Fixin' up a coyote skull

Hey there peeps,

I recently ordered a coyote skull from ebay, which unbeknownst to me, was poorly cleaned, and poorly packed. When I received it, the thing was smelly, greasy, and covered in mold. Also, the jaw was glued shut with hot glue, leaving plastic tendrils everywhere.

 After having my messages ignored by the salesman, I decided to take matters in my own hands and fix it myself.

I started off with a water and dish soap bath, leaving the skull to soak for a couple of days. That got rid of the greasiness. Afterwards, I scrubbed the bones and soaked them in 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol, to help kill the nastiness and deal with the residual smell. I finished by leaving the bones rest for a couple of days in hydrogen peroxide, which whitened the skull, and help dissolve all residual mold and tissue still in the bone.

Once dry, it was a simple matter of gluing the teeth and the two halves of the lower jaw with good ol' elmer's glue, and I was left with a beautiful, squeaky-clean skull to adorn my bookshelves.

Pictures of the skull as I received it after the break. Be warned it's kinda gross.

Finished small projects - Steampunk Skull and Memento Mori

Hey there you jolly ghastly bunch o' fun!

Just finished two smallish projects I started earlier.

You might remember the steampunk skull

(part 1 - part 2 )

Well, it's done! Finally, it's not very steampunk... for the sake of practicality (I use the skull as a model when drawing or sculpting), I decided to forget about over steampunkish accessories, and went with the plain & simply. I was satisfied with simply aging the skull, changing the teeth, and replacing the shiny steel hardware with something less new-ish.

Unfortunately, I dropped the skull's lower jaw once. Over stone tiles. A lot of teeth were knocked off, and I was too lazy to glue em back in. Instead, I used my trusty rotary tool, and drilled holes where the teeth used to be. Afterwards, I slopped the same wood stain I used on the rest of the skull on the jaw, and gave it a dip in dust & ash to make it look old & grimy.

In this picture, you can also see the new screws I stuck into the jaw. They are of a blackish, old oxydized steel, with brown and blue "highlights".

Of course, just sticking in screws is boring, so I glued on the exterior of the jaw a few tiny bits of metal, to make it seem like it was old rusty bolts held on with brass nuts.

I then added thick red rubber bands to hold the jaw to the skull. It'll break more easily than springs, but it is easier to replace, and I didn't like the look of stainless steel springs.

Now, other then that, I finished a small "memento mori" shadow box. Memento Mori simply means remember death, or more precisely, remember that you will die. That was a perfect sentence to go with a human metatarsal I had laying around in my appartment (don't ask.)

I used a cheap balsa shadow box I bought at the dollar store. Not satisfied with the natural wood finish of the shadow box, I went to work.

I wanted a black frame, but I didn't have any black paint left (gasp!). Looking for a solution, I recalled a few pieces of furniture I saw somewhere once, which were made with scorched wood, coated with resin for protection. I decided to try it out on my frame.

This is what I started out with:



I simply took out a propane torch, and scorched the wood of the frame, being carefull not to burn too deeply so that the frame still had a certain substance. You don't want ash, you want a fine layer of cracked charcoal.

This is what I ended up with:

In this close-up shot, you can see more easily the texture of the wood. Keep in mind that I covered it with epoxy resin so it wouldn't crumble or stain everything it touched.

Afterwards, it was simply a matter of adding a black felt background, cutting a banner from aged paper, writing the wanted sentence on it, and gluing everything down (including the metatarsal) with more epoxy. I used 5 minute epoxy from the dollar store, but you can use whatever you want.

That's all for now, peeps! I ordered a few insects from my favorite seller on ebay, so be ready for more insect mounting pictures soon!

see ya later.

Taxidermy: In preparation for the application of skin

This entry will be short. It is simply an update before I start the good ol' "corpsing" process, during which flesh and skin will be applied to the top part of the mermaid.

First of all, once the fish was completely dry, I applied a couple of thin layers of latex to the tail and fins, so that if chipping occurs, the chipped piece won't fall off the fin. After this, many layers of spray varnish or fixative (I used Tresemmé extra strong hairspray) are applied to the whole fish to protect it, since it is quite brittle, prevent the scales from falling, and seal it from humidity.



More after the jump!

Steampunk skull - Deuxième partie

Hey there, lovely little bilge rats!

I thought I'd show you the progress on my skull.

Nothing very complicated, I just played a bit with its finish, and removed the crappy ol' single piece teeth and installed brand new, shiny, strong, acrylic choppers.

Here's the teeth before I started:





As you can see, they are the same color and same texture as the skull, they're short, they're cheap, they're made in one piece and our friend mr. skull has a nasty underbite.

This shall be fixed!

To start, I simply dremeled out the original teeth. I used a sanding disk attachement, but some kind of router bit would probably do a great job too.


As you can see, it now looks quite geriatric. I honestly like this; I'll probably by a plastic skull some day and make it look edentate like that.

Once clean and sanded, I was ready to attach the new teeth.

Acrylic teeth, the kind used to make dentures, come in little plastic trays, separating the top, bottom, front and back teeth. Very pratical; you don't have to guess which tooth goes where (although mouth anatomy is fairly simple).

I bought mine on ebay; it cost about 20$ including shipping from china, and I have 6 complete sets of teeth.



I started out with the lower incisors, and gradually covered the whole lower and top mandible by gluing the teeth one by one from behind with drops of hot glue. It's not the strongest bond, but it's quick and easy to use. We'll strenghten the teeth later.



As you can see, it doesn,t look good from behind; In my case, though, it's not a problem, since the skull won't be manipulated much.


Upper teeth done

All glued!

As you can see, I corrected my buddy's underbite. I even gave him a slight overbite, for more realism!


Once this was done, I added 5 minute epoxy between and behind the teeth to hold them strongly in place. Although not necessary, this will add some durability to the skull.

Of course, I couldn't let these teeth all clean and shiny and white looking freshly flossed, when the rest of the skull looked freshly dug up! So I brought out the walnut stain again, mixed it with a bit of yellow ochre paint to tone down the red tones, and got this mix in every nook and cranny of the teeth. I wiped the front clean so they still had a bit of shine, and did a little trick that also gave a smooth, old and dusty look to the skull.

I rolled the whole thing in ashes while still tacky. I then dusted the excess off, and fixed it with matte spray varnish. This step really brings the whole thing together, and can save a poorly done stain job.

Voilà, mes amis! beau comme un sou neuf.


Link to part 1

A few words of apology

Sorry to my almost non-existent readers if I've been a bit lazy posting lately, I'm working crazy hours, I have a couple of side projects, and I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years so I've been a bit overwhelmed by everything that was happening around me.

I'm already working on some new stuff to post; just today I installed newer, better acrylic teeth on my plastic skull, it already looks a lot better. I'll keep you updated as soon as I'm done.

Steampunk skull - part 1

Here's the situation: I just ordered a plastic human skull from ebay, and let's just say that I could be more satisfied with its looks. Its jaw is slightly too wide, it has a little underbite, its teeth were filed down too short and some of the detail has been lost.

However, for 17$ bucks, I can't expect much better.

Before I gather some cash to get myself a quality replica (which can be between 100$ and 300$), I plan to experiment a bit with this 17$ skull and see if I can make him look like a thousand bucks.

The process will be like this: I'll stain the skull, hinge its jaw with brass hardware, and fashion a brass and wood stand to support it.

This should be enough to give it some much needed flair and a slightly steampunk aura.

So let's start out with the staining, will-we?

This process is really simple; it's just a matter of having the right materials.



read it again. The RIGHT materials.

I didn't read it enough, personnally, since I disregarded all the info I found on the subject of staining plastic bones and bought the first kind of walnut stain I found instead of trying to get gel stain.

So here's the materials you need:

- A plastic skull
- A rag
- GEL wood stain. (A dark walnut or antique oak looks great)



There you go. Now the process is quite simple. With your rag, apply a liberal coat of stain all over the skull. Be sure to get it in every nooks and crannies.



It's hard to see, but I realized why I should have used gel stain about at the time I took this picture.

The stain I'm using lacks opacity, and is RUNNY AS HELL. Also, it's oil based, so it's not easy to clean up. But I digress. back to topic.

Once your skull is covered, let the stain sit a few minutes, and simply wipe off the excess with a slightly damp rag.



Here's the results. I'm not 100% satisfied; It's not as smooth as I wanted and I was expecting slightly less reddish results. However, all is not lost; I'll try giving it a white wash to smoothen the color a bit, and will go over with a nice golden oak stain to bring out the yellowish tinge of the skull. This combination of colors will probably do the trick.

Stay tuned for the next part!

UPDATE: Link to part 2

Molding Skulls

I just found a great tutorial for molding a plastic skull and casting plaster copies. There's lots of pictures and detailed instructions. The most expensive part is the liquid latex (if, of course, you already have a nice skull at home), but the 20-30$ it'll cost you in materials is well worth the massive amount of skulls you'll be able to make!

from The Creepy House Next Door, which also contains many more interesting tutorial revolving around creepy halloween yard decoration.

For painting the skull, I strongly suggest this step-by-step demonstration, by Dave the Dead from The Shadow Farm. He uses an urethane skull, but there's no reason why it wouldn't work on plaster. I'd suggest applying a coat of sealer to the plaster first, however, so it doesn't soak up all the paint.

Painted Hog's Skull

This winter, I stuffed a pig's head for a friend's short movie. This experience in taxidermy didn't turn out very well; I didn't degrease the skin correctly so it didn't cure fully. However, it worked great for my friend's movie;

As a result, I had a pig's skull laying in my basement. I finally used it in a sculpture made for a class in college:
Giorgio by *ars-anima on deviantART

At the end of college, I couldn't bring that tall thing home, so I just ripped off the skull and threw the rest away.

I was once again stuck with that skull, without knowing what to do with it.

Inspirationg struck two days ago while I was bored out of my skull (HAHA A PUN! YES! I ROCK!). This skull SHALL BE PAINTED, proclaimed-I!

Thus I began ripping all the lights, silicone, wire and urethane out of it.

This done, I started painting the skull without any sketch or whatever. I used Delta craft paints; the opacity and fluidity of a quality craft paint makes it perfect for such a job. I didn't try to follow any ritual or traditional pattern; I just painted following as much as I could the natural shape of the skull. (sorry if you have to turn your head 90°, I'm too lazy to rotate the pictures)

I tried to use mainly bright colours to give it a gipsy or voodoo appearance; of course, just a few icons painted on leaving lots of the natural color, or a darker theme would look just as good if not better.

Once the main painting job was done, I sanded the hell out of the skull using a coarse grain sandpaper, and also a very fine one to give it a polished with us texture. Afterwards, I applied a nice coat of stain made of coffee, acrylic paints, white glue and varnish. Wood stain followed with a coat of varnish would have worked just as good if not better, but I didn't have any at hand.

There ya go!

old, dirty, and ready to hang!

If you wish to try your hand at skull painting, you can find already clean skulls on Ebay, or go take a look at The Bone Room or Skulls Unlimited. Be warned though that professionally cleaned bones tended to be expensive; If you're not squeamish, cleaning the skulls of roadkill or of heads bought at a slaughterhouse is a damn cheap option. The whole hog's head I used, who's meat was turned into great headcheese by my wonderful mom, cost just 10$ at the slaughterhouse.