Bugs/insects! (Now with video)

[Interceptor]

Crystal Clear CHOW inspiration.

LINK (http://pishmo.com/macro/)

[emily g]

Wow...nature comes up with stuff that more amazing than we could ever think up.

emily

[Simon.Rain]

Amazing, the pictures are so clear and the colors are so vibrant

Very good inspiration for so many things...

Thanks for the link =)

[romance]

Thanks Loren. Insects truly are the best alien references :)

[JAG.]

O_o... - JAG

[Carnifex]

whoa. some of those really make my skin creep. the mantis are beautiful though,prolly my favs. beautiful photographs.

[Jason Rainville]

What the hell is THIS, it's incredible!

http://pishmo.com/macro/zhuchki_15.jpg

[chaosrocks]

holy shit... the are gorgeous..Thanks
chaos

[poise]

Great find Loren. These insects are so crazy looking. I wonder what kind of camera they used.

[Mr Man]

Hehe I remember seeing these in the reference thread. I used some of the caterpillas as reference for one of my illustrations :)

[2medusa]

Rhineville, I did some digging around on Google and discovered that the insect is a female Spiny Flower Mantis.

Poise, the photo was taken by Igor Siwanowicz with a Canon EOS 20D.

Here's the link to another angle on the above photo, along with the attribution to Siwanowicz.

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3951996

And here is a link to Igor Siwanowicz's Gallery Portfolio on photo.net. It contains 264 amazing photos of insects, etc.

http://www.photo.net/photos/siwanowicz

[strych9ine]

Niiiiice find, bookmarked. Thanks Loren...

[magicgoo]

Ooooh, thanks for the link! I looove photos of bugs and hate the little bastards in real life :P Except for mantids. Gotta love those little guys.

[JAG.]

holy smokes.. thats is a great ref site. thanks for searching.. great find. ima go draw bugs.. - JAG

[romance]

All hail the new alien emperor!

I'm such a nerd, but these photo give good reason to be.

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/5099207-lg.jpg

[Layil]

these are awesome! thanks!

[jcaffoe]

dude, this absolutely made my day.

[Hookswords]

some great mantis shots

[sktrdie]

holy cow, look at the wings! God is clever...

[Mungus]

....yeah really nice pics....isn't nature just pure magic?!?!

[Fellah.]

This one gave me a good laugh - cool bug.

[egerie]

This is amazing. I love macrophotography. Thanks!

[Interceptor]

emily_g was telling me about a film called microcosmos... macrofootage of insects. I found a link with some short footage..

Here's the LINK (http://www.microcosmos.tv/)

[Gnosis]

That white mantis with butterfly-like wings is the most awesome creature I have ever seen.
Great pics.

[Shamagim]

One good thing to remmember about bugs as alien references is that exoskeletons cannot support that much weight...that would mean that as big as the bug gets...the exoskeleton should change to be more complex or even become an endo/exoskeleton hybrid.

Of course that´s only the case when you need to make a concept to be as functional as possible.Making it cool and ignoring the rules is always a nice option to have :).

[jackenstein]

Holy shite man, these are spectacular! Some of them don't even look real, like mantis with wings. Are they fabricated? This is mindblowing!

[Gnosis]

Holy shite man, these are spectacular! Some of them don't even look real, like mantis with wings. Are they fabricated? This is mindblowing!

Actually, all mantises have wings, and they're surprisingly good at flying.
It's just that they're normally not photographed when flying or spreading their wings.
But that white mantis is nevertheless an amazing creature, the most awesome insect I've seen.