Putting different styles of mechanical armor on insect specimens and turning them into works of art is a profession voluntarily pursued by blueprints, a "post-95" boy.
His alternative choice was once ridiculed by his parents as not doing the right thing to rectify the "moth", but he made the "moth" unique, becoming the only person in China to engage in the design and production of "steam insects".
Fabre's little fan
Blueprints, whose real name is Zhang Yuebai, was born in March 1995 in Hongkou District, Shanghai.
The reason why his parents named him "Yue Bai" was that they hoped that he could surpass the "poetry immortal" Li Bai. But he was not interested in ancient poetry, and fell in love with catching bugs.
From the age of four or five, he would spend a few days standing by the spider and watching it weave its web.
Later, he became bold, and he either caught the White Star Flower Golden Turtle, or he fought and caught scorpions... For this reason, his parents reprimanded him, but he ignored it, not only caught and played, but also raised insects such as ladybugs, spiders, centipedes, etc. There are often insects that feather into moths flying in the family, and he also earned a whole "moth" name.
After going to school, Zhang Yuebai became a small fan of the entomology pioneer Fabre, and the "moth" became more energetic, catching insects, raising insects, observing insects, and he also filmed the scene of the fight of the shovel armor raised into a small video and uploaded it to the Internet, which attracted a lot of applause.
Perhaps playing "worm" to lose his mind, Zhang Yuebai's middle school examination results were not satisfactory, so he had to enter Shanghai Nanhu Vocational School to study finance.
Despite his frustration, he couldn't let go of his fascination with insects, and at the end of the room he carved out about 7 square meters of space, both as a bedroom and a nest for insects.
In the eyes of his parents, he was hopeless.
In order to retain these beautiful elves, he began to learn to make specimens, and gradually practiced the skillful craft of making insect specimens, and produced a large number of insect specimens full of wild and fantastic beauty.
Over the years, he has produced and collected more than 500 insect specimens, and he even has the only Amazon giant bird-eating spider in China.
Put the insects in mechanical armor
After a long time of "moths", Zhang Yuebai felt that no matter how delicate the insect specimens were, they were just a lifeless corpse, was there a way to make these beautiful lives come to life?
One day in 2013, he inadvertently entered an online platform called "Steampunk Bar" and saw the steampunk-style machine insect work made by American art designer Mick Libby with the stitching of waste watch gears and scarab specimens.
Zhang Yuebai decided to reorganize the "moth".
Slowly, he clarified his thinking: the so-called steam insect is a craft formed after installing mechanical parts on insect specimens.
Making insect specimens is easy for him, mechanical parts can also be disassembled from old objects, the most difficult thing to do is to stitch the two together seamlessly, and to master this technique, the only way to master this technique is to carry out repeated trial and error.
In November 2014, Zhang Yuebai began his first production experiment, selecting a gidding insect specimen.
He carefully hollowed out the internal organs and muscles with a scalpel, and then spread his wings, but the wings did not listen to his fiddling, and after several tosses, they not only broke, but also crushed the fragile chest cavity of the Gidding Worm, and the work was not successful, and the specimen was discarded.
But he did not lose heart, continued to practice, using insect needles to fix the wings and body of the gidding insect on the foam board, and then using glue to glue the insect and the dismantled watch gear together, and finally it was done.
He photographed the first insect work in "mechanical armor" and passed it to steampunk, which was very well received.
Getting the affirmation of the bar friends made Zhang Yuebai's strength more sufficient, and he gradually mastered the splicing performance methods such as connection, energy tank, battle damage, external armor, and perspective warehouse.
At the end of 2014, Zhang Yuebai established a "Steam Insect Bar" in Baidu Tieba under the online name of "Blueprints", and he served as the owner of the bar, uploaded many and good works, and more and more fans came to admire him.
In May 2015, Zhang Yuebai selected peter's scorpion, which uses strong claws as hunting tools, as a specimen, filled the scorpion's body with clay, and then loaded with mechanical parts, and the mechanically strengthened claws seemed to have more powerful powers... After this work was posted in Tieba Bar, it attracted the attention of a group of bar friends with a strong visual impact and unique style, and immediately there were private messages from bar friends to bid for purchase.
The whole "moth" finally has a substantial return, Zhang Yuebai gradually entered a better state, the works created are more sophisticated, and people continue to pay to shoot his works, and he has also become a well-known "Baidu Tieba Master".
The "moths" are made into a unique portion
In 2016, Zhang Yuebai resigned, worked full-time as a steam insect design and production engineer, opened a "demon weapon guild" shop on Taobao, sold and accepted customized steam insect crafts, and he was full of confidence to make "moths" into a unique copy.
Zhang Yuebai put the main play on the design of the work, choreographing the backstory of a huge industrial company that controls the world with demons and mechanical forces, all the series of works revolve around the story, and each specimen plays a different role, giving the work a soul.
Zhang Yuebai designed the Triceratops Hooded Worm into the "Whistling" series, making it a large and bulky piece of armor that half-wrapped the edge of the front chest, highlighting the feeling of thickness and thickness.
Under the elytra pulled up by the two hydraulic rods, it is a rear-mounted power design, which has a great tendency to whistle away; He designed marine shrimp and crab animals with broken battle damage, exposing delicate mechanical devices in the abdominal cavity of animals to highlight the indestructible heart of the "Children of the Furious Waves" series; The "Flying Gems" series selects small insects of beautiful colors of about 3 centimeters, supplemented by delicate and compact machinery, to express the delicacy of female characters...
In the design of individual shapes, Zhang Yuebai also strives to express accurately. The characteristic of the Thunder Dragon Worm is to use the horn to bump and overturn the opponent, he makes a hydraulic rod in the corner of the head, armor on the chest, and an energy tank on the back to show the combat strength; Pippi shrimp's jaw foot can hit a very large force, and he made a spring supercharger on the jaw foot to render this feature.
In addition, Zhang Yuebai also improved the process, abandoning the simple and convenient glue sticking legal, and using enamel for splicing, which not only played a fixed and beautiful role, but also made the work look more natural and textured.
Zhang Yuebai's professionalism and dedication have won him a large number of fans, and the number of fans in Taobao stores has reached more than 10,000, and the number of Weibo fans has exceeded 4,000. Up to now, he has designed and produced more than 100 steam insect works, many of which have been photographed as soon as they are on the shelves, and there are many customized works by customers.
Zhang Yuebai, the only full-time steam insect art craftsman in China, has made the "Moth" unique, not only won the title of "Most Innovative Young Designer" of the Taobao Maker Festival, but also became the founder and leader of the domestically recognized steam insect field.
Knowledge Window Author: Xue Shuchun
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