Sculptors

Our team is composed of award-winning artists who have spent years honing their craft and contributing to the field of taxidermy.

Bryan Eppley

Bryan Eppley started taxidermy in 1974 and has become a renowned sculptor and owner of Ohio Taxidermy Supply. After a period of time doing taxidermy, he realized a lack of quality in available forms. Soon after, he started sculpting his own mannikins for personal use. In time, many local taxidermists also started purchasing them for their businesses. Bryan quickly recognized this as a new opportunity and in 1983, he founded Buckeye Mannikins. He took his first mannikin to the 1983 World Taxidermy Championships and won Best in World Mannikin. In 1984, Bryan won Best in World Mannikin and Best in World Synthetic Game Head Sculpture. Since that time, Bryan has sculpted numerous sculptures for a variety of North American game heads. Specializing in Whitetail, Bryan now holds 14 Best of Category titles at the World Taxidermy Championships. Bryan has won almost every time he has ever entered, except once. In 2008 he founded Ohio Taxidermy Supply and has been sculpting ever since. His goal, simply trying to bring the industry the most accurate and lifelike Whitetail forms that we have ever seen.

Mike Nakielski

Mike started doing taxidermy, with the help of his dad, in 1991 at ten years of age. He started competing in 1995 and has competed every year since.

Throughout the years of highly competitive competition, Mike gained a tremendous amount of knowledge from the many judges and fellow competitors in the competition arena. He has earned numerous awards throughout the years including 2016 Breakthrough Awards for Judge’s Choice Best of Show, and National Taxidermist of the Year, among several other prestigious awards.

Mike has now sculpted his own mannikins and bird heads that meet his standards and are available exclusively through Ohio Taxidermy Supply. The universal bodies are easy to use with accurate anchor points for leg placement, and positive wing set when leaving the ball, on the humorous bone. The heads are cast from fresh specimens and have the utmost realism. Give them a try on your next bird mount!

Travis De Villiers

Travis is a wildlife artist, sculptor and an all around talented individual from South Africa. You may recognize the name from his recent wins at the 2013 and 2015 World Taxidermy Championships, where Travis won Best of Category, Life-Size in the Pre-Sculpted Division. Travis is also an active writer for Breakthrough Magazine, and has been featured on the cover.

Travis will be bringing a line of African sculptures to the team. His work will feature some of the most accurate African, games-plain shoulder and life-size, forms the industry has seen to date. We are very excited to have Travis in our taxidermy family and look forward to him and his work as he continues to add to, and impress us with, his “TC Signature Series” sculptures!

Jim Beenken

Jim is a well sought after sculptor from Wisconsin that has been sculpting for major supply companies, in the industry, for over two decades. His vast array of talents and skills are being utilized to create accurate, lifelike forms for our customers. We believe these are some of the best North American life-size mannikins on the market and we are thrilled to share them with our customer base. We are honored to have Jim come to the Ohio Taxidermy Supply team and provide our customers with the most accurate and user friendly forms in the industry!

We are excited to see what’s next as Jim continues to add to his “Beenken Design!”

Brian Harness

Brian was a talented artist, sculptor and innovator. He first started his career in 1982, when he founded Ozark Woods with his wife Laura. Since that time, he has innovated and created many small mammal sculptures that have won numerous awards. Brian has won and judged on all levels of competition, including his 2009 win at the World Taxidermy Championship for Small mammal Life-size. His Divide and Conquer series has changed the way small mammals will be mounted for years to come.Travis will be bringing a line of African sculptures to the team. His work will feature some of the most accurate African, games-plain shoulder and life-size, forms the industry has seen to date. We are very excited to have Travis in our taxidermy family and look forward to him and his work as he continues to add to, and impress us with, his “TC Signature Series” sculptures!

Wolfgang Hauser

Wolfgang was born in southern Germany in 1960. He started his taxidermy career at the age of 13 by mounting small rodents and roadkill. The results were terrible but insightful and gave him the inspiration to pursue taxidermy as his professional career. At the age of 22, his career took a serious turn when he attended full time taxidermy school in Bochum Germany. Upon completion of three years of schooling, he worked as a trainee at several companies and museums. Two years later Wolfgang founded his own taxidermy studio near his hometown. This is where Wolfgang sculpted and produced his own mannikins for his own taxidermy work and his colleagues. This resulted in a small sales program for the European taxidermy industry in 1998. In 2004, Wolfgang won the Breakthrough award for self-sculpted and mounted a life-size cow at the European Taxidermy Championship, in Dortmund Germany. A year later he began to produce mannikins exclusively from his shop for the taxidermy industry. After buying a farm in Namibia in 2007, as a new personal shop, he began to gather specimens and information to develop a new line of African wildlife mannikins. This allowed him the opportunity to grow and in 2014, he moved his business to a much larger and more ideal facility in Germany. Wolfgang continues to sculpt new prototypes and with the help of his staff, provides high quality and professional products to the taxidermy world. On his off time, Wolfgang enjoys hunting and collecting specimens all around the world.

Alexander Detzel

As an active hunter early on, Alexander started his interest in wildlife at the age of 15. Shortly after, he began studying game management and at the age of 26, started his own taxidermy business in Germany. Alexander has been self employed and has continued to study taxidermy ever since. His fine work can be seen when looking at the exceptional detail in his line of jaw sets and various mammal forms.

During his leisure time, Alexander enjoys sailing off the coast of Australia.

Alexander Sokolov

Alexander has professionally engaged in taxidermy since 1996. He has been one of the top founding sculptors and taxidermists for Russia and most of Europe. Alexander has won numerous championships in Russia, Europe and across the world.

Alexander started his career by studying at the University of Leningrad and working at the Zoological institute of the USSR Academy of Scientists in Leningrad. He later continued his studies at the graduate school of Moscow University, and then the art school of Kaluga. During that time, Alexander was involved in dozens of scientific expeditions and gathered much information that would help him in developing that skill for becoming a leading sculptor.

Fast forward to today, Alexander continues to gather data and pictures to further improve the quality of his work. He also shares his expertise by participating and judging at many National and World taxidermy events.

Harold McGuire

In 1995, Harold McGuire manifested his fascinations into a passionate career of turkey taxidermy. As an avid hunter with a passion for the outdoors, he began spending countless hours studying the anatomy and movement of the local turkey population in an effort to sculpt the amazing turkey forms that we have today. Harold’s passion and hard work came to fruition in 2019, when he won the “Best in World Turkey.” Now residing in McDowell, VA, Harold runs a full-time shop specializing in turkey taxidermy and freeze drying turkey heads. Still driven with the same passion to produce the best turkey forms on the market, he continues to spend his time perfecting his turkey bodies to feature the most anatomically correct turkey forms and freeze dried turkey heads on the market

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