This is a reminder to vote in the sub poll on if we should allow or disallow AI-generated posts in this sub.

I am reposting like this as the post may be stickied, but a lot of people ignore it/don't see it at the top of the sub (me included, tbh).

Link to the poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/skulls/s/DzvgjGDLio

Common Questions:

Q: Why not just make it a rule, you're the mod.
A: True, but you're the community and I want your input. That's important to me.

Q: When does voting end?
A: 8/24/26

Q: What would disallowing it include?
A: AI-generated or heavily-modified content like photos and bot-text. For example, fake pictures, pictures deeply and obviously edited by AI in a way that's misleading.

It would not include background removers which sometimes use AI. It also wouldn't include (and we probably wouldn't really know) mild AI touch-ups (like many "magic edit" options) like lighting and similar, if they do not make an image so altered it is drastically changed or misleading.

Q: If disallowed, could we report it?
A: Yes, it would be actionable. Be aware, though, that AI can sometimes be hard to spot, and I am only human and have to review. Giving compelling evidence (scanning for a Synth ID, noticing AI gibberish in pics, etc) would help me for stuff that's less obvious.

I had a few imperfect skulls floating around and felt zesty, so I affixed some crystals to them. They were kinda fun to do!

The skulls had cracks and such (roadkill) which made for nice anchor points.

The amethyst chips I have aren't very "chippy" and have round edges, which aren't my fave. But I like the little pop of color they give.

A background remover was used in this pic.

I wanted to test a few preservation methods out and used a couple opossum heads for it.

Little (okay actually it's huge??) guy was preserved with Everclear (190 proof/95% ABV) and brains removed. After injection and soaking, it was dried in silica. The ears, eyes, and lips were pinned and initially were perfect, but humidity had other plans for my house. Urghhh.

It turned out okay - not perfect due to environmental factors like a whopper 80-90% indoor humidity despite my AC + dehumidifying. Normally, these come out better, but all things considered, I'll count it as a win. I lost all of my dried crafting flowers to that bizarre week-long heat and humidity spike so I'm sour about that. We don't get temps like that around here usually 🫩

Next time, I'll mount them traditionally. I didn't have time or freezer space initially, but I have a new freezer so... ehehehe.

A background remover was used for this pic because my light box was looking ugly as sin that day lol

This sub leans heavily anti-AI. Personally, I loathe generative AI and will soon ask the sub to vote if we allow AI posts going forward. (It wasn't originally forbidden when I took over the abandoned sub, but necessity calls...)

Recently, an AI-generative bot-type account posted AI-generated work and the sub had a hilarious reaction. This seems common here, and the anti-AI sentiment is high.

I'm not above petty bullshit, so despite the post being gone, I'm over here liking y'all's comments and approving Reddits "this might be harassment..." comments about AI use to the bot OP.

Profile pics censored to protect the innocent 😤

As ever, please feel free to report posts you're concerned about. I don't always catch them right away and sometimes haven't had a chance to check the sub yet. I'm very responsive and will take a look if yall are concerned.

Anyway ily be good, please be nice to each other (but not bots, fuck 'em)

Bun did not die for this purpose.

TL;DR: Eviscerated, organs used as wets, preserved in Everclear as a mummy.

I ordered a bunch of natural death and cull rabbits from a rabbitry a while back. Seller? Fantastic. Packaging? A-plus plus. UPS? Dogshit. They delivered the package to the wrong house miles away and acted like they'd never tracked a misplaced package in their life. The box was soaked by rain for days and left to heat brutally in 95'F weather for days.

I finally figured out where the package went after posting desperately in a local town group. UPS proudly went "See! Found it!" (Bro you didn't do anything?!)

Anyway. The rabbits were tepid at best upon arrival, in spite of immaculate shipping and freezer packs + insulation. I didn't feel confident stuff would hold up against a secondary freeze and thaw. I processed about 50 rabbits of varying sizes for roughly 8 hours that day. Grrrrr!

Most of the buns were good still, but a few outer ones had slippage and weren't workable. They ended up bug food and are degreasing for their bones.

The tiny neonates were formalin-fixed, as were a few very borderline medium ones. Some larger ones were okay to skin for mounting and are currently in the pickle.

But a few were.. ??? I guess in the middle. Not trusting it, I did an experiment. This little guy was eviscerated and put into 190 proof/95% ABV ethanol to become a mummy. I didn't have time to skin such little guys at such borderline condition, and figured if the mummification didn't work out, no huge loss.

Ethanol dehydration worked great and once dried off, it was put into silica. Lucky me again, we hit record heat and humidity for my northern region. The humidity was outrageous indoors and affected this bun's ability to dry correctly. The otherwise fully flat position bowed upwards so it's less of a "sploot" and a bit more like a sleepy jump. It also affected the eyes, which were pinned dried fully closed successfully and got weird. Frustrating.

The stomach fur discolored from the ordeal, which is again frustrating, but ah well. As far as experiments go it worked out well, minus the insanity of that week's heat and humidity. (Despite dehumidifying and AC, we were at 85-90% indoors 😮‍💨)

A background remover was used, flowers are fake because, you guessed it! My real ones were affected by that humidity burst. Groooannnnn.

Anyway, here's a lil fella. Him very cute.

Out of the blue, my hood won't latch fully closed (after checking to ensure a critter wasn't inside: it wasn't!) It'll latch enough to be latched where I need to open it via the 1" clearance in the hood, but not all the way down. It doesn't respond to the lever by the driver's door.

The lever inside the car to pop the hood seems unresponsive/weak.

I doodled around, and everything appears to move like normal, but I don't really know what normal should look like. There's no debris preventing closure.

Has anyone experienced this? What was the end cause? (Even if just to tell the garage if I can't fix it myself)

1st pic: inner latch pulled
2nd pic: released
3-4th: general pics

2018 base wagon, 67k miles, loved dearly by a car-naïve owner who feels dumb I can't figure it out ;-;

I found a few of these guys in my rot boxes with stuff that rapidly dried out in a snap heatwave that blasted our area. They're waif-thin, dry, and look like a scleral lens. I think they are.

I've seen scleral rings in birds, but these are a new one. I found them in the box with a raccoon as well as a cat (feral, no owner, the person trying to catch to vet it allowed me to keep its remains).

Anyone seen these before? The other one (which literally blew away lol) had a darker circle in the center.

Folks can't seem to handle it and behave!

Without fail, folks will dogpile a post asking to buy. Sometimes the poster will try to sell in the comments, too. (This OP did not, but badly-behaving members got their post removed.)

It overwhelmingly goes awry, even if the OP is being good and trying not to engage with people behaving outside the sub's rules.

If you see this kind of behavior asking to buy/sell/advertise, please report them so we can nip the issue in the bud and give OP resources where to find answers.

Other subs allow sales -- please visit them if you're iso or have something to sell.

This happens almost daily.

These kittens were not killed for the purpose of oddities. Don't bring that foolishness here - you know they weren't!

Sorry, sometimes folks come after me like I'm out here running a critter murder brigade 🫩 Anyway.

I received a few kittens from a veterinarian. I don't usually get them this young, so it was a new experience. Normally, the ones I get from rescues are older that passed of illness, failing to thrive, etc.

They were easy to inject but hard to pose. They're so much floppier than I'm used to. I used some polypropylene plastic to pose them in place as they fix.

I won't wax poetic about them. I find it gross when people act like ohhhh preciousss caaaatttt, and they fake sob as they process them, and they, me, and God all know it's done for views and clout most of the time. (Most)

They're cats. I love cats. But I didn't know these animals and in too many ways they're no different than other animals I process and don't idly grieve for. I did give them the kindness of being washed off and handled gently, cause there's no need to be rough even with something that can't feel it anymore.

Eventually I'll have these for sale to benefit our local spay/neuter clinics. I don't plan to take a cut, cause I have a ton of formalin kicking around and it didn't take me long to do or cost anything. I can't decide yet if gravid-spay wets benefitting spay/neither clinics is sorta macabre or not, but it doesn't super matter at the end of the day!

Blah blah, here's some meows. Please keep yours indoors and spayed/neutered.

I'm fixing up a set of antlers for a friend with apoxie then recoloring with potassium permanganate. My 13yo cat sassed me the entire time (????? bruh, why).

Only these particular antlers. No others. No idea why.

She's a turd. Her name is Willow!

I got a few buns from a local person and decided to skin this one to later maybe mount. It came out decent, though I frustratingly didn't realize the paws were a bit icy still after thawing and they skinned out HORRIBLY 😭 It was younger than I usually do and even thinner, which didn't help the icy paw situation. Booooo. It's smoll - my hand is a size 4.5 ring for reference.

The organs will be wet specimened, the meat removed for the birds and critters outside to consume, and the carcass with bones is being stripped by the bugs to be later degreased.

The bun was euthanized using an immediate neck break and was not fearful (well-handled). It had "one bad day". It was part of a breeding plan that hard culls to avoid adding to the already overfilled pet population. I tend to get them, or dogs do for food. I am not the one who breeds/shows-- I just get the dead ones to prevent waste. ((Hell yeah no waste))

Wee hamster guy I did a few years ago. I got a bit of tanning agent on him via my glove so I used a little borax to dry it (that's the white on him).

He came out pretty good. About the side of my hand!

I of course didn't take any other pics because I just... forget. Trying to get better about that 🫩

A couple years ago, I was skinning a rat in the evening. As I did, my entire county lost power. Naturally, it ended up looking like crap after doing the rest by flashlight (lol).

The lips turned out AWFUL since I couldn't see well. The seam on the belly, atrocious on purpose, because if it's gonna be bad, let's make it BAD. The testicles? Stuffed with cotton balls and peener, out. The form? Way too big because we were without power a couple days and I didn't dare open my freezer to refreeze to model it later.

So, thus became...

her 💕

THE ugliest freaking thing I've ever made. I've made some ridiculous stuff but this? Yeah.

It ended up going home the day I had it for sale to someone SO enthusiastic about how god-awful fugly it was. I didn't mean for it to go bad, of course, but sometimes you gotta laugh or you'll cry.

Not true taxidermy, but mummification. These are opossum, raccoon, bobcat, and muskrat paws that were dehydrated/preserved in Everclear and are now drying in silica.

They fit best upright 😅

They were eventually covered fully, but I snapped this pic first.