[MOC] Renaissance Glider "Moth"

[EVE]

In a timeline not so different from out own, the great Italian inventor Leonardine da Vincette achieved a working flying machine, modeled after a moth.

Launched from mountaintops, towers, and even a purpose-built trebuchet in da Vincette's hometown of Florence, moth gliders became highly valued couriers among the Italian city-states of the high Renaissance.

The moth gliders were steered by a system of pulleys attached to the wings, and actuated by foot pedals. Moths could not generate lift of their own, and relied on skillful pilots who watched birds to locate thermal updrafts.

Though no one can say for certain why moths fell out of favor, some historians attribute their decline to the Wars of Religion and resulting economic damage to European society during the later Renaissance. Whatever the cause, for a few decades the skies of Italy were abuzz with Friendkind's first flying machines, and their dashing pilots reigned supreme as cultural nobility.

Modeled in Studio, with ropes and rendering done in Blender.