Realistic / Artistic Fly Tying Tutorial - Creating a Dragonfly

2006

Do you ever sit at your vise and think about creating something different, but don't quite know where to start, and if you do, which direction to proceed?

Today I have challenged myself to do just that, by tying a dragonfly, including taking photos of each tying step, in an effort to share my fun with others.

I will be tying freestyle without instructions and measurements. Mistakes will be made and lessons will be learned.

The dragonfly pictured above took a few hours to tye and includes some beautiful feathers, a body made of foam, home made pre-printed wings, and dust-broom bristles for legs. I hope you enjoy watching this fly develop, and at the very least see some interesting techniques, such as quick and easy ways to work with foam and feathers.

Ok, lets get started, by shaping some insect body parts, more specifically a dragonfly abdomen and thorax. I have found the easiest foam to work with is available at my local hardware store, in the flooring isle, sold as interlocking floor covering, and it floats like a cork.

I cut workable size pieces of foam using scissors of different sizes, large ones to cut directly from the floor mat and smaller ones for final trimming. Since this dragonfly is being tyed freestyle the measurements used may not result in perfect proportions but documenting the process with a ruler hopefully allows for better results on the next attempt.

After cutting and roughly shaping a tapered abdomen, the piece of foam needs to have the corners trimmed off with scissors to round the edges. This doesn't need to be perfectly round because tying the segmentation later will make it much rounder.

Next step is to cut a slit along the abdomen to just beyond half way through the diameter. On this fly the cut side will be on the top of the abdomen.

A bodkin needle heated over a flame and inserted into the slit will melt a narrow hollow core inside the foam, allowing for much easier tying onto either a hook or piece of wire.

I could have used green foam but instead decided to color over yellow foam with a green permanent marker. I think it looks better when the body color is not completely uniform, and the imperfect hand coloring actually looks more realistic.

To permanently seal the marker onto the foam, paint over it with flexible acrylic varnish. By adding just a touch of coloring to the varnish it will dry transparent but also impart a little extra luster, which I personally like the look of. Colors with a slight hint of pearlescent metallic are my favorites.

The abdomen has been painted with varnish and will take about 30 minutes to dry. Drying time can be rapidly accelerated by locating a warm light bulb in close proximity.

Let's find some nice colorful feathers, to be tyed over the top of the abdomen. I have some unusual feathers obtained from a veterinarians office that specializes in treating birds, and the best part is, they're free.

A nice slender green and blue parrot feather, topped with orange dyed grizzly will do nicely.

I dip my forefinger into a jar of flexible tying cement, touch my thumb to transfer some of the liquid, and then run a feather between them, coating both sides. While applying cement, only stroke in one direction, towards the feathers tip, while evenly distributing the cement.

While the cement on the feathers is drying, other materials need to be prepared to create the dragonfly's head. Thin pre-cut white foam strips should work nicely.

All of the major body parts have been prepared for tying, including another small piece of floor foam for making the thorax. While these parts finish drying there are other things to work on.

Glass beads are nice for making eyes, but can look too round, or too large, so using a pair of diagonal cutters, glass beads are cracked in half. Do this inside a folded paper towel to prevent little pieces of glass from flying across the room, and I prefer the look of beads that have a metal center.

Place the broken glass pieces in a row and find two half beads that look similar in size and shape, then bind them inside a wrapping of either ladies pantyhose, organza or something that will help make them look more textured, like insect eyes.

For this fly I am using a cloth cover from a bottle of champagne bought for the Christmas holidays. (I am always on the lookout for new materials to experiment with.) So, cheers! It's finally time to put a hook in the vise and start tying.

The hook is a Tiemco 200RBL Size 6, which has been slightly bent to the side as well as the gap opened up a bit wider.

A piece of olive dustpan broom bristle, also from the local hardware store, is tyed in behind the hook eye, to create a pair of mouth pincers.

Ok, I know dragonflies don't have mouth pincers, I'm just having fun.

 

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