That's the way they look when they are still wet and on the cardboard... when they dry and you take them off the board, they will be slightly transparent(barely) so you can tweak the appearance of them slightly by the color of what you glue them to. As an experiment you might want to try, take the two boards that they will be shipped between and stain or dye each side of each board a different shade or color and then once the stain or dye dries completely, lay the skin on the board and see what it looks like with the one color underneath it, then try the next, and so on. It will give you an idea of what base color will make the skins look the best. There's a lot of possibilities!!!! You can also sand them slightly to thin them out and to make them more pliable as they usually end up being about the thickness of the plastic on a milk jug(sometimes slightly thicker. If you have seen Keenan's carp/sinew backed juniper, I believe he just put them right over the sinew back without dying or staining the limb surface, and with just the color of the dried sinew back- those skins look awesome, Keenan definitely knows how to make those skins look the best!
