RE: Replica Fish Question
sure a taxidermist could come CLOSE....but you need as many measurements as possible for them to match...girth etc....i would measure the girth at 3-5 diffrent points for the taxi to go by....but they can paint you up a molded fish of that species and legnth..weight wont matter much....if it was fat or skinny he might beable to come close....but measurements are probably pretty important...and i doubt he can paint it to look EXZACTLY like it..he can go by the pics though so he might...atleast you got alot of pics..that will help....find a taxi and show him what you got and see what he says......i bet you can get something close enough....
oh ya....no idea on the price of replicas.....i thought they were a little more then a regular skin mount...but may be wrong....the average going rate seems to be about 10$ an inch...but you get someone GOOD at fish and a very good painter you can look at 20 an inch im sure.....all depends...definently try to locate a CUSTOMERs fish mount before you let them do it....they might have SHOW pieces in their showroom or on their webpage...but 98% of the guys do 2 types of work...SHOW/Competition mounts and "customer" mounts..which lack detail etc...and ive seen alot of fish jobs where the taxi just simply cannot paint...im sure that takes practice and talent...and a good eye and alot of refrence pics and knowledge...i never wanted a fish or turkey mounted till i met my taxi...he was a professional artist BEFORE he started taxidermy.....then practiced for yeaaars doing self and friend mounts....but his fish and turkey heads are amazing....he matched the color of my fish absolutely PERFECT....i dont know how he got the colors and shades that perfect but he did....i looked at alot of diffrent guys work too....i wouldnt keep a fish to have mounted if i had to have them stinkers mount it!