Paper butterflies/moths
Intermediate | Rating: 9.50 Votes: 10
Views: 9051 | By: rocketandroll  |
| Category: Sculpting Subcategory: Sculpting step by step | Date: 2006-12-05 03:46:49 |
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As requested, here is a brief tutorial on how to make the tiny paper butterflies and moths used on two of my competition entries.
The mini that inspired this article is my Nightbringer from the UK Golden Demons this year, you can see it here:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/141621
This mini used a total of seventeen paper moths and butterflies to give the 'swarm' effect on the base. This wasn't the first time I'd make a butterfly this way... I also made one on my Orc Shaman model which won at the Conflict South comp earlier in 2006... that can be seen here:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/123602
The butterflies and moths were all made the same way, and it really was extremely simple....
I'll do this in steps, so here we go:
Step 1: Get some reference material!
The very first thing I did was grab about 100 images of moths from the Internet to use as inspiration when planning the shape and colouration of the moths... the same applies to butteflies... the butterflies on the Nightbringer are based loosely on Monarchs as these seemed to be the most recognisable and their bright orange colour gave the best contrast to the subtle greys and browns of the moths. Look closely at the wing shapes, how the wings appear when open and when closed. Moths are differentieated from butterflies in that they rest with their wings folded back along their body, whereas butterflies rest with their wings either held vertically above their body, or flat out to the sides. It's not a hard and fast rule, but worth bearing in mind. For the moths, I didn't copy any specific species, I just took elements of wing shape and colour that gave the best overall impression of a moth and combined them... this is a fantasy world, use your imagination!
Step 2: Draw out the flat moth/butterfly shapes.
I got a sheet of thin paper. Something smooth (but not glossy) is best... I used a draughstmans 'layout pad' as this paper is very fine and quite thin. Draw the flat shape of your moth or butterfly with it's wings in the position you want them... be that in-flight or at rest. Draw with a very fine pencil or artists pen... I used a 0.3mm technical pencil... these are very small things to draw and cut! The biggest of the moths on the Nightbringer is about 10mm from tip to tip of it's wings... to scale, that actually makes it about the size of a large pigeon! But hey, we're allowed a little artistic license in these things! Once you're happy with the size and shape of the moth/butterfly, copy it as many times as you need... I tried to add a little veriety of size and shape into the moths to make them more believable, they all however kept the same basic shape.
Step 3: Cut out the paper moths/butterflies.
I cut mine out on a smooth board using a surgical scalpel with a brand new blade in it. It's just NOT practical to cut out things this small with scissors... believe me! With many of my moths, I seperated the rear and front wings (they all have four remember, not two) so they could be in slightly different positions. If you watch a moth or butterfly in flight in slow-mo (seen such things on nature programmes many times) they flap their main (forward) wings upwards, whilst flapping their smaller (aft) wings down, and then vice-versa, It makes wuite a dramatic pose to show this with the main wings curving upwards, and the aft wings flat, or off-set. Be very careful once the shapes are cut-out.... if you breathe slightly too hard... they will all fly away... believe me, I did it a few times 
Step 4: Cut the body.
The 'body' of the butterflies and moths are made from a very short piece of wire. The wire I used was (borrowed) from my wife's bead-jewelery making kit, it's brass and is about 0.2 - 0.4mm thick. I simply used a craft knife to cut a tiny length, just a millimeter or two longer then the center of the wings so that it sticks forewards and behind the wings giving a visible 'body' to the insect. From here-on-in everything needs tweezers to handle. I have some very fine tweezers that come to a needle point. The curved ended ones that GW sell are fine for this.
Step 5: Glue it together!
This is VERY tricky! I found the best option was this: put a small drop of thin cyanoacrolate (superglue) on a piece of card or similar. Pick up the body with the tweezers by one end. If you have any, put a tiny dab of 'activator' on to the paper wings in the middle where the body will go, to ensure the superglue dries instantly. Gently dip the body into the superglue making sure it doesn't have any 'blobs' on it... just a thin coating. Now lay it very gently into place in the center of the wings. It should stick almost instantly, so be sure it's in the right place! I got through a lot of moths trying to get it right.
Step 6: shaping and reinforcing.
With the body glued in place, I would then 'shape' the moth into it's final pose... this involved firstly folding the wings up around the sides of the body and using the tweezers to compress them into place. I would then fold the individual wings back down again... this gives a more realistic shape to the moths otherwise they look like a flat sheet with a piece of wire glued in the middle! Once I was happy with the pose, I would then use an old paint brush to paint a little more very thin superglue over the whole of the wings. Once this has set, the wings will be much more rigid and easier to paint. Be sure this coating of glue has dried before you try picking up the moth with your fingers or tweezers... or it'll stick to them!
Step 7: Positioning and painting.
You can glue your finished moth/butterfly in place with a little superglue. I positioned mine on the nightbringer so that some were stuck together just by the edges of their wings to make them appear to be flying. I won't go into a tutorial of the painting of them here as it is totally dependent on what you want to achieve, the only advice I'll give is that I found it to look most realistic if you use small strokes going out from the body towards the tip.... most moths and butterflies have a pattern that appears to radiate out from their body, so painting in that same way seems to look the most relaistic. As I said at the beginning... get some inspiration from nature... then just go to town! The only other little tip was that if you want to make the wings look 'ragged', I simply painted some small tears and nicks onto the wing edges in pure chaos black paint... this looked just as realistic and didn't involve me having to try and actually cut tiny bits out of the wings which would have been all-but impossible.
Best of luck!
Ben |
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TJeffers
28 March 08 |  |
Rating: 10
Would love some step by step pictures! Awesome idea that I hope to try at some point...
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thecat
27 December 06 |  |
Rating: 9
always nice to see how these things take shape, great article 10 with pictures
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Bill
15 December 06 |  |
Rating: 10
Good stuff, concise, clear and a freaking awesome idea!
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funnymouth
07 December 06 |  |
Rating: 10
wow, great idea! ill use it! pics would be nice....so maybe if you have time....
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rocketandroll
06 December 06 | |
Sorry about the lack of pics folks, I wrote this article only in response to someone who asked how I'd made the moths on my GD entry... will see if I can sort out some pics to go with it.
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MathewBaich
06 December 06 |  |
Rating: 10
sounds simple to do but Probably not. I have so many ideas now. Fantastic article.
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Lemmingspawn
06 December 06 |  |
Rating: 9
Nice article, very useful for those "softer" mini moments for sure. But the only thing I would add is you can actually buy butterfly shaped cutters.....all you'd have to do is gently reshape the template cutout....and they're around the same size from memory, I may be wrong....
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Hatewall
05 December 06 |  |
Rating: 9
Great results and a creative idea. I gave it a nine instead of a 10 because there were no photos.
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Pentrago
05 December 06 |  |
Rating: 8
The results are amazing and the tutorial is well written but definitly lacks some illustrating WIP pictures.
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matty1001
05 December 06 |  |
Rating: 10
Excellent, easy to understand tutorial, cheers for this!
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