Chameleon Taxidermy?

That mount is painted. I suspect that reptile skin is like fish skin. It turns grey/brown while it's being preserved, then it's stretched onto the form, glass eyes are painted and inserted, then the whole thing is painted with an airbrush.

That's why it's a good idea to have a photo of the fish while it was still alive.

...and no, only saltwater fish are always reproductions. Taxidermy isn't illegal (yet). Freshwater fish are almost always the actual fish unless there was severe damage to the carcass.

My brother is a world-class, award winning taxidermist so this is all second hand info. I think I will email that auction to him to see what he says.
 
no they are using fiberglass mounts for fish now. I think they suck because they are smooth and they airbrush them. very cheesy and fake. Its not illegal to mount a fish, but it is better than killing it. my friend is a taxidermist and does fish and alligators all the time. i would have my chameleon stuffed.lol
 
They most likely painted it. Usually with fish they make a fiser glass replica and paint it. I suppose this could be done with a reptile as well.
 
with taxidermy they just freeze dry it and i'm pretty sure it will hold its natural state, I have a stuffed bobcat and a stuffed dalmatian
 
JustinIgor said:
no they are using fiberglass mounts for fish now.... they airbrush them.
Click to expand...

Sorry, that's just not correct as a broad generalization. They've been using fiberglass repros for years, but they're only about a tenth of the taxidermy business. Perhaps the cheesy, just out to make a buck guys in your neck of the woods only do glass repros, but good taxidermists mount the fish. Obviously, the "catch and release" crowd are in this market, but the folks who still like to eat fish aren't. As for the airbrushing, they've done that for years, too. It's the only way you can get the dots on the scales of a bass to look right. The only way you can get the details of that specific fish's body is by sculpting the foam body form to fit the skin of that fish.

I just spoke with my brother about this chameleon. He hasn't seen it yet but I will pass his comments along when he does. There are three ways a reptile could be mounted.

1) Freeze Dry - It's not as simple as you might think. There's far more to it than "ship it to the freeze drier guy". You have to prep the animal just right or it will look like crap. (I will omit the details here!) Note that freeze dried does not mean that it can't rot later!

2) Traditional Mounting - Preserve the skin, mount it on a form, paint it. The form for a cham would probably be custom sculpted since there's not enough of a demand for them to bulk produce them.

3) Resin reproduction - The taxidermist takes a mold of the animal, then casts a positive in two part resin from the mold and paints it.

Lots of details omitted from each method, but you get the idea.

John said there's a guy in Wisconsin who's really good with reptiles. He does only traditional mounting and hand carves all of the bodies, custom mixes the resin to match the animal's tongue precisely, and just does incredible work. There's also a guy in South Carolina who's really good, too. He does a lot of alligators and custom carves the foam bodies.

Anyway, I will pass along his comments when I get them.
 
i know, but he was a member of the family for 17 years, he grew up with us all, and he looked like a puppy even when he was old, he just had bowel problems at 17 and some osteo as well as some eye conditons. he really was an amazing dog, he had sooooo much personality. he just chilled and was very smart and intuitive as well as calm and protective of his land. dalmations are very personal pets. they find ways to appeal to you and we were lucky enough to have 2 with i cannot stress great personality who loved swimming and living in a house with a fence and playful kids, and good tv shows and excellent homeade dogfood. You would understand if you saw how beautiful it is of the dog on a piece of thin black granite slate, its currently at my pops' place. It really is a great piece of art and the taxidermist, although quite expenisive really did a good job in match a photo of him to a the pose that we wanted him, we considered various sphinx and sitting , but we found a good way to make him look like he was in stride with a smile on his face, and its a good piece, I just don't know where we are going to put it cuz no one understands how freaking awesome this dog was, he was 1 in 10000 billion awesome, i'll dig up some pics, I got him when he was the size of a shoe, and he was a perfectly spotted show dalmatian with alpine white soft short fur and nearly perfect stature except he was just a like bit on the medium side and most dalmatians are large. crazy puppy absolutely crazy, we also handled him incorrectly and let him own us but he chewed through a whole bathroom and dug up the entire half acre back yard, he was crrrrrazy and thats how good dalmatians that are raised with a large group of pups are we got him from a lady that was really into dals, we also have a female and we breeded them once and had one litter of puppies, of which I am in contact still with all the owners and am delighted to see how nice the pups have turned, and told them if any are having second thoughts send them my way lol but no you can't tell a dal good bye
 
Yeah IDK about having a REAL one. I just think the art of preservation is kind of interesting. Laser I really appreciate the details on the different methods.
 
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