but it might also be hard to not have imperfections in the face that give everyone an “uncanny valley” sort of feeling that something’s off about it?

yep, precisely so.

do you know this stuff via actually doing taxidermy, or are you just another infinitely curious person?

the latter, i suppose. i’ve had a fascination with the history of sideshows, professional freaks, medical anomalies, and the like since i was a wee lass, and attempts at taxidermizing humans come up somewhat often in that course of study.