I have lived my entire life in Louisiana, and regularly have alligators in our pond and on occasion in our back yard. In my state if you live near a river, creek, or for that matter, a large ditch, pond, or swamp of any size, you will sooner or later will see an alligator. In the southern half of Louisiana the possibility of encountering a gator increases five fold because...

There are for animal mounts—a bobcat, a rainbow trout, a drake pintail, and a whitetail deer, all perfectly preserved to their natural state. One thing remains before sending these critters off to clients: adding a natural habitat. Realist rocks resembling their former stomping (or swimming) grounds would being these creatures back to life. This is where commercial...

White crappie are fun and popular fish to paint. The secret to painting a crappie is to apply layers of pearls, silver, and shimmer colors on top of each other to give the reflective effect that is desired. The main difference between painting a real skin-mounted fish and a replica is the real fish skin has the natural markings to follow, so you need to apply the colors...

Eyes must convey the attitude depicted by the body, as well as each expressive part of its face, neck height, and tail position. In the minds of some artists, they first envision the eye expression they want to convey, building the rest around that attitude or mood, which becomes the theme of the entire piece, habitat included. As we go through this article, notice how...