Allen's Taxidermy: The World Record Largemouth Bass

Just Documenting the Progress on a side project destined for Ebay...

We start with a white fish, paint it black, steel wool the black off, then tone down with white.

At this point all of my epoxy work is done, and the eyes are set, just painted over.

Using a detail airbrush and a custom mix of very dark green details are added based on reference photos...see them on the dorsal fin?

Continuing details...painting individual scales when necessary. My gosh...I think I've gone cross-eyed!

Monochromatic goodness!

Toning down some of the harshness of the white.

Adding color...candy bright yellow. Normally I add gold toner and silver pearl before this step, but doing a bit of experimentation with this fish.

Blending everything with brown...

That's it for the basic colors...will edit tomorrow for the detail portion of the post.

The Devil is in the details...

Here is the fish with flesh tones added, gold toner and silver pearl, and red added to the fins according to reference. The Fins in the pic are particularly red...I have toned it down a little because most people are not used to seeing them this red/orange. I did want to represent the fins as they were in life, but with out making the fish look clownish.

Anal Fin.

Soft Dorsal

Mouth and Teeth.

Now Lets Tip Some Scales!

Pearl-ex Gold pigment powder applied one at a time with a small brush on the back of the fish.
You can actually see this tipping on the reference photo at the top right of this picture.

Here is a cropped photo of the real fish...this is what we are trying to achieve...
Natures version will always be better, but our effort makes for a much more realistic representation.