Dragonfly-Folk, Male

 

This is a fun piece that I had a lot of fun with. The subject for the Printed Encounter was "Modular Insectoids, " and I wanted to make another unique entry in the spirit of the kobolds I did for the last round. I found a really cool giant dragonfly in their catalog, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make something really unique that fit perfectly thematically. This model was the first of six that I prepared, but with the whirlwind of activity that the end of summer brings to my household I was only able to finish prep on one of them before I was facing a tight deadline of only a few days of painting time (with limited time each day, that is pretty tough for me).

I decided to take a chance on the color scheme, and rather than the safe blue palate for a dragonfly (the classic blue-eyed darner) I went with something flashy that broke up my current color palate. Specifically, I modeled my paint after the real world "roseate skimmer" - those were some really striking (and risky!) colors

(credit to Jim Angelo for the great pic)

The males are super flashy purples, pinks, magents and reds, while the females are a whole different palate (for another post!). 

Definitely a bold palate that would pose a challenge, and very different from anything I had done before! I also elected for some other firsts - most notably, the transparent wings. This model, like most I print, was done with transparent resin.  I then used some liquid latex mask to cover the wings while I painted the model to keep them perfectly clear (good thing, too!). once I was done with the bulk of painting I carefully stripped of the mask - this was really challenging and took hours to achieve because I didn't want to damage the delicate wings.  Then came a clear coat, and some final details, including a transparent colorshift glaze (pink-gold). this looks amazing in person, but only the back photo captures it here. Ill have to get some alt photos to really focus on that effect at some point. I was really happy with the (super labor intensive) outcome, enough that my gears are turning and I want to dry all sorts of shimmery clear wings!