Carpenter Ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus)

Ants are beautiful and incredibly complex while at the same time their anatomical structure is so simple. When E O Wilson was asked why he studies ants his response was "I don't understand why everyone else doesn't". The study of ants (myrmecology) is as philosophical as it is biological and you cannot claim to understand or even appreciate the story of evolution until you spend some time studying ants. I recommend "The Social Conquest of Earth" by E O Wilson as a starting place. This is yet another revision of my carpenter ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus), this time I'm using Yeti for fur as opposed to Paint Effects and I'm rendering in Maya using Redshift. I'll be using this model in an upcoming animation. Started as a ZBrush sculpt although I've been tweaking this model since 2014 and probably still need to fix a few things.