Watch as I mount a bird skeleton ALSO a fish skull

[Morm]

So last fall I found a mummified bird carcass under a tree. It was a crow. I bleached the ever loving fuck out of it so that it wouldn't west nile me (though most strains are harmless) and then I blasted the fucker with soap. I put soap in because bird bones are greasy and this thing is a crow, so its bones are so thin they are transparent-and you could see the gross marrow.

I prepped the skull and some vertebrae fully (fuck I accidentally cut the jugal thinking it was a tendon).

Here is the skull.

I am going to prep and mount the rest of this skeleton, probably like Ho oh- right now, the feather quils have actually stayed on (but most of the fuzzy bits are off) which makes it look like spikes are coming out of the arms. The legs are also covered in scales- good, I don't want to deal with that shit. I'll just stabilize with thin wire and enamel the shit out of it, sealing it in and making it stiff once it's posed. So it will have the scaly feat and if I can manage, the quils of the flight feathers.

I'll post updates as they come. Ideas and encouragement would be really appreciated!!

 

[az]

this is a cool idea

when i was a kid i had a bunch of planes hung from my ceiling all in like dogfight setups and whatnot

why don't you try collecting some other bird skeletons and have something similar going on with all your dead birds in dynamic interactive poses around the house

 

[Lanturn314]

This is super awesome!

I'm curious about a few things though: What did the carcass look like when you found it? Had it been dead for a long time, or did it just die? And you wore gloves when you first picked it up, right? Because if not, I'm gonna be a little bit horrified lol

 

[az]

oh come on lanturn don't pretend like you haven't already had this conversation

 

[Hipmonlee]

No glove no love.

Have a nice day.

 

[masterful]

That's actually petty cool, despite the creepiness involved with somebody finding a dead bird and washing it's skull

 

[Morm]

Bird skeletons are a bit of a bitch. I don't have dermestid beetles (:() which can be problematic when dealing with a more complete carcass (freeze dry the animal and then let loose the dermestids who eat everything but bone...but they eat drywall if they get out). So unfortunately it'll just join my collection of shit like bear and shark skulls. I plan on having it roosted on a branch, in a ho-oh like pose or I might make it more realisti, IDK yet.

Lanturn knew about the skeleton, yes, but she doesn't know anything other than having seen the skull before. It was mummified, an articulated skeleton. The skull had an eye in it still, that was fun to deal with (ugh). My parents dinner party was a bit horrified by me doing this in plain view. I recall using gardening gloves to pick it up and chucked it straight into 10% bleach, ramping it up to 50 because members of the Corvidae are notorious disease hounds.

As is, after overwintering in a pale outside lol

closer up

I tend to pick on bones and skeletons that are either in rock or have very little of that pesky as shit soft tissue.

I have a friend with an arts background that is into skeletons helping me with the mouth. Shit might get extra real with the artsyness.


Come to think of it, I'll dig out the Gar skull I found. Shit is a REAL bitch, it disarticulated, but everything SHOULD be there (mostly, I think the maxilla went for a walk on me :( or the teeth fell out). I can assemble that as well for you guys. I'll make progress on both.


Edit: Gar skull

There is a chance that I used freeze drying + cockroaches followed by boiling with 10% bleach (the roommate at the time was PISSED at the smell...) to clean this one

Frontals in place

Dentary YEAHHHH teeth (hard to photograph, sorry!)

 

[Renosaur]

One time, I found a frog skeleton outside my house but didn't have the idea of bleaching it and whatnot. This sounds cool, want to see final result

 

[Morm]

I might actually get a frog skeleton. I found one years back when doing fieldwork but I gave it to my boss at the time. She wanted it, I didn't care to bleach it (it was a dessicated frog, would take way more work than the bird- and at the time I thought it too small and annoying). So yeah, I texted her asking for it back, since I know she hasn't had time to do fuck all with it. 0.0 up to my orbitals in skeletons

I also just remembered I have a Juvi moose skull that needs reconstruction-my cat yanked it off a shelf and shattered the premaxillae. :( Might need some putty for that one.

 

[whistle]

god damn this is cool

so do you just throw a carcass in bleach and the tissue just comes off? or do you have to pick off the meat kind of like when you eat a chicken wing (hope i didn't spoil anyone's appetite)

 

[Morm]

It sometimes comes off. It depends, Bleach and Hydrogen Peroxide (get the 30% stuff) are really nasty to flesh, it basically makes it all fall off (cept the harder connective shit, which can be scraped off). I usually start with Peroxide and if it pisses me off I move to bleach.

 

[Zacchaeus]

I'm interested in seeing the end result.

How are you going to piece the bones together? Will it work in a way that you can find a bat, squirrel, and turtle skeleton and mix and match various bones like action figure pieces?

 

[Morm]

the fish skull maybe, the bird not so much.

 

[Fake Sketch]

Someones been playing 2 much WoW.

 

[bombiron]

i thought this thread would be about bestiality

 

[Bynine]

i thought this thread would be about necrophilia

fixed

 

[Morm]

Can't it be both?

I'm working on the fish...my brain is melting. Here is the only reference material I have:

http://digimorph.org/listthumbs.phtml?grp=fish&name=CommonName

 

[VKCA]

this is a cool idea

when i was a kid i had a bunch of planes hung from my ceiling all in like dogfight setups and whatnot

why don't you try collecting some other bird skeletons and have something similar going on with all your dead birds in dynamic interactive poses around the house

Fuck az I want your childhood.

 

[Morm]

What a mess

Articulated midline bones YEAH

Lower jaws complete

Mounting lower jaw on wire

:D

I cracked this bitch WIDE open (figured it out) after studying pics at www.digimorph.org among others...EXHAUSTING but awesome

Done for the night. Got the Operculum (bone that supports the gills) in place, as well as a few others. The top of the skull will take another few hours of research...UGH

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

That's actually petty cool, despite the creepiness involved with somebody finding a dead bird and washing it's skull

It's much less creepy than the other interpretation of "mounting" a bird skeleton.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

cool as shit, keep updating.

 

[BKC]

not really a science person but this is really really cool
keep updating

 

[Doomsday]

just thought i'd post this here. here's a video of a friend of mine, who made a steel/wood sculpture with a horse skull and then lit the fucking thing on fire. you should check it out if you like foreign artsy performances and skulls on fire.

skulls on fire are great

 

[az]

just thought i'd post this here. here's a video of a friend of mine, who made a steel/wood sculpture with a horse skull and then lit the fucking thing on fire. you should check it out if you like foreign artsy performances and skulls on fire.

skulls on fire are great

wish he'd done this at night

 

[Charmander#4]

skulls on fire are great

Not if Nicolas Cage is involved.