EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
First thing - the person signing mounts up for the competition is also a judge for many competitions (not here.) He would NOT let me enter my coyote in amateur. Period. He said it wouldn't do me justice and I wouldn't get the critique I needed... so I went ahead and let him put me in Professional, the next hardest class. (They have youth, commercial , amateur, professional, and masters. Excluding youth, most people consider that to be a decent order of expected mount-quality too.)
I worried all weekend because I knew my finish painting wouldn't be up to snuff as I didn't own an airbrush for a really nice smooth paint job.
Finally today was ribbon day and we got to see what our mounts scored in the afternoon.....
I GOT A 2ND AS A PROFESSIONAL!
Only 5 points shy of a 1st ribbon! AND AT MY FIRST SHOW WITH MY FIRST MOUNT IN PROFESSIONAL. Everyone was so congratulatory and full of compliments as it had gotten around it was my first mount. I was beaming.
THEN Mr. Mammal Judge came to talk to me. See, when you compete it is really a learning experience more than a competition (even though I still really want that ribbon!) Since you are competing against a perfect animal (and not other taxidermists) they fill out a really nice scoresheet with their critique - there's a small section for everything like lips, eyes, skin, ears... - that you get to keep and then afterwards they walk around to each participant explaining in careful detail what they felt were flaws and how to fix them. In Professional/ Masters they really get all up in your business and look up the nose, in the eyes, down the ears, etc with a flashlight to find any little flaw... masters is way more picky, though, of course.
The first thing out of his mouth? "I was going to give you a blue ribbon, until I saw the paint job inside the ears." OMG! I KNEW IT! Guess who is buying a airbrush this week? ME. He even told me the exact colors (buckskin and a brown umber) to use and how to spray them for optimal coyote ear coloration.
He also did not like how glossy the nose/ eyes were, the fur wasn't groomed to be fluffy enough, I had re-built the nose a smidgen too much - he had a huge folder of reference pictures and flipped through it pointing out and comparing my mount with the real animals. It was really educational and amazing having him explain everything to me so carefully.
Him saying that totally lit a fire under my ass. I was SO CLOSE and he dangled that damned carrot right over my head.
BUT, the fun thing is he is judging the mammals again at the MS taxidermy convention in a month too... guess who is going to tweak her coyote exactly to my sheet and enter it again to see what he says? :) I'm really curious since judges commonly are a bit different in their preferences and crit, so having the same guy 2 times in a row should be interesting. He'll probably get more nitpicky.
Anyway, I did make LOTS of friends and learn lots of stuff. Many of the folks I met completely welcomed me to drop by their shops any time and offered to help me if I need it for anything :) The older gentleman I made super taxidermy BFFs with (he was also the one who made me enter professional... there were many I-told-you-so's from him after I got my ribbon) really gave me so much information and was very mentor-ly all weekend. He helped introduce me to people and prodded me to talk to the person who runs the MS taxidermy association. He is teaching a few folks and was telling me about them and said I was welcome to come by and learn a few things too! I told him one of my favorite animals was a Nyala and he teased that HE HAS A LIFESIZE ONE IN HIS FREEZER. I made him promise to contact me when he decided to mount the thing and that would help him for knowledge. He's a few hours away in Arkansas, but it would be totally worth it. They're expeeeensive.
I wager I learned just as much eavesdropping and talking to people in the hallways as I did the seminars. I went to panels about mounting a duck, hog, squirrel, African gamehead (gemsbok), and part of a competition whitetail panel - the panels were 3-4 hours long.
Snagged a subscription to the "main" taxidermy magazine, Breakthrough, for cheap in the auction - they also gave me all the beginner VHS tapes that had been donated for free because I was the only newbie still there for the auction! I'm going to get my Dad to rip them and put them on DVD for me. My sort-of mentor guy was also buying a lot of the auctioned supplies and made me take a small container of antler fix-it and apoxie clay that he had gotten in a lot of 5+ of the items so I could experiment a bit.
I wanted to buy so much in the supplier's area, but I only allowed myself stuff I legitimately wished I had while working on my coyote and made a list of things I reallyreally wanted to look up online. Many of the vendors will be at the MS show in a month so I can easily pick up stuff there once I have done my research and save on shipping. All the vendors had their big, beautiful physical catalogs with them so I was able to pick up one of everything so I have a easy way to compare prices/forms (most companies have lackluster websites with missing pictures.)
I have lots of pictures of the different mounts that I will upload later. I also plan to a nice picture of my mount with her ribbon outdoors soon :) Sleep first!
I worried all weekend because I knew my finish painting wouldn't be up to snuff as I didn't own an airbrush for a really nice smooth paint job.
Finally today was ribbon day and we got to see what our mounts scored in the afternoon.....
I GOT A 2ND AS A PROFESSIONAL!
Only 5 points shy of a 1st ribbon! AND AT MY FIRST SHOW WITH MY FIRST MOUNT IN PROFESSIONAL. Everyone was so congratulatory and full of compliments as it had gotten around it was my first mount. I was beaming.
THEN Mr. Mammal Judge came to talk to me. See, when you compete it is really a learning experience more than a competition (even though I still really want that ribbon!) Since you are competing against a perfect animal (and not other taxidermists) they fill out a really nice scoresheet with their critique - there's a small section for everything like lips, eyes, skin, ears... - that you get to keep and then afterwards they walk around to each participant explaining in careful detail what they felt were flaws and how to fix them. In Professional/ Masters they really get all up in your business and look up the nose, in the eyes, down the ears, etc with a flashlight to find any little flaw... masters is way more picky, though, of course.
The first thing out of his mouth? "I was going to give you a blue ribbon, until I saw the paint job inside the ears." OMG! I KNEW IT! Guess who is buying a airbrush this week? ME. He even told me the exact colors (buckskin and a brown umber) to use and how to spray them for optimal coyote ear coloration.
He also did not like how glossy the nose/ eyes were, the fur wasn't groomed to be fluffy enough, I had re-built the nose a smidgen too much - he had a huge folder of reference pictures and flipped through it pointing out and comparing my mount with the real animals. It was really educational and amazing having him explain everything to me so carefully.
Him saying that totally lit a fire under my ass. I was SO CLOSE and he dangled that damned carrot right over my head.
BUT, the fun thing is he is judging the mammals again at the MS taxidermy convention in a month too... guess who is going to tweak her coyote exactly to my sheet and enter it again to see what he says? :) I'm really curious since judges commonly are a bit different in their preferences and crit, so having the same guy 2 times in a row should be interesting. He'll probably get more nitpicky.
Anyway, I did make LOTS of friends and learn lots of stuff. Many of the folks I met completely welcomed me to drop by their shops any time and offered to help me if I need it for anything :) The older gentleman I made super taxidermy BFFs with (he was also the one who made me enter professional... there were many I-told-you-so's from him after I got my ribbon) really gave me so much information and was very mentor-ly all weekend. He helped introduce me to people and prodded me to talk to the person who runs the MS taxidermy association. He is teaching a few folks and was telling me about them and said I was welcome to come by and learn a few things too! I told him one of my favorite animals was a Nyala and he teased that HE HAS A LIFESIZE ONE IN HIS FREEZER. I made him promise to contact me when he decided to mount the thing and that would help him for knowledge. He's a few hours away in Arkansas, but it would be totally worth it. They're expeeeensive.
I wager I learned just as much eavesdropping and talking to people in the hallways as I did the seminars. I went to panels about mounting a duck, hog, squirrel, African gamehead (gemsbok), and part of a competition whitetail panel - the panels were 3-4 hours long.
Snagged a subscription to the "main" taxidermy magazine, Breakthrough, for cheap in the auction - they also gave me all the beginner VHS tapes that had been donated for free because I was the only newbie still there for the auction! I'm going to get my Dad to rip them and put them on DVD for me. My sort-of mentor guy was also buying a lot of the auctioned supplies and made me take a small container of antler fix-it and apoxie clay that he had gotten in a lot of 5+ of the items so I could experiment a bit.
I wanted to buy so much in the supplier's area, but I only allowed myself stuff I legitimately wished I had while working on my coyote and made a list of things I reallyreally wanted to look up online. Many of the vendors will be at the MS show in a month so I can easily pick up stuff there once I have done my research and save on shipping. All the vendors had their big, beautiful physical catalogs with them so I was able to pick up one of everything so I have a easy way to compare prices/forms (most companies have lackluster websites with missing pictures.)
I have lots of pictures of the different mounts that I will upload later. I also plan to a nice picture of my mount with her ribbon outdoors soon :) Sleep first!