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hydrophyte

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About hydrophyte

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    brook trout
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  1. 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.
  2. 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. 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. 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.
  3. 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". 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.
  4. 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.
  5. For reference here is the link to Fred G. Hannie's site... http://www.realisticflytying.net/index.html
  6. I was playing around in Photoshop tonight and trying to resolve A color scheme for these Neuroptera wings. I took a lot of liberties with my drawing from the fossil insect, but this is close to the wing patternation for many living nemopterids. The forewing is mainly transparent, while the hindwing is opaque white and brown. I might try to print the pattern (sans colored background) onto clear transparency film and see what kind of result I can get. Maybe this will work for the opaque hindwing(?).
  7. Thanks for that reference Bruce. I don't understand all of the materials he refers to, but I think I have a similar general idea in mind. I intend to laser print the vein pattern and wing profile, then transfer to a thin, convincing plastic film that will then be backed by a more rigid transparent material, such as overhead transparency sheet. I will try to bond the layers together with burning. I guess this is similar to the method use for those J:son Sweden realistic fly wings. I'll start another thread in the Realistic Fly Tying sub-forum to try to figure out more of this and document progress. My first project is based on a photograph of a fossil Nemopteridae. Here's a (Creative Commons) picture of an extant nemopterid from Europe... The fossil in the photograph is well-preserved. It looks like the animals forewings were mostly transparent, while the hindwings were pigmented and opaque. (Wikipedia Creative Commons image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nemoptera_bipennis.jpg)
  8. I hope I can figure it out. I have a Website with my related work. I think that the main reason there aren't more people tying flies is not because the techniques are so dofficult, but instead because the flies are less practical for angling. I just hope that I can find some direction for making wings. Yes I have been there. I'm especially interested in techniques for making transparent wings like the dragonflies shown there and the opaque butterfly wings. He, understandably, does not reveal many details there on his site.
  9. Can anybody recommend specific kinds of plastic sheet/film to use for the most convincing transparent wings? I have been looking around, but haven't made much headway trying to figure this out. Most of the pages that I have heard about are from several years ago and the links are dead. I hope to laser print wing patterns with detailed veination onto transfer paper, then transfer to wing material. Does this sound feasible for good results? This process might also require some kind of more rigid backing(?). I found this list of materials on the caddisflyshop.com site... http://www.caddisflyshop.com/flshmaforbow.html
  10. I have been shopping around some more and I think I am going to go with the Griffin Superior 2A. It sound as though it's sturdy enough and it holds large hooks.
  11. I hope to start assembling a shopping list. Can anybody recommend a vise that will work? I hope to find a functional vise for $50-$75. To review, these flies are not for angling and they will include replicas for pretty large animals resembling insects such as stoneflies, dobsonflies and large tropical roaches. I will need to use large hooks, but as Bruce mentioned above, I might also want to consider tying with tubes or rods, so a vise that can handle this kind of tying could be helpful.
  12. Will you be tying on a hook? Since these aren't for fishing, you might just tie on a pin, rod or tube. In that case, there are some vise attachments that might handle them better. e.g. extended body attachments, tube fly attachments. Extended body segments are tied on soft material or around a pin that's removed.Take a look at this Fly, Fish, Food video. or search for sbpatt's "Carnage" style SBS's. He does a really nice job showing how to tie extended bodies. Thanks! I imagined tying with hooks because hooks would provide an easy way to position the replicas, but it is good to have this in mind as well. Some of those extinct insects, especially the ones from the Permian, were really huge. There were some that had very heavy and broad bodies with leathery wings like large roaches. I hope that I can also figure out how to make that kind of wing. (Expired copyright image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1er_Congr%C3%A8s_international_d%27entomologie,_Bruxelles,_1-6_ao%C3%BBt,_1910_(1911-12)_(16477916279).jpg)
  13. Thanks. I will review the Al Campbell publication. I had hoped it would be easier to start with a commercial kit, but it looks as though it will be smarter to assemble tools and supplies separately. For one thing, I will need a vice that can hold pretty big hooks. I will try to come up with a couple of specific plans and it would be great if i could get some advice for specific supplies.
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