First came the roadkill cat handbag. Then just when you thought New Zealand taxidermy couldn’t get much stranger, well, it did. Tauranga taxidermist Andrew Lancaster has been "trying something a little different" lately: incorporating baby doll faces into his animal creations.So for anyone on the hunt for a stuffed rabbit’s body and ears attached to a baby dolls head, or maybe a duck-baby cross "dressed for the cold weather", well he’s your guy.The “quirky Baby Rabbit” which has embodied a Hobbit-Lord of the Rings vibe, is going for $160. And the babyfaced-duck complete with a scarf and beanie is a steal at $97.Lancaster is touting the pair as "unusual item[s] for the taxidermy collector who has everything else".“Some people call me sick and some think it’s pretty good,” Lancaster said. “It's water off a duck's back. I'm too long in the tooth now for that to really worry me."The Tauranga taxidermist has been collecting and transforming road-kill for over 20 years, but says recently it’s been harder to get his hands on dead animals in good nick, so he’s been forced to get a bit creative."Sometimes, like that duck, it had its head chopped off and I couldn't do much with it. I could have put another animal's head on it but I didn't have any spare at the time," he said.Lancaster’s hybrid creations—such as a possum with two magpie heads or a possum head on a chicken's body—has put him in a very niche spotlight and attracted a cult following. Now, his experimentation with dolls heads in recent years has done the same.
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