Restoration project and photoshop skills

!!!Update!  I just received some photos of this mout from the owner, exhisbiting the condition before I restored it!!!!  See below:







 







 



My chicken & egg supplier provided me with an assignment over the holidays: bring back to life this antique rooster mount which belonged to his good friend, another chicken enthusiast.  The tail was the main issue, as it was broken and sagging as a rather depressing angle.  There were other areas which needed improvement as well, so he just told me to give it the works.



And here is the finished and completely restored piece:







The sad, pathetic, kicking myself in the ass part of this is that I accidentally deleted my "before" pics and there is no hope of retrieving them.  So...through th miracles of Photoshop I will attempt to give a proper visual example of what I was dealing with.



Here is my rendering of the "before" shot focusing on the tail.  That part had completely broken from the rest of the bird and needed to be reattached at the correct angle.  I replaced the steel support rod and with the help of a little magic paste and finesse, got the positioning just right.  I then pruned the feathers a bit and arranged them back into what I imagined would have been their proper place.  Some were quite frayed so I tried steaming them, which helped by opening up the fibers a bit until they relaxed back into a straight (not crimped) state, but didn't entirely alleviate the problem.  Next time I'll experiment with some sort of oil.







Tada!







The other major issue was the face. The coloring has completely faded into a dull yellow (I'm assuming in life he was a blushing young thing) and the waddles and comb were dried out and crumpled.  I rehydrated the delicate tissue for a few days until it was malleable enough to get into a more natural position without snapping.  After that the flesh was braced for several more days to cure in the straight position.



After that came painting.  After several tries I found the right combination of matte/glossy coats to achieve the slightly rubbery looking appearance these particular features tend to have on living roosters.



Before:







And after:







Aside from that there was general dusting of feathers, eyes, beak,feet and base and the usual whispering of sweet nothings into the rooster's ear.  He emerged good as new and the client was pleased.