Do nearly the same on the front legs. Skin back the hide high enough to expose the wrist joint. This joint is fairly straight forward and lies right in the hinge point of the wrist, just above the dew claw. If you're unsure exactly where to hit this joint, bend the wrist a couple of times and aim for dead center of the bend, from the underside. Continue in the same manner as the hind feet, applying pressure and cutting through the joint until it is free from the leg. Be careful not to cut into the hide on the far side.
Once both feet are removed, peel back the hide away from the chest and neck area, exposing the neck joint. A lot of folks struggle with this cut and choose to use a saw blade, but breaking through this joint can be readily accomplished with a knife, provided you hit it right. As with the previous joints, go after this one from the underside (throat side) of the neck, not the back of the head. Take a hold of the head and bend it in the neck area a few times to find the hinge point, and then cut as dead center as you can through the wind pipe and throat and into the round joint that joins the head and neck. Insert the knife into the center of the joint, cutting one way and then the other while applying downward pressure to the head. What you want to do is cut from the inside of the joint as much as possible, although there is a lot of muscle in this area that you will need to cut through as well. The more meat you cut through, the less material is holding the head to the neck, so cut through as much of the meat as possible while leveraging the head in the opposite direction of the natural movement of the joint.
Some extra thoughts:
The head and tail joint separations work the same on elk and deer as shown on this bear. The legs of elk and deer are obviously a bit different and hopefully there will be opportunity to illustrate those animals later in this thread.
Large/older animals are knit together stronger than younger animals. Younger animals will nearly pop apart with the introduction of steel to joint, while the older ones may require more effort.
I didn't illustrate the quartering cuts, as I figured more folks would be familiar with those already, like hitting the ball joint of the hip on deer/elk. Also, I didn't go into the removal of the skull or feet from the hide, as I wanted to give more of a field guide to help get your work done and start you moving toward home. Many taxidermists also prefer to do some of this final work themselves anyway.
