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hydrophyte

Creating Realistic Wings

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This is a continuation of a topic that I started over in the Beginner's Corner...

 

http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=84756&page=2

 

I have a project in mind that involves fly tying methods to recreate fossil insects. It looks to me as though the most important first challenge will be to make convincing wings. The groups of insects that I am interested have various kinds of wing forms, textures and colors.

 

I have some of the thin plastic films of the kinds used for the J:son Sweden system and similar materials on order and they should be here soon.

 

I am going to try laser printing directly to transparency film, as well as transfer techniques.

 

I'll try to make some headway and add updates.

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This is a continuation of a topic that I started over in the Beginner's Corner...

 

http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=84756&page=2

 

I have a project in mind that involves fly tying methods to recreate fossil insects. It looks to me as though the most important first challenge will be to make convincing wings. The groups of insects that I am interested have various kinds of wing forms, textures and colors.

 

I have some of the thin plastic films of the kinds used for the J:son Sweden system and similar materials on order and they should be here soon.

 

I am going to try laser printing directly to transparency film, as well as transfer techniques.

 

I'll try to make some headway and add updates.

Carry On .....

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Here is my first project. These are wings drawn from a nemopterid lacewing (Neuroptera) Cretaceous fossil that was

found in Colorado. The living animal was not very big and had a wingspan of about 2.25".

 

Nemopteridae-layers-white-web.jpg

 

Tonight I went over to Kinko's to print this on clear transparency film. Not surprisingly, the result looks very much like a simple print on clear transparency film. I hope that I can figure out how to improve this. Maybe I can get better results by transferring from a laser print to one of the finer clear films.

 

I also hope to make some larger fossil insects, especially some representatives of the strange extinct groups from the Carboniferous and Permian. If you are logged into Facebook you should be able to see this photo of a Meganeura proto-dragonfly by Robert Nicholls' Paleocreations studio...

 

https://www.facebook.com/Paleocreations/photos/a.266181773487782.47481.266174723488487/1047951781977440/?type=3&theater

 

If you scroll up in Facebook you can also see video of this completed model. How do you think he made the wings? They are truly impressive.

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I haven't made much headway, but here are a few quick shots.

 

I laser-printed the fossil lacewing and a few other images onto clear transparency film. The result looked very much like cheap plastic. I used the X-acto knife upside-down to scratch veins into the film and that improved the appearance a little bit.

 

23-I-17-fly-tying-I.jpg

 

Here's an image I found in a book that I'm using strictly for trying to figure out how to create butterfly wings. This doesn't look much better on the clear transparency, although it improved a little when I sprayed it with matte clear sealer.

 

23-I-17-fly-tying-II.jpg

 

Today I went to the art store and got some mulberry paper from Japan with a real nice texture. I am going to try printing the butterfly wings on laser transfer paper, then iron onto the mulberry to see how that looks.

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I don't know what they look like "in person" ... but those pictures look realistic to me. I really like the lacewing wings. It's truly difficult to mimic the dusty look of butterfly wings.

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Maybe find some mica powder and very lightly dust it over some workable fixative sprayed on the wings before it dries for the reflective dusty look as Mike calls it.

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Maybe find some mica powder and very lightly dust it over some workable fixative sprayed on the wings before it dries for the reflective dusty look as Mike calls it.

 

That's a great idea! I looked it up and I see that it is sold economically in many different colors. With a plan you could probably get a good result by doing a heat transfer from a print onto rice paper, applying mica powder and then touching up with pen and/or brush & paint.

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