Bilal

 This is the skull of Bilal the cat, a beloved member of my dear friends' family.  When he passed, they gave him to me to make something with.  I brain tanned his hide and transformed him into a luxurious fur stole, of which I sadly have no photos.

 W & R were instrumental in my early development as a taxidermy artist; I couldn't have made it without their guidance and generosity.  I was reflecting on this last week when I decided to unearth Bilal's head from my freezer, clean it off and gift them with the skull.

 I've been getting into bone cleaning lately, all these heads are in my freezer that I figured I'd do something with someday.  Now I'm really getting into it.  I don't use beetles, as bone cleaning isn't even a significant part of the services I offer (yet) but I'm thoroughly enjoying the catharsis of scraping brains out, yanking cartilage with my bare hands, pulling, plucking and prying all the messy gunk off the bones.  Perhaps it's a metaphor for some deep self exploration I've been engaging in...

 Bilal had some pretty impressive teeth, although he was missing a bottom fang.

 I articulated the mandible to the skull and drilled a hole for his name tag to dangle from.

Another day in Paradise.