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Did that majestic bull elk just tip its crowned head, with seven gnarly royal points on each side, ever so slightly?

Is he really preparing to bugle, to stake his deep-throated, high-pitched, primal claim to the bevy of cows undoubtedly standing nearby? Is he itching for a fight; announcing his presence the way macho, male elk do and waiting for the other biggest and baddest bulls around to determine who is really best and earns the right to pass on his, and only his, genetics to the next generation of Rocky Mountain Elk?

Actually, it is kind of hard to tell. If you didn't know you were admiring a sculpture or a painting by Craig Phillips, you might just get lured into believing the subjects he brings to life are indeed living, walking animals, and you had stepped into their habitat.

Phillips' painstaking efforts to get every detail just right has now led to one of the biggest deals of his sculpting career, the opportunity to have his work featured in a brand new national conservation organization's main lobby.

Due to his talent and notoriety in the wildlife art world, Phillips was recently awarded a contract to produce art, in the form of several life-sized bronze wildlife sculptures, which will ultimately be seen by millions of people.

Already nationally and internationally acclaimed for his highly detailed renditions of big game animals large and small and everything in-between, Phillips has been commissioned to create a series of life-sized sculptures – a mature bull elk (which is now in a foundry in Oregon being prepared for display), a mother black bear with two cubs, and a whitetail deer buck – for the Conservation Marketing Specialists visitor center In Kentucky.

He says the connections he made at the numerous wildlife shows he has attended in the past is what sealed the deal for his getting the prestigious assignment.

"I have sold artwork to these people before," he said. "They know me, know my work and thought I could do this."

Phillips portrays them as he sees them, and the result is always breathtaking; be it in remarkably life-like sculptures of deer, elk, bear, waterfowl or whatever wild, or in his incredibly detailed paintings, many of which also recapture some of the stunning mountain scenery of beautiful western Montana in the scenic backgrounds he creates.

"I have always been fascinated by the natural environment and animals," Phillips said. "Ever since I was a little kid, I was drawn to the outdoors and the animals living in them. I love being in the outdoors and my work is a direct result of that."

Phillips' personal vision of nature's beauty becomes more well-known every day through his impressive portfolio, his ever-expanding body of work. Phillips still attends some of the wildlife show conventions to display and sell his work, just not as many now as is in the past. He has attended the National Sheep Foundation show for the last 30 years running and developed a special connection to attending that show.

"That one is my favorite," he said. "I only attend two or three a year now but the Sheep Foundation is always one of them."

The display of Phillips' work in Kentucky will allow the rest of the nation, well east of the Rocky Mountains, the chance to discover and enjoy a new view of the outdoor world. A highly detailed view of the outdoor world from Sanders County if you will.

The Conservation Marketing Specialists organization is headquartered in Florence, Kentucky, and the visitor center facility will be constructed in Corbin, Kentucky, complete with Phillips' three sculptures greeting visitors at the door. The facility's grand opening is expected sometime in 2020.

According to the organization's website, the visitor center hopes to attract more than 450,000 people a year, giving Phillips' artwork an audience well beyond the American west.

One of the projects the organization has worked on and continues to work on, which is very close to Phillips' outdoors heart, is the reintroduction of elk, which once roamed much of the continental U.S., to Kentucky.

Phillips said that effort has produced a healthy herd of over 150 elk on the company's land in Kentucky, after a seed-herd of 15 was planted there several years ago. Land that was strip mined for coal not all that long ago has become born-again, reclaimed elk habitat.

"It's on reclaimed coal mining land in Kentucky," he said. "Elk were transplanted back there and are doing great. It is quite a success story."

A resident of western Montana since the early 1980s and a professional artist since 1979, Phillips painstakingly worked on his full-sized elk for the Kentucky facility for over eight months, doing some of the detail work in between bouts of looking for fires during his day-job as a lookout on Eddy Mountain during the summer months last year.

Phillips said he worked on detailing the legs and portions of the head of his elk creation while on the lookout, of course not during work hours when he was keeping a close eye on the surrounding forest, and the areas around communities and structures in the valleys below his Eddy Mountain perch.

Linda Phillips

STANDING BY HIS WORK, Craig Phillips created this magnificent life-sized elk sculpture through the age-old process called lost wax casting, which allows bronze, which expands slightly before setting, to fill in the finest details on a sculpted object. Phillips melted large slabs of oil-based wax, which molds much like clay, onto a specially built frame supported by the two large poles under the elk's midsection. The elk took more than eight months to complete.

Now completed, Phillip's latest sculpture, which depicts a full-sized mature bull elk craning out its neck and bugling, has been disassembled, crated up and shipped to the foundry in Oregon, where it will take another 6-8 months to cast in bronze. The beautiful, bugling bronze elk from Montana will then be shipped to Kentucky for permanent display at the entrance of the organization's soon to be completed visitor center.

That Rocky Mountain elk will soon be joined by the bears and whitetail that Phillips is already planning and working on in his studio east of Thompson Falls.

An avid outdoorsman and conservationist, Phillips enjoys working for the U.S. Forest Service where he relishes the physical work and the chances employment there gives him to get out in the woods, in the summer and shoulder seasons, and loves to hunt with family and friends in the fall.

In his work with the Forest Service, Phillips is recognized as one of the best fire lookouts on the entire Lolo National Forest, which stretches all the way from the headwaters of Prospect Creek to the west, to the Swan Range on the other side of Seeley Lake to the east.

Phillips draws inspiration from his job, his hobbies and his passion – art.

"I just love the outdoors, being out in the woods," he said. "We live in a very special place and I like being able to try to show people some of that. I guess you could say that is what inspires me."

For a better look at Phillips' artwork, visit his website at phillipsbronze.com.