Dancing Mantisses + Tutorial

Hello there!I just finished the second sculpture of 2018, which is about dancing mantisses.If you've been following me for a while, you might remember my DJ caterpillar and the happy bugs.I think that idea never quite left my mind and back then I really wanted to make dancing praying mantisses, simply because they almost look like they are naturally dancing.

Arthropod's Rock!

To stay in coherence with my current line of work, I added some touches of oddness and the mantisses are dancing on top of a thrifted vinyl disk. I originally wanted to use my old CD disks, but they were too small for that couple. No worries, I've got other ideas up my sleeve!I like the idea of creating a whole parallel world in my sculptures, where bugs are taking over and where humans are only present by their objects. It is of course very environmental driven, our activities are getting worse in terms of eco impact and sometimes all seems a little hopeless.Bugs have been around since the dawn of age. They are the first living beings just after bacteria and have taken care of the world to make it the beautiful thing it is.The ecosystems couldn't exists without the bugs, but they'd be better of without humans.In case you'd like to know more about bugs, I'm currently reading "Planet of the Bugs" by Scott Richard Shaw, and it's a wonderful read, I highly suggest it if you want to learn more about the masters of this world.Availability and more pictures of this sculpture can be found here.

Mantis Tutorial

This month I also did a class on how to sculpt mantisses, it's an in depth class that explains pretty much everything from the start to the finish. You can check it out here.You might want to see a preview and speed sculpting of that class on my youtube channel as well.xxStéphanie