Taxidermy: In which we finish the job.

Hello again.

This time we'll deal with the finishing touches; coloration, antiquing and wall mounting.

First of all, it is important to support the dry mermaid for the painting process.
I used a wire coat hanger which I bent out of shape and slid under its arms.

For painting the body, I mixed a small quantity of paint matching the fish's color; I used burnt umber, burnt sienna, sap green, black, and gold paint to give a slight shimmer to the color.

I then mixed 1 part paint to 3 parts latex, and watered down the mix a bit so it goes on more easily.

Don't worry if the resulting paint is pale, it'll dry much darker. The great thing with this paint is that it won't be uniform; since it's translucent, there will be some natural variation in the color. This is a good thing if you want a realistic paint job. Also, cover the whole fish, not just the body.

More pictures & info after the jump.

Framed Spiderwebs

Cobweb from the Art of Darkness posted a very interesting little tutorial on how to frame spider webs.

"A friend sent me a link to Whirled Wide Webs, which sells mounted spider webs. They’re lovely, but a tad pricey for what amounts to a glorified science fair project. With a little practice, you can easily make similar mounted webs for next to nothing.

If at all possible, make sure that the spider is done with the web before you collect it; even though they can rebuild a web pretty quickly it still takes them time and energy to do so. If you come across a really lovely web that’s still occupied it’s probably okay to collect it as long as you don’t keep bothering the same spider over and over again.

Materials:
Spray paint
Stiff paper in contrasting color
Spray adhesive (hairspray will work in a pinch)
Spray varnish or craft sealer
Scrap cardboard
Frame"

Go watch the rest of the instructions at The Art of Darkness!