LoveHuntN;
Your kind of asking if the cup is half full or half empty. Because everyone will give you a lot of different opinions on which is best. I've used both freezed dried heads and artificial heads, and both have their difficulties. On the freeze dried heads your best bet when it come to covering up the paint on the feathers, is to use some mascara to cover up the paint. And if the freeze dyer did prep the head right, then yes, your going to have rebuild the shrunked areas back up. And you do have to advise your customer, that no moisture, whats so ever can come in contact with the head. Or you're really asking for trouble.

Now with the artificial heads, you're going to have to deal with the absence's of feathers. I personally like the artificial heads better. Most of my clients that have turkeys mounted, I will pluck as many feathers as possible from the real head, put them in a marked envelope, as to where I removed them from, then replace them when the heads finished. This is where a good set of reference pictures come in handy. I use a needle sharp point on a wood burner, burn in a hole in the mannikin then hot glue them back in place. make sure you don't use a lot of glue, because then you have a real mess to clean up, and have the chance of ruining your paint job. Good Luck with the turkey, and have fun at school.