Cougar Taxidermy Tutorial Pt 2

This is the Second Stage of making a Cougar (or any feline) headmount for use in a rug or plush.

By NO means is my way/skill absolutely perfect, as each person learns and performs differently. I suck as a teacher so there may be some loopholes to my methods.

So here is the series for SKIN PREP AND MOUNTING:

1.) After soaking up the head (if you didnt before when testing the form fitment) you will want to tke out the ear cartilages carefully. By doing this, you take a scalpel to the outer edge of the ear when it's inside out and scrape/peel the layer of cartilage off. After the cartilages are out, feel from the fur side of the ear just in case the ear hasnt been turned all the way to the edge. You will need it turned to the edge to prefent the tips of the ears from curling on you.

2.) Once all of the cartilages are out, you can buy a pre-made earliner...or grab some therma-plastic (or sold from Taxidermy stores as "H-Form") I preferred to use H-Form for the cougar because from what I've seen...nobody makes a decent earliner for cougars. I also recommend H-Form if you have an abnormal ear that has a notch or battle damage. For you who try out H-Form, You will want to put the ear cartilage face down on the fabric side and trace it. Make sure you leave about a 3/4" tab on the bottom for your junction point.

3.) Cut the earliner tab in 3 or 4 places at the bottom for the junction point. Use a heat-gun to melt the H-Form (dont burn youself, but this stuff will turn into a pliable plastic that you can shape to your liking) I want this cougar to have a relaxed ear position so i cupped the earliner to the side, and for extra cuteness, I added a little flare to the tip. In the picture you can see it pinned to the head to test out the position. If you dont like the position, you can always re-heat the H-Form and modify what you have!

4.) Before mounting you must prep the rest of the skin. Make sure the eyelids have plenty of tucking skin, thin down any of the thick areas around the eyebrows and lower eye patches. Shave off the cartilage around the nose, and shave off the skin around the whisker folicles (if you dont shave off around the whiskers your whiskers will do what they want and you will not be able to move them. By freeing them your whiskers will stay where you put them!

5.) Test fit the skin to the form again. Find all the baggy sections and keep them in mind. You will be adding clay to the baggy areas (such as around the eyes, sometimes the forehead, the eyebrows, sometimes the nose and definitely the whisker pads.

6.) Now to put in the ears! Take your earliner and put a roll of air-dry clay around the junction point (making an earbutt). You will then want to spread hide paste (which can be bought in taxidermy supply shops. A household material equally as good is wallpaper glue) all over the earliner, then slide it into the ear.

7.) MAKE SURE YOU GET THE EARLINER ALL THE WAY UP TO THE EDGE! If you dont, the tips of the ears will curl on you over time. Once all the edges are in place, you can card them with cardboard. Stapling the carboard in place so the ear doesnt move on you while you are working on the rest of the face. Dont worry about the clay in the ears just yet. Just remember to keep those wet so you can squish them later.

8.) Setting the eyes! Using your desired eye-style (I love the Tohickon Optech series for cats) Put clay in the form's eye sockets and squish your eyes into it! To make sure the eyes are symmetrical, you can test and tweek them with calipers. Just find a middle point of your form and make sure the distance from pupil-to-pupil is the same. Then look at your eyeball tilt and you can tilt them up or down for an upward or downward gaze. I will have set mine to look a little bit upwards.

9.) Use clay to form the fleshy parts around the eyes! By using rolls, you will need to form an upper eyelid and a lower eyelid.

10.) Smooth out the rolls and make them blend into the foam form. You can tweek them to look catlike, but just get them close...the rest can be done once the skin is on. But after the eyelids are formed, make some eyebrows! Smooth everything to the form. (I forgot to show this, but you will want to add a little bit of clay to the whisker pads to set in the whiskers.)

11.) Now it's time to smother the whole thing in a light layer of hide paste!

12.) Lay the skin over the form, and position everything where they should be. With the eyelid skin peeled outward, you can then tuck it against the glass of the eye. Get the nose positioned in place and the inner nose skin pushed into the nostrils.

13.) Zap A Gap...a.k.a Super Glue...you will need some! Pull the lip skin down so it can fold around the edge of the mouth on the form and superglue it down! Make sure that the edge of the hair is on the edge of the form for the upper jaw. On an open-mouth creature, the bottom jaw will show some of the fleshy skin (take a look at your housecat or dog and you will see just how much fleshy lip shows) Glue the lips into place.

14.) Set the ears into your desired position. Foreward, back or to the side. I want mine to be in the middle but kindof facing foreward, but not alert, A passive relaxed look. Continue to keep watch over your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and continue to tweek them for the next day or two until the clay isnt squishy.

15.) Once you get the face the way you like it, and the clay is hard enough to hold its place, let the head dry for a week or two.

After the head is nice and dry, we will begin PAINTING!!!


This ends Skin prep and Mounting.
Next step will be head finishing and painting.

Thank you for using my tutorial, and as always, I'd love to see the end-product of any project someone does using this!

Remember to use reference photos! Do not rely on other taxidermy animals, but rather how things occur and look in nature!

Questions on any unclear steps or things I didnt cover are welcome!


Note: This was an unmountable skin that was sold to me as a craft-grade non-taxidermy pelt from Beautiful pelt! But it has major slip spots on its muzzle and the bottom of the nse was torn. I had originally bought it as a scrap pelt to fix a client's mountain lion, but this replacement skin proved to be too small and too fluffy to match his.
So it's becoming a plush instead of cutting it up for other crafts.

DISCLAIMER: I did NOT kill this cougar. It was purchased from a friend. I dont want to hear whiners complaining about how cruel, awful or sick this is. If you have something against taxidermy, simply press Ctrl + F4.
Do not waste time on negativity. Life is too short.

Visit Part 1: