Initially I was very excited and inspired by the idea of doing an insect collection board and mechanizing the insects. I had decided on this idea after toying with various compositions of other mechanized creatures, namely octopus and fish, before finally settling on this idea. For this piece we had to choose some sort of drawing medium. When I started I had intended to use pencil, but soon after starting I decided to switch to pen. Pen, I believed, would allow me to better capture the fine details and intricacies better than pencil and also wouldn't run the risk of smearing. I collected references for both the beetles and their interiors. The first beetle I based off of a combination of a suit of armor and a gear system. The second beetle's interior was made up of a belt track and for the final beetle I relied largely on a car engine for my inspiration. 
I ended up working this project in many layers - I started off with the outline of the beetles first. The second step or layer consisted of outlining the interior components of each bug. For the third step I stippled and hatched and cross-hatched various different sections to put in value. I then put in the wooden frame around the outside. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this after I had switched from pencil to pen, but I found some examples of wood grain drawn in pen and practiced emulating the lines in my sketchbook several times before tackling the actual border. The final step I took was shading in some sections of the bugs so that there was a contrast between the bugs themselves and the frame.
Easily the most time-consuming part of this project was designing the interiors of the bugs and deciding which pieces I wanted to go where. Also, creating the symmetry and line precision required with the pen was a little difficult at times. On the other hand, I think my favorite aspect of this project is the sharpness of the lines and I really enjoyed adding the value to the beetles.
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