OK, first thing's first. This is the first time I have painted figures and the first time I've touched a brush since the early 1990's

.
Anyway, I painted the 'small' figures that accompany the cricket anatomy model in the Insect Lab by Skillcraft. Also, I painted them based on the intended species and not Skillcraft's recommended color schemes...
First, the assembled yet unpainted versions:

Here are the painted figures. The scientific names are what the figures are intended to be.
1) bluebottle fly,
Lucilia sylvarium. This figure was fairly fairly straight-forward. I am still deciding if I should go back and use a pitt pen to highlight the wing venation (incorrect as it is...)

2) giant water bug,
Lethocerus americanus. I nice change from the 5 figures I have of the Japanese species,
L. deyrolli 
. I used a pitt pen to make black highlights. The figure looks fine but enlarged in this image, I am not sure I like the black highlights...

3) red admiral butterfly,
Vanessa atalanta. Another fairly straightforward figure. I am very happy with how this came out. Notice a couple errors: 1) the palps for some reason are on the top of the head at the base of the antennae and 2) the front legs are too long; as a member of the Nymphalinae they should be reduced to brush-like stubs.

4) mosquito,
Anopheles maculipennis. I added red to the bottom of the abdomen to imply a recent blood meal

. Again, not sure about highlighting the wing venation. I made the wings creamier in color then I did with the blowfly (above) which is straight white. By the way, notice the palps are too short for an anopheline mosquito.

5) paper wasp,
Polistes annularis. For some reason, they have the genus and species reversed on this one... This was the hardest to paint, with the hardest colors to duplicate and paint at this size. I might do more highlights on the wings...

My next goal is to create individual bases for each figure so I can 1) use the labels that came with the kit and 2) have them be stand-alone and not part of the cricket's base.