ARTISTIC VISIONS WILDLIFE STUDIOS SIGNATURE PROJECT

"ETERNAL STRUGGLE"

When I first created my company almost a decade ago, I would often dream of the mounts I would like to do during my career.  Of course the thoughts of Brown Bears and Elephants always floated through my mind but nothing was as powerful as the vision of the mortal enemies of Africa; Lions and Cape Buffalos.  Every time I would watch TV and see the Animal Planet or National Geographic channels the scenes of these hated foes and there fierce rivalry would capture my imagination.  It is the eternal struggle between brawn (the buffalo) and brain (the lions). 

 

This is the inspiration behind our signature piece, "The Eternal Struggle"

 

In the spring of 2014, Artistic Visions Wildlife Studio was honored to be selected for our third cover of the internationally esteemed "Taxidermy Today" Magazine. It was both an honor and a humbling experience to be recognized in the Taxidermy community for our excellence as well as our contributions to the teaching of other taxidermists world-wide.  This cover showcased our "signature" project for the studio that was 5 years in the creative making.  Below we will go through some of the ideas that we had for the project as well as a step by step picture slide show of how much man hours and labor was involved with such an immense project, I hope you enjoy reading about our rendition of the "Eternal Struggle".

 

 

For this project I knew that I wanted something that would represent both species proudly and highlight their strengths, but I also wanted to tell a story with the piece.  That's when the idea of two leaping lions on the back of a raging buffalo started to take shape.  For the buffalo I choose to keep his mouth closed and give him a defiant and powerful look while both lions would be complimenting each other's techniques; one extremely aggressive and the other a picture of pure concentration.   To add to the story of the project we also half buried a skull of a Cape Buffalo in the base to further the idea that these two female lions were very well versed at the art of taking down a buffalo.  It is a Taxidermy piece that can be viewed many different ways and in turn can be appreciated by a wide variety of audiences.

To make this piece truly one of a kind, many man hours of labor was put into welding a solid steel structure to make the lions appear to "fly" towards their prey.  In fact the only point of contact to the base is the Cape Buffalo's right rear leg; everything else is airborne.  Even the lions are only touching the Buffalo with one of their paws, looking at this piece is truly like looking at a moment captured in time. 

 

I would not be able to mount such creative and stress filled pieces without the love and support of my family and friends.  Mom, Dad, Samantha, Paulie, Jerod and Cait; Thank you all so much for believing in me.  Without your motivation none of this would be possible.  And thank you to the taxidermy industry as a whole for giving me a platform to attain my dreams as well as provide a career for myself as well as many other talented taxidermists that we can be proud of. 

 

Aaron Simser

 

 

Below is a slide show of our "Eternal Struggle" Project

These pictures will the steps that we take to create such a breath taking piece

from the begining modification processes to the final habitat and base work.