaaah..... I much prefer mammals. I'll post up some pics eventually. Also, found a guy at the local pound who may be allowed to give me some dead things (has to go through the head people first, some kind of workplace health and safety issue) and who also hunts feral goats, so he's gonna try and bring me a goat kid. My first tanning and taxidermy project all in one. Write when you can, I am on holidays, yay me.

Apr 27, 2007. 7:35 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Hey, I've been making a few more things, and I've finally gotten my website up with all the pictures, as pretentiously titled as it may be. So I thought, instead of posting you tons of slow-loading pictures, you could click the link to the site instead. I got a new webcam btw, so soon I may be able to do some kind of instructable. Fingers crossed.

Mar 17, 2007. 6:27 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Yeah thats right, see i tried to leave it in the skin to dry before and the moisture in the clay just makes the skin spoil. Plus the skin seals in the moisture, so the clay will actually never dry till you take it out. So its actually easier and saves a lot of grief just takin it out once your done modelling. Yeah that was a bit of a mistake in the modelling process, he's a bit thin. It's kinda emphasized by the weird angles and lighting (I took it in pretty crap light, resting on a towel on top of my freezer). Yeah I've found that too, but with things with oddly thin skin you shoul try for a lighter frame, like baby mice (their skin shreds like tissue paper, they're SO hard!) I'll try to get a camera and try to put up more pictures :) and yes, eventually an instructable :P

Mar 12, 2007. 5:01 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Well what I did was make an unwired basic voodoo doll out of clay, no wires, then put it in the skin and mould out the individual features from the outside to make sure it looked right and got the pose right. I pressed in the eyes from the outside so the brow and cheek lines would look right, then I took the voodoo doll out and put in some wires for arms, legs etc, and put the voodoo doll into a mini oven on a low setting (around 75 degrees C) to dry it out. Now the only tricky part was, pins won't go into the clay, unless you put in pin holes beforehand, so you'll probably have to glue things like lips and stuff into place like I did. I'll try and post up a pic of the finished first clay-formed rat if I can :)

Feb 8, 2007. 6:56 PMDaemonikk (author) says:

Yes, the pet store friend is convenient. :P Aww...I want a crow. Can't find any though, and I don't hunt (no moral reason, I just suck and never catch anything.) Guess I'm stuck without crow goodness. Well, once I figure out chemical tanning, I'll be sure to put it up in great detail :) Aw what fresh hell... The fox head was from roadkill, and its too far gone to save. Stupid uncle that lives with me took it out of the freezer...Argh! >:( Well at least I got a mum who doesn't mind me skinning and stuffing rats on the loungeroom floor :P I will definately get either my mum or my cousin to take photos once I convince the school to let me borrow a camera. I really must get one of my own. Oh yeah, my school is the only internet access I have (I am sadly poor), and I can check my email whenever, but we only have a set amount of internet credit to use per week, which runs out very fast. My email address is 4452@sjcmda.vic.edu.au so you can have that if you want, I'm sure I'll be able to find some tips on woodchip tanning if you want them. Damn and hell, time for more classes. I look forward to hearing from you, or seeing your next instructable :) --Daemonikk