I have had a Marten skin garment tanned by Moyles. It looks pretty good, but the claws and the ears are sort of flat or out of place. Does anyone have an idea how I might get the ears pulled out and the claws in the right position?
Lightly hydrate the areas you want to shape by spraying the leather side with a mist of warm water from a spray bottle.Roll up the skin for half hour then the areas you want to shape will be pliable.For the paws,pin them the way you want them to stiff cardboard, and they will dry in that shape.For the ears,pin them between cardboard or just shape by hand as they dry.If you want to shape the entire skin,just dampen the leather with water spray and pin skin leather out on a clean stretcher.When dry turn it fur out and it will have a nice shape for display purposes.
Thanks much! I thought there was a way, but some other guy on another forum told me I would wrinkle the head if I wet the places like you said.
Often you have to do the procedure above for tanned skins. They have to do that for rugged skins, the procedure is called blocking if I recall. Sort of like reforming it.