Here’s what I found about the iridescent glass.  When you put dichro on top of it and fuse it, it doesn’t fuse completely because of the iridescence. This worked in that I was able to put masking tape over it and feel where the outline of the body and thorax were so that I could cut the legs.  But for these, I used plain black glass, and they melted flush.  I tried using clear packing tape as a mask, but it didn’t work because the texture is more like plastic than cloth.

The instructor suggested using lines of glue for the mica pigments. That’s what normal people do when they use mica.  Well, I’d tried that with elmer’s glue and it came out blobby, but another idea was to thin it with water, then put it through a jacquard bottle with a fine tip.  That’s what I did here.  The glue gives a much different texture to the mica pigments.

Belatedly, I was informed that if you have an iridescent or otherwise metallic background, you need to cut the capping glass larger. Yeah, a little late for the top left beetle.