Bugs, Bugs and More Bugs

BUGS!

Two finished bugs living permanently in my model.

 

I, if you haven't already worked it out I have a lot of 'stuff' (although saying that I would love a lot more) In my mixture of 'stuff' I found a selection of Jones Tones Foils. I have had them for years and now I finally have something I want to use them for. Over the past few months real live bugs, covered in beautiful metallic armor, have been coming across my path and I thought WOW!. So hear I am making bugs out of buttons, seed beads and plastic fly screen.

A selection of Jones Tones Foils. 

I like to make lots of the one thing at a time. It makes it much easier when I am decorating a house.With this in mind I painted lots of round buttons and pink ? things with the gold size The good thing about the gold size is that it stays sticky for days until it gets covered in something like gold, foil or dust. I have not used the magic Art glue that came with the foil as it is so old that it has separated and is now unusable.

Placing the button with the sticky gold size onto the back of the foil (the side that is grey or silver in colour) the foil will then stick to the gold size. I have found that I like to mix the colours. So I 'pick' little bits of colour off the foil and onto the button. If you look at the bugs below you can see that they all have two colours, if not three, all over them. I then use the white gloves that came with the gold size to press the foil onto the sticky surface this is just to make sure it has stuck. I have also found that I can re-glue with the gold size if, for some reason, the foil did not 'take' in the first place.

One point to take notice of is to make sure that the underside and especially the edges of your 'bug' needs to be 'foiled' otherwise you will see them and spoil the look of the bug.

The bugs above have had their 'leg's added. You can choose how many legs and how long the legs are for your own bug  but for mine I choose six on each side. To get the 'legs' I just removed two lengths of fly screen (the plastic kind) and allowed two to stay to hold the legs together. You can make each leg individually if you would like. Glue these sections of leg in place. I used the Tiger Grip glue.

To make the heads I used dark iridescent beads cut in half and glued in place with Tiger Grip. The beads are not perfectly cut but I found that by gluing them in place the glue helped fill up the gap between the head and the body. Then once that glue was dry I then 'foiled' the head and the gap.

I used small black seed beads to make the eyes. I would have like to use large black micro beads but I didn't have any.

Once the whole 'bug' is dry I then covered it with gloss varnish this was to protect the foil. Once this was dry I then glued some of my 'bug's onto my models. I am extremely pleased with them and I intend to make many more as I now have some 'bling'. I am also sure that the foils will be used to make lots of other creatures that will end up living in my models.