LOLoriginally I was just going to post the W3D model up just to show it off all by itself. That was my original intention and be done with it. Then I decided to throw a quickie impromptu mock-up background but the render had no direction to it. Granted, the scaling was off and I came back to add reference wild grass to aid. But yeah, Bikermouse points out the obvious, the mantis needed something to interact with. So now, Ive gone back and provided our predator mantis with a possible scrumptious meal. A nice fat and juicy butterfly. Ill not be made privy to this cannibalistic act, this is where I draw the line. I did not want to have the mantis popping off the butterflys head in one quick bite from its powerful mandibles and watching all its little guts spill out all over the place.

The wings of the butterfly is a terrain. After creating the butterfly I posted the original image on a 2D plane and positioned the butterfly model where I wanted it to be, this way, I could capture the transparency of its wings and later be able to composite it back onto the prior rendered image.