Realistic Deer Mount for FIL

Somehow I always end up making deer stuff for my in-laws.

7. Make the plaque to mount the bust. 

We bought the wood and the stain....but we haven't done it yet...will we do it...will time run out....stay tuned! lol

6. Attach the antlers

Mentally placing the antlers (lol see what I did there)

Against the hobby lobby model

5. Assemble the head

5c. needed a wire skull. i was just so surprised how much wire made a difference. I only did a nose wire thingy so the....snout(?) Muzzle(?) Would stick out right

5b. Stuffed and it just looked wrong but i figured it out

5a. Laid flat.

4. Antlers

These turned out way bulkier than I had intended and I am actually the most displeased with this part of it. Had to mark out where to add the horns so they weren't all gathered oddly but I kind of feel like that would have been better. I tried to evenly space them sort of. 

The length of each spoke was also not what I wanted. They were supposed to be more varying but my calculations were wrong because when the tubes were stuffed their lengths changed naturally as it widened, which I knew, but evidently did the math wrong still.

3. T panel

I had to sew the side of the T panel aka top of the snout against the head sides. Little rudolph red nose. Made an opening halfway through on each opposite side to put in eyes. I made the pupils lopsided kind of on purpose since it's "dead" and hunted and mounted. Husband thought it made it look cuter/made more sense.

2. Ears

Sadly I don't have any pictures but the ears were very challenging. First I had to make the "doughnuts" of the ears, brown on the outside and white on the inside. Then I made them like a pillow to wedge in stiff wire to make the ears kind of stand up. They still flopped way too much. But hey it's not a live deer. Quality taxidermy would make them stick up still...but that's not what I'm doing LOL

1. Measurements

This was by far the most technical piece I've done. I bought a fake deer at hobby lobby and took measurements off of it. It was very intense. The model was not super big so I had to multiply by a very large factor.