Jeremy snapped a couple of shots last night of me working on a squirrel (shortly after I photographed him working on a page.) Last night was the first time I’d ever worked on a squirrel (or a mammal, for that matter) and WOW was it easy. After working with thin-skinned birds for some time, switching to a thickly skinned squirrel was very simple. I could tug, and squish and smoosh things around without worrying much about damaging the final product. 

I’ve posted a couple of shots below. I made the squirrel a bit long and thin, so I ended up stuffing her a bit more, post stitches, and I tried to pose her in a realistic gesture, while also covering up the parts that I messed up. 

There is a bit of gore, but Jeremy was good at keeping it friendly. I’m always surprised how little blood is involved in taxidermy. This little lady was a bit more bloody than usual since she had blood pooled in her skull from being hit by the car that killed her. 

I know the candles are creepy… dissecting squirrels and burning candles seem like fodder for a horror movie, or a bad ritualistic cliche, but really the sandlewood candles helped keep my head clear in moments when I was struck by the smell of flesh. It doesn’t stink, I just don’t like it much.

 

I don’t have any photos of the finished mount, but these’ll have to do for now! This last shot is just after I had completed resculpting the damaged skull, set the eyes and pulled the skin back into place. I’m really happy with how her eyes turned out, especially since I used ceramic beads ($.10 ea) rather than taxidermy eyes ($4.30 ea). I like the slight variation the ceramic beads give me, because they come in strings that vary from black to brown, so I can choose which color eyes to use and I have a much more subtle range of colors than those offered commercially by Van Dykes.