Oooooh boy! I found a bunch of awesome spider and insect images on Richard Seaman's awesome site:
These images are great fun to look at, and Mr. Seaman also includes some fascinating etymological information.
I don't want to make a traditionally scary tarantula spider (Like this or this) like from Lord of the Rings.
I want my spider to have sleek, slender legs. The legs are going to be the first thing we see, so I want them to be kind of creepy. I want it to be able to play clumsy and suave, a kind of lady's man spider. I really like this flat spider:
But this tiny guy also has a lot of personality:
And not related to the project, but still a fascinating insect, I learned about the Tortoise beetle. This bug has a shell over itself that it can pull strongly to a leaf to prevent attackers from getting to it's soft underbelly. Some of them can even emit a fluid that changes the shell's color! How cool is that? I have yet to see a science fiction movie monster based on this principle.
