Black Scavenger Fly

Artwork Works in Progress
1

A Black Scavenger Fly
Scientific Name: Sepsis punctum
Sex: Male

Fully modeled and rendered in Blender - Cycles.
I used Scanning Electron Microscopy images and macrophotographs of specimens I am researching as background images to create anatomically accurate models.

This is part of my PhD research in which I am proposing a fusion between art and science. I am promoting the usage of 3D CG to model and animate insects and their behaviours - in this case, black scavenger flies (family Sepsidae).

I also uploaded this in my CGSociety Portfolio: http://diegoaraujo.cgsociety.org/art/insect-blender-creature-nature-scientific-illustration-black-scavenger-fly-3d-1255740

Feedback is appreciated, and I would love to share more about how I modeled it and about insect anatomy!!!

Regards,
Diego

Attachments

S punctum 3D New Material - WIP 06.jpg1600×1200 225 KB

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Different angles

S punctum 3D New Material - WIP 07.jpg1599×1199 104 KB

S punctum 3D New Material - WIP 08.jpg1599×1199 82.6 KB

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I work on a thread to do wings like that 4 months ago

did u see it ?

looking nice

happy cl

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Hi, Ricky!

I couldn’t find your thread. Is it possible to link it here?

Here are some macro-photos and microscopic photos of the wings showing the level of details and iridescence that can be achieved.

I did find some interesting tutorials and blogs proposing ways to create iridescence in cycles. I try with some, but I an still pondering if I will create a normal or bump map for the wing surface to ad the “cell” effect. Each “cell” has a hair coming from it. A lot of details in just a pair of wings!

Thank you for your reply!

Attachments

S punctum Wing 02.jpg1360×1024 1.17 MB

Female 01 Right Wing Dorsal side - 01a.jpg2300×1725 451 KB

Wing Pink and Blue area.jpg1280×1024 994 KB

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Hi Rick!

Thanks for the Link!
Very nice robotic dragonfly!
Are you modeling more robotic insects? Do you have a portfolio or are you just posting stuff here?
And, are you interested in more sources of insect anatomy?

In my case, I created the wings by extruding a small plane following the veins and after that joined the edges to form the membranes. Then I extruded the whole wing to create it’s thickness and then the veins were extruded again to create the vein elevation.

A bit complicated the way I did it and I am experimenting with better ways to model wings as well as different parts of the body. I have 50 species of black scavenger flies to deal with!!! :stuck_out_tongue: (High res. sculpting with dynamic topology followed by retopology is a good way to create the thorax).

But for my research, I also need to keep in mind that several of such details need to belong to the mesh, and not to a bump or normal map, because I need to do some analysis on these shapes…