The whitetail I killed had antler color and surface features different from any I had taken on this property in past years. In fact, they were different than any I had ever seen killed in all my years of hunting Sancudo Ranch. It was a very worthy rack considering the deer was very old; I estimated 8½ to 10½ years old from aging his teeth. His body and likely antlers were going down. As I write this article I will offer my opinion of why the surface of my deer’s antlers were “ugly compared to the norm” and why I decided to make them look natural again.

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All Entries (pictured) from the 2024 World Fish Carving Championships®

Coralville, Iowa • August 6–11, 2024

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The skin on a warthog cape will rarely fit properly on most of the forms available from our suppliers. This is especially true with the lip area of warthogs and how this part of the facial anatomy fits around the tusks. Warthogs, as with most species of game animals, are all different and adjustments need to be made. There are a couple of ways you can do this. One way is to sculpt and carve the foam to fit the skin. This can be very time consuming and the results sometimes are not satisfactory. The method I prefer will be explained in this article.

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In the final installment of this article series, I will continue going through the World Taxidermy Championships® scoresheet and complete my reference study and discussion of fish anatomy and how it relates to fish taxidermy. We start this article by moving our focus to the accuracy of color of our painted fish. I feel this is a somewhat subjective area of the scoresheet for this reason: if a judge points out that a color is not accurate for a given species, more often than not the competitor will produce a reference photo showing that color scheme. While there are no absolutes as far as color is concerned, there is a range of colors and markings that are considered normal or acceptable.

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The purpose of this article is to inspire others to embrace creativity and experiment with different model-making techniques, both among museum model builders and technicians, as well as taxidermists. My philosophy when constructing models of extinct animals is that I should exceed beyond anatomical accuracy. Attention must also be paid to surface textures and execution to achieve the highest possible degree of realism. This realism is achieved by incorporating the same natural elements observed in extant animals, such as dirt, scars, and tissue translucency.

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