This topic is to showcase all those fake monsters created from the carcasses of real creatures by artists, from the feejee mermaid, to the jackalope, to even weirder things.

Here's an excellent artist's webpage to start us off. I especially like the North Woods Chimera and the Felid Orthus.

I actually did finish that story, and I did take Chup and Dodo's suggestions to make it less flowery, more personal, and more show don't tell. Here it is, I hope ya like it:
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“We are here today to judge the specimen ‘Mankind’ for his crimes.” The elephant’s head said to me from upon the wall. His dry, scuffed lips spat dust as he spoke. “The defendant stands before us today for crimes against beastkind, including burning our forests, contaminating our air, and counts of murder numbering into the billions,” the elephant said. The other taxidermied heads mounted upon the walls, ranging from ibexzes, to rhinoceroses, to tigers, to buffalo, to others, looked at me and murmured in disapproval, jaws flapping in a mockery of life.

The only two heads not speaking were the two antelope heads securing me to the wall, blunt teeth crushing into my flesh. “How do you speak for your race? How do you speak for your crimes?” The heads upon the wall all became silent and turned upon me, dead eyes locked with mine. I couldn’t speak. The fear roiled in my gut as they stared at me, hating me, and I knew I was good as dead.

“I said, how do you speak for your race” The elephant’s leathery trunk slapped across my face and the blunt teeth on my arms tightened their grip. I felt a crunching pain and hot blood on my arms slowly trickle down. I spoke, tremulously. “I… I… I didn’t do any of it. I mean, I didn’t do any of those things, the burning, the shooting, any of it. I’m sorry, so god-damn sorry. I didn’t do it, but I’m so god-damn sorry for what people did to you. Please don’t kill m- ”

”SILENCE!” the elephant’s head screamed. The dim lights flickered, several bits of wire were now sticking out from the elephant’s leathery trunk, and every animal’s head in the hall looked at him. The elephant’s head stared straight through me, its gaze unwavering, dead; glassy eyes full of contempt and hate. “A poor defense if there ever was one.” He slapped me again with his trunk. I felt the wires rake across my skin, and then a sharp hot pain across my chest. I tried not to wince, but I let out a short squeal of pain anyway. I felt sick, both from the blood loss and those eyes.

“If I had my way, I would kill you right now,” the great tusked thing on the wall wheezed, “But since I am a… fair judge, I will leave your fate to the crowds. So, do we let the hairless creature live, or do we avenge ourselves with blood?!”

The eyes of the crowd shifted from him straight to me. My stomach turned as their gaze bored into me, and I knew that their conclusion was foregone.

“BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!” the heads cheered, lips flapping in undying, bitter glee. This wasn't a trial. This was an execution.

“Bring in the machine!” the elephant’s head crowed with glee. The door slammed open and a taxidermied bear stepped in, with sawdust dripping from his lips as if salivating at me. He held in his hand a needle, attached to a large engine, hissing and spraying a miasma of air and sawdust.

“No! Please!” I desperately, helplessly screamed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please forgive me, I never wanted to hurt anyone, please don’t kill me”. But it was of no use. My weak cries for sanctuary were drowned out by the cheering crowd of beasts, and the antelope heads gripped ever tighter around my arms. I let out a scream of pain as the needle stabbed through my ribcage. The last thing I felt was the sawdust being injected into my lungs, and the hot, dark blood draining out. And the last thing I heard was the laughter of the elephant's head.
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But back on topic, what exactly did ya think of those taxidermied creatures in my first post?

I always loved that website, especially the skinless stuff. Also, the artist is hot. There used to be a photo of her on the front page in surgical scrubs with a flayed squirrel <3

I thought about buying one of the Hanivers at one point, since you can't really find them often.

Taxidermy by Dr. Seuss

Man these are pretty awesome.

Why can't all girls be this amazing. I'm ordering a Tree Jackalope.

I've posted these Japanese monster mummies on quite a few occasions, and here I go again.

Would those mummy things have looked a considerable bit less ossified way back when they were first created?

Man thoughts; trucks and boobs

The tengu (the last one) looks like it's probably seen better days. I don't know about the others.


The Skvader!

Do you think Skvaders and Jackalopes are part of the same genus? If so, might it be possible to interbreed them?

In Dreamer's story, I'm totally imagining all these animals mounted on the wall, all intimidating and stuff, and then a singing Big Mouth Billy Bass among their ranks...

I found this photo in a children's mythology book that I checked out from my local library some time ago. I believe that the figure came from a museum exhibit. I'm fairly sure that the chimera is at least partially taxidermy (the hindquarters are probably from a dinosaur sculpture/model.)

I like how the goat head is just growing from the middle of the back.

MacGyver I think I have seen this before. What book is it from?

Looks like an Eyewitness one to me.

I had that book! It is one of those Eyewitness books. I think it's the Mythology one.

Man, a Google image search for chimera taxidermy brings up all kinds of bizarre stuff:

That's the correct, traditional way, and how I always saw them portrayed outside Dungeons & Dragons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28mythology%29

Yep, it was one of the Eyewitness books, my library has tons of them on almost any subject you can think of. Does anybody else find that sometimes educational books for children/teens are actually way better and more informative than what adults get (less pretentious too)?

This awesome Cyclops model was also in the same book. It might incorporate some animal components (the skin looks like it could have come from an alligator/crocodile or a rhinoceros or something and then been dyed blue), but I couldn't really tell for sure, which is why I didn't post it with the chimera.

Where ever do those Eyewitness books get those models from? They always seem to have access to all sorts of wonderful, unusual stuff for their books, regardless of subject matter (the Star Wars ones had "real" props for aliens that didn't even appear in the movies).

DAT CYCLOPS

Such nightmares he gave me as a child

http://sow.ggnet.co.jp/room.htm?no=10#afhurl

Taxidermy representations of the 7 deadly sins by 3 different artists. I love how Jose made lust a phallic looking creature.