Monarch Butterfly

Ahh, finally! A full butterfly render! I love it! Here you are folks, a Monarch Butterfly, in 3d, reconstructed from a diseased specimen. Special thanks to my wife for bringing the original butterfly back, helping me photograph it, and putting up with several days of me ignoring her while I worked on the model and texturing.

My wife found a Monarch butterfly lying on the ground, and brought it home. We took some pictures, and were hoping it would recover. Unfortunately it turns out that a fungus had paralyzed it, and was eating its brain. The up side is we took it apart after it died, took even more pictures, and I was able to convert them into a 3d model.

I learned a lot about bugs during the process. How they are put together, the similarities and differences between them. The model itself turned out to be as photorealistic as I've ever made an animal. The photographic textures help with that. If you'd like the model, feel free to contact me. Everything was done in Blender and the Gimp.

You can now download the source files here: [link]