My first homemade model!

[Isidro]

Hi guys,
I had little time for new models in last days, so this thread was not updated for long, but then suddenly I made three small models at once, haha.

First, the Twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella). I was reading my natural history diary for summer 2018, when I went to New York/Masschusetts, and remembered the joy of infinite incredible fabulous lifeforms that I found here. One of the most spectacular finding (along many other species of really beautiful dragonflies in the same place) was this species. So inmediately I've tought in made a figure of it.
For the wings I needed a transparent sheet so I used the envolture of a flash (frozen sweet drink, not sure if in English it's used the same word but I'm unable to find it). They're a bit bendy and the result was not flat wings, this is the biggest issue of this figure but let's pass about it. It's so small that actually is hard to notice that.

The body is done with WePAM and the legs are made with cuttings of the same flash envelope (that allow much thinner threads than my thin wire). Gluing the legs was relatively easy... until one foreleg separated from it, gluing it again was a nightmare because it sticked to middle leg... you can imagine how delicate one must be for manage these small things without risk of breaking them.

And with no more heavy wording, here is it... my first dragonfly:




With some other northeastern North American wildlife.

Naturally resting in a dead branch... ohhh this branch is moving! Well, I like free rides so... lets's stay


And despite what it can look like, the eagle is not threatening the dragonfly. He's just purposing the insect to play an aerial race and let's see who win.


All my insects for now:

[Isidro]

Next one for BlueKrono: the marsupial mole (Notoryctes typhlops) as requested!

Body and tail made with FimoAir, legs and frontal shield with WePAM:



The tummy of a cuddly little thing... I want to scratch it softly haha


They're fairly small mammals so I wanted to do more or less at same size than my European hamster, that until now was my smallest mammal in the collection. The mole resulted even slightly smaller (European hamsters are big, much bigger than the usual pet golden hamster, so it's fine).


Size comparison with Southlands monotremes (even when they don't share same distribution, as marsupial moles are found only in the torrid inland desert, separated by many kilometers to the platypus distribution area). But well, the echidna inhabits the whole of Australia so it's a much better match.

[Isidro]

And finally, a bird that suddenly I wanted to turn into figurine: the common hoopoe (Upupa epops). Such a magnific creature deserves more representation in toy world.





All my European birds for now:


The advantage of hoopoes in dioramas is that they can fit perfectly into European, African or south Asian sets Here, my hoopoe Hiawatha made a treat with my Schleich tiger Shere Khan: the tiger would not eat it (anyway who want a stinky and distasteful piece of meat, and such a tiny one?) if the hoopoe serves him as a fancy hat in exchange. The colours of the hoopoe make it blend with the tiger and the hoopoe is happy with this because nobody will attack her if it's riding a tiger!

[Advicot]

  Oh my! It's fantastic!! You've captured the hoopoe so well, I love it! 

[Advicot]

  And I missed the other two! They're both absolutely wonderful

[BlueKrono]

That mole is so cuuute! In the way tribbles are cute. I love it.

Can people keep European hamsters as pets? I've always wanted one, but imagine it would be one of those pets you can't handle without getting bitten.

[Isidro]

Haha, I had to google for find what is a tribble
The mole resulted good, but it's a bit too small for my taste. I think I should have sculpt it a bit bigger. Also, I did a detailed fur texture, but with the drying of the paste and the painting the texture became somewhat blurred.

No idea about what the legislation says about keeping European hamsters. I suppose it will depend on each country.

[Isidro]

That's the last of the Advicot's suggestions: the northern screamer (Chauna chavaria). Much less known than the southern screamer, but in my opinion, much more beautiful. And beautiful + little known = my favourite kind of animals.




Screamers are not in the duck family, but they belong to the same order, being the only other extanct family within it. Here all my Anseriformes:


It's a Near Threatened species found only in Colombia and Venezuela. Here some animals found in the same region:

[Advicot]

Wonderful rendition of a wonderful species, it's marvellous 

[Isidro]

Very much looking foreward to your wingehead shark

Your wish is my command!
Well, I did it today because I had troubles with certain website that keep me busy usually, so I did figures for fulfill my free time.
I tought it would be easy, but it has been incredibly hard to do. I did a perfect smooth body with FimoAir and planned to add the fins with WePam later. When I did, the problems started. The brittle half-dry FimoAir started to crack everywhere and even I had to do the tail entirely from zero again after the original one detached. I fulfilled many crevices in the skin with more paste, but still many are noticeable. I discovered that for fulfill crevices in FimoAir is better to use more FimoAir instead WePam as the latter is more difficult to shape.

Finally here is the result. Not my best model, I'm not proud of it. I tried my best for getting a smooth surface but is full of irregularities.
That's why I prefair branded figures over my homemade models. But I'm almost sure that never a brand will release a winghead shark. It's just a too obscure species. So I had to do it myself.

Winghead shark (Eusphyra blochii) is the only member of the hammerhead family that belong's to a different genus than Sphyrna. The hammer is much more developed in this species than in any hammerhead, and looks like a boomerang. In fact, I did a body too big for this head. The width of the hammer could be even half of the body lenght. But of course the proportion diminishes as the animal matures, so I will took it as an old individual. Sizewise is also an old one (wingheads reach a maximum of 1,9 meters)




The underside of the head is maybe the only thing that resulted well done in my model. It have a fairly small mouth, and I reflected the position of the nostrils (very different to the position in Sphyrna, where the nostrils are close to eyes). I also did a job with a pin for reflect the Lorenzini ampullae. Unlike Sphyrna, the winghead shark only have Lorenzini ampullae in part of the hammer and not in the whole undersurface.


Here compared with other coastal sharks of same size. Safari LTD gives their sharks a graceful undulating movement. I've tried that also, but too late, as the paste started cracking then. So I only did the tip of the tail gently curving.

[Isidro]

For compensate the "ugly duckling" above, I also did today an Atlas moth (Attacus atlas). It's maybe the largest lepidopteran of the world by wing surface (rivalled by Coscinocera hercules) so I want to do it because it would be much more visible than my smaller lepidopterans.

As with all my butterflies and moths, wings are made with CollectA tags. I also use chips of the same tag for the legs and antennae. Body is made of FimoAir.


As with all my butterfleies, I wanted that the underside of wings is accurate too.


The most difficult part was to open a triangular-shaped hole in the center of each wing with a cutter. Later I put a tiny bit of transparent adhesive strap in each one for make the "windows" of the butterfly.


Here all my lepidopterans. All are close to 1:10 scale.


With other South East Asian fauna very roughly at same scale:

[BlueKrono]

I wish Safari would make a winghead shark!

[JimoAi]

I wish Safari would make a winghead shark!

Maybe a toob sized figure?

[Isidro]

A toob-sized winghead would be fine for a shark that is smaller than any hammerhead.

Sorry but I was in silkmoth-fever-mood and I needed to do more after the Atlas moth!

1. The Spanish moon moth (Actias isabellae). One of the most beautiful insects of my country, where is rare, heavily protected and restricted to some pine forest in high mountains.

Upperside:


Underside:


2. The pink giant Argus silkmoth, Eudaemonia argus. Much more obscure and little known species, but one of the most beautiful in the family and so one of my favourites.

Upperside:


Underside:


These two species have basically the same underside than the upperside.

My arthropod group grow a lot lately within my collection! The only branded one is the crab, the insects are all homemade. I want to have more crab species.


And for size comparison, with one pig from each respective ecozone:

[JimoAi]

A toob-sized winghead would be fine for a shark that is smaller than any hammerhead.

Sorry but I was in silkmoth-fever-mood and I needed to do more after the Atlas moth!

1. The Spanish moon moth (Actias isabellae). One of the most beautiful insects of my country, where is rare, heavily protected and restricted to some pine forest in high mountains.

Upperside:


Underside:


2. The pink giant Argus silkmoth, Eudaemonia argus. Much more obscure and little known species, but one of the most beautiful in the family and so one of my favourites.

Upperside:


Underside:


These two species have basically the same underside than the upperside.

My arthropod group grow a lot lately within my collection! The only branded one is the crab, the insects are all homemade. I want to have more crab species.


And for size comparison, with one pig from each respective ecozone:

Also, did you know that Anchor from Finding nemo is a Winghead shark?

[PortJackson]

Very much looking foreward to your wingehead shark

Your wish is my command!
Well, I did it today because I had troubles with certain website that keep me busy usually, so I did figures for fulfill my free time.
I tought it would be easy, but it has been incredibly hard to do. I did a perfect smooth body with FimoAir and planned to add the fins with WePam later. When I did, the problems started. The brittle half-dry FimoAir started to crack everywhere and even I had to do the tail entirely from zero again after the original one detached. I fulfilled many crevices in the skin with more paste, but still many are noticeable. I discovered that for fulfill crevices in FimoAir is better to use more FimoAir instead WePam as the latter is more difficult to shape.

Finally here is the result. Not my best model, I'm not proud of it. I tried my best for getting a smooth surface but is full of irregularities.
That's why I prefair branded figures over my homemade models. But I'm almost sure that never a brand will release a winghead shark. It's just a too obscure species. So I had to do it myself.

The underside of the head is maybe the only thing that resulted well done in my model. It have a fairly small mouth, and I reflected the position of the nostrils (very different to the position in Sphyrna, where the nostrils are close to eyes). I also did a job with a pin for reflect the Lorenzini ampullae. Unlike Sphyrna, the winghead shark only have Lorenzini ampullae in part of the hammer and not in the whole undersurface.


Here compared with other coastal sharks of same size. Safari LTD gives their sharks a graceful undulating movement. I've tried that also, but too late, as the paste started cracking then. So I only did the tip of the tail gently curving.

Still great to see such a unique species modelled

[Isidro]

Also, did you know that Anchor from Finding nemo is a Winghead shark?

Very extremely unlikely. It was designed after a generic hammerhead shark, and if you want to match it with a concrete species, then would be the Great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran) since it's the only that matches with hammer shape.

[JimoAi]

Also, did you know that Anchor from Finding nemo is a Winghead shark?

Very extremely unlikely. It was designed after a generic hammerhead shark, and if you want to match it with a concrete species, then would be the Great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran) since it's the only that matches with hammer shape.

It said so on the disney wiki

[Isidro]

Once done many models of the list, it would be reduced to:

Done:
-African death's head hawk moth (Acherontia atropos)
-African pygmy goose (Nettapus auritus)
-Agami heron (Agamia agami)
-Annamite striped rabbit (Nesolagus timminsi)
-Arabian butterflyfish (Chaetodon melapterus)
-Ashy-faced owl (Tyto glaucops)
-Asian green mussel (Perna viridis)
-Atlas moth (Attacus atlas)
-Baler volute (Melo melo)
-Bay cat (Catopuma badia)
-Blue-cheeked butterflyfish (Chaetodon semilarvatus)
-Blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis)
-Bowfin (Amia calva)
-Bulwer's pheasant (Lophura bulweri)
-Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius)
-Common hoopoe (Upupa epops)
-Congo peafowl (Afropavo congensis)
-Crimson-headed partridge (Haematortyx sanguiniceps)
-Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli)
-Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus)
-Epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum)
-Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis)
-Eurasian goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
-European hamster (Cricetus cricetus)
-Eyed torpedo ray (Torpedo torpedo)
-Fea's viper (Azemiops feae)
-Fiddler ray (Trygonorrhina fasciata)
-Flagtail characin (Semaprochilodus insignis)
-Flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens)
-Four-horned antelope (Tetracerus quadricornis)
-Giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus)
-Giant freshwater stingray (Himantura polylepis)
-Grandala (Grandala coelicolor)
-Great bustard (Otis tarda)
-Green spoon worm (Bonellia viridis)
-Grey fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus)
-Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)
-Helmet hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil)
-Horned guan (Oreophasis derbianus)
-Jabiru (Jabiru mycteria)
-James's flamingo (Phoenicoparrus jamesi)
-Jentink's duiker (Cephalophus jentinki)
-Maleo (Macrocephalon maleo)
-Mandarin ratsnake (Elaphe mandarina)
-Marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata)
-Marbled cone (Conus marmoreus)
-Marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna)
-Marsupial mole (Notoryctes typhlops)
-Meyer's butterflyfish (Chaetodon meyeri)
-Mosaic starfish (Plectaster decanus)
-Northern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius)
-Northern screamer (Chauna chavaria)
-Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus)
-Ocellated knifefish (Chitala chitala)
-Olm (Proteus anguinus)
-Ornate butterflyfish (Chaetodon ornatissimus)
-Owston's palm civet (Chrotogale owstoni)
-Pacarana (Dinomys branickii)
-Pacific blue starfish (Linckia laevigata)
-Pink giant argus silkmoth (Eudaemonia argus)
-Pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea)
-Prevost's squirrel (Callosciurus prevostii)
-Pyramid butterflyfish (Hemitaurichthys polylepis)
-Rajah Brooke's birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana)
-Red goliath beetle (Goliathus goliathus)
-Red-headed partridge (Haematortyx sanguiniceps)
-Red-necked avocet (Recurvirostra novaehollandiae)
-Red-necked goose (Branta ruficollis)
-Red-shanked douc langur (Pygathris nemaeus)
-Ringtail (Bassariscus astutus)
-Russell's viper (Daboia russelli)
-Saddle butterflyfish (Chaetodon ephippium)
-Scarlet ibis (Eudocimus ruber)
-Silky anteater (Cyclopes didactylus)
-Slender sunfish (Ranzania laevis)
-Snow pigeon (Columba leuconota)
-Spanish moon moth (Actias isabellae)
-Splendid toadfish (Sanopus splendidus)
-Standard-winged nightjar (Macrodipteryx longipennis)
-Superb starling (Lamprotornis superbus)
-Twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella)
-Vulturine guineafowl (Acryllium vulturinum)
-Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria)
-Wilson's bird of paradise (Cicinnurus respublica)
-Winghead shark (Eusphyra blochii)
-Yapok (Chironectes minimus)
-Zebra duiker (Cephalophus zebra)

To do:
-Ashy-headed goose (Chloephaga poliocephala)
-Australian shelduck (Tadorna tadornoides)
-Banded hare wallaby (Lagostrophus fasciatus)
-Bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus)
-Beira (Dorcatragus megalotis)
-Bharal (Pseudois nayaur)
-Black and white hawk eagle (Spizaetus melanoleucus)
-Black-collared hawk (Busarellus nigricollis)
-Black-footed cat (Felis nigripes)
-Black-necked hare (Lepus nigricollis)
-Black-necked swan (Cygnus melancoryphus)
-Blue eared pheasant (Crossoptilon auritum)
-Blue-headed pigeon (Starnoenas cyanocephala)
-Blue-ringed angelfish (Pomacanthus annularis)
-Bornean bristlehead (Pityriasis gymnocephala)
-Brazilian electric ray (Narcine brasiliensis)
-Butterfly ray (Gymnura altavela)
-Cape coral cobra (Aspidelaps lubricus)
-Capuchinbird (Perissocephalus tricolor)
-Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis)
-Caucasian grouse (Lyrurus mlokosiewiczii)
-Choiseul pigeon (Microgoura meeki)
-Cloven-feathered dove (Drepanoptila holosericea)
-Comb duck (Sarkidiornis melanotos)
-Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii)
-Common loon (Gavia immer)
-Dingiso (Dendrolagus mbaiso)
-Egyptian plover (Pluvianus aegyptius)
-El Hierro giant lizard (Gallotia simonyi)
-Ethiopian mountain adder (Bitis parviocula)
-Falanouc (Eupleres goudotii)
-Fanaloka (Fossa fossana)
-Flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps)
-Flightless cormorant (Phalacrocorax harrisi)
-Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica)
-Giant ibis (Thaumatibis gigantea)
-Golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus)
-Grandidier's mongoose (Galidictis grandidieri)
-Great auk (Pinguinus impennis)
-Great blue turaco (Corythaeola cristata)
-Greater adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius)
-Green woodhoopoe (Phoeniculus purpureus)
-Grey peacock-pheasant (Polyplectron bicalcaratum)
-Grey-banded king snake (Lampropeltis alterna)
-Hooded seal (Cystophora cristata)
-Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris)
-Hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus)
-Inca tern (Larosterna inca)
-King eider (Somateria spectabilis)
-Kokako (Callaeas cinerea)
-Lady Amherst's pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae)
-Large Indian civet (Viverra zibetha)
-Lesser grison (Galictis cuja)
-Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata)
-Mangrove snake (Boiga dendrophila)
-Motoro freshwater stingray (Potamotrygon motoro)
-Mountain coati (Nasuella olivacea)
-Mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque)
-Musk duck (Biziura lobata)
-Nilgiri marten (Martes gwatkinsii)
-Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana)
-Painted terrapin (Batagur borneoensis)
-Palawan peacock pheasant (Polyplectron napoleonis)
-Palm cockatoo (Probosciger aterrimus)
-Pampas deer (Blastocerus dichotomus)
-Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius)
-Pel's fishing owl (Scotopelia peli)
-Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi)
-Pileated heron (Pilherodius pileatus)
-Pin-tailed sandgrouse (Pterocles alchata)
-Purple heron (Ardea purpurea)
-Pygmy hog (Porcula salvania)
-Rainbow boa (Epicrates cenchria)
-Red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa)
-Regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus)
-Rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros)
-Ross's seal (Ommatophoca rossii)
-Spanish ibex (Capra pyrenaica)
-Spectacled eider (Somateria fischeri)
-Spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata)
-Spix's macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii)
-Spotted linsang (Prionodon pardicolor)
-Sulawesi knobbed hornbill (Aceros cassidix)
-Takahe (Porphyrio mantelli)
-Thai bamboo ratsnake (Elaphe porphyracea)
-Thick-billed raven (Corvus crassirostris)
-Torrent duck (Merganetta armata)
-Water chevrotain (Hyemoschus aquaticus)
-White-bellied imperial pigeon (Ducula forsteni)
-White-faced whistling duck (Dendrocygna viduata)
-Whooping crane (Grus americana)
-Yellow-footed rock wallaby (Petrogale xanthopus)

-Plus any suggestion you want to do extra of this

[Advicot]

Dingiso (Dendrolagus mbaiso)
Kokako (Callaeas cinerea)
Black-necked swan (Cygnus melancoryphus)
Torrent duck (Merganetta armata)
Mountain coati (Nasuella olivacea)