Insect wings

[McSmash Smash]

I want to make some insect type wings for my mantis demon, but I don't really know what the best approach would be. I was thinking about first drawing up a template, then placing that under some wax paper, and trace my template with "snakes" of green stuff. The other thought I had was bending some thin wire to the shape of the wings and then fill in the wings with "snakes" of green stuff to make all the veining. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. This is the type of wings that I'm trying for:

[Vil-hatarn]

You could try ripping them off the new Warlord elf fairy, and then painting them in pale whites...

[snitchythedog]

Last time I did this I used clear plastic from a blister pack cut out in the shape if the wings. I used super glue applied with a toothpick to do the ridges. Worked pretty well back then. Just a suggestion.

Snitchy sends.

[Mad Jack]

Definitely use plastic... Wax paper won't give you much structural integrity. You could get a sheet of polystyrene at a local craft or hobby shop - it'll be stiffer and easier to work with, and you'll probably be able to find a selection of thicknesses and opacities. If you use clear plastic like Snitchy suggested, you could brush on a very thin layer of watered-down white glue to make it translucent rather than completely clear.

 

Use wire covered with greenstuff for the main struts of the wing. Make em long enough to go about up to where the main strut of the wing starts to thin out before it curves around. Get the wires ready to be pinned (drill the holes at the correct angle, etc.), and then cut out the wing shapes from the plastic, bend the wires to fit the top curve of the wing, and superglue them to the edge. Make sure you glue the wings to the wire pretty good, and put enough greenstuff around the wire so that it covers the edge of the plastic.

Considering the size of the wings you'll need for the mantis demon it wouldn't be too difficult to do the rest of the lines in greenstuff, or you use Snitchy's glue suggestion for the rest of the lines, although for something the size of the mantis demon, I'd suggest white glue (maybe with just a little bit of water) instead of superglue, simply because it's thicker so you won't have to spend as much time adding layers to it. Plus, with white glue, you can add a bit of paint to it to tint it (and it'll rinse out of your brush just fine as long as you don't let it start to dry.)

 

Once you've got all the lines done and the wings are pinned and glued, you can go back and add a bit more greenstuff around the wires if you need to bulk them out a bit. Looking at the pic of the mantis demon on the Reaper site, you may want to sculpt a couple of smaller chitin plates around the base of the wings where they come out of the thing's back to blend blend them in better...

[skya]

Not sure what scale you're looking for but snagging some plastic one off of kids toys isnt a bad idea either. You can get big bags of plastic insects at most toy stores. I've got a dragonfly I've been wanting to build that been threatening to do that with.