Mini-Dragonfly

Thoughts and the creative process:
Showing a beauty shot of a Mini-Dragonfly. Tried to make the propellers look like they are in motion. This is an ongoing challenge for me.

The Mini-Dragonfly is a sister line of aircraft to the Sparrow. Similar features but notable differences. Mostly it stopped looking like a bird in certain respects.

It's a E-Paula-G (Electrical-Power Assisted Ultra Light Aircraft-Glider) opposed to it's sister line J-Paula-G (Jet-Power Assisted...).
Notably, it has a counter rotating dual propeller. According to one tech source, a dual prop works more efficiently if the forward of the two has one less blade, or the aft most one has one more blade. This also allows the propellers to be smaller which works for this type of airplane. Being that one condition for landing or taking off is to raise the nose, by lever principle, that would mean if you raised the nose at too steep an angle, the prop would start cutting up the runway. Smaller props would allow for this angle (about 8-15 degrees).

I found a better way to make the retracting forward landing gear (previous version Tire Detail for Mini-Dragonfly ) stow away, but it was actually so low profile that the process is almost entirely hidden, so no detail drawing will be forthcoming regarding that.

Sparrow reference:
Sparrow 58-3 Headed into Twilight

Early version of the Sparrow:
Sparrow in Flight
======================================================================================

Digital Medium

modeled with:
SketchUp 7.1
Rendered with:
Kerkythea
Edited with:
Gimp 2.8

Model time:
Mini-Dragonfly - about 110 hours this version.
Kerkythea render time - (WOW! Short!) 18 Minutes

Textures are originals made with Gimp,
Background (open source) image courtesy of CGTextures.com

"Sparrows", Dragonfly/Mini-Dragonfly" and J-Paula-G or E-Paula-G to describe any of my aircraft are all original creations by myself.

Mannequin used in place of people is based on a model by ArqDirk

Concept and design by
Please do not use my artwork or it's concept without my permission.