Creating Realistic Transparent Wings

[vicente 0]

That will hold hooks however with the detail you are going to be wanting to do you will want to rotate the fly to be able to view it from all angles that vise will not let you do that, I don't think you will be halt with it for very long. That Sergio cordoba he posts in realistic tying fairly often and is a very skilled realistic tyer.

[Bruce Norikane 0]

You might find some good ideas in this article on tube tying accessories.

 

http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/2017/01/06/three-tools-for-tying-tube-flies-and-a-recommendation/

[hydrophyte 0]

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

[Bruce Norikane 0]

I think you'd get a lot more response on the Fly Tying Forum. Realistic tying is a very advanced topic. I'd guess that less than 1% of tyers have that kind of skill.

 

Also model builders and advanced crafters might know more about transfers. I can't recall the subject coming up on fly tying boards.

 

I wish you the best with your ambitious project.

[Bruce Norikane 0]

Have you seen Graham Owen's website?

 

http://www.grahamowengallery.com/index.html

 

[hydrophyte 0]

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[hydrophyte 0]

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[hydrophyte 0]

I think you'd get a lot more response on the Fly Tying Forum. Realistic tying is a very advanced topic. I'd guess that less than 1% of tyers have that kind of skill.

 

Also model builders and advanced crafters might know more about transfers. I can't recall the subject coming up on fly tying boards.

 

I wish you the best with your ambitious project.

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.

 

 

Have you seen Graham Owen's website?

 

http://www.grahamowengallery.com/index.html

 

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.

[Bruce Norikane 0]

I ran across a thread on another forum that discussed making wings with foam sheets. One poster, Maarten, has printed on these sheets.

 

Here's the thread which I quote below:

 

I had the idea of printing on the cling film trying to acheeve a realistic wing.
In photoshop I cut out some wings from images I made from mayflies.
At home I have an ink jet printer but the ink will not dry on cling film. On foam flattenend with an iron it works and you can print patterns on it. I want to use this for wing cases etc.
Cling film printed using a laserprinter works better and the result is shown in the picture of a wing below. The wing size is 10mm and is made out of 3 layers clingfilm, the central layer is the one with the print on it. The layers are not melted together, only the sides are melted together using a wingburner.
The only problem with the laserprinter is the heat produced during the printing proces which damages the film and the biggest part of the film is ready for the bin. I dont have a laserprinter but my colleague helped me with the printing and I hope to do some more tests.
I’m not a realistic tyer (not at all!) but the idea came up and I gave it a try. When you go on testing with the printing it might be possible to acceeve a realistic wing and nearly for free!
For printing on cling film or flattened foam I used a piece size a6 that I taped in the middle of a paper sheet size a4 which I ran through the printer.

It is possible to trap feathers between two layers of foam but you have to take care that the edges are melted together very well when you are burning the shape. For big flies it will work but with smaller flies the edges will not melt together very well.

Another material to use for this technique is stretch film. It makes a more rigid wing than the cling film and has the same translucency. It only is a bit thicker.

I’m looking forward to more of your work and from others practising the laminator/iron technique.

Hope spring will start soon, I want to go out fishing these flies.

Greetings from Holland,

Maarten

Image Attachments

[hydrophyte 0]

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)

[Bruce Norikane 0]

Good idea to move this to a new post in Realistic forum.

 

I think he uses EPE foam sheets or rolls. Google will show plenty of thicknesses of EPE.

 

He also uses cling film which is common plasic food wrap, e.g. Glad Wrap,

[hydrophyte 0]

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(?).

 

[carpflyguy 0]

I'm interested to see how this goes. Please keep us updated.