Wicked Wings – 3 Ways to Spread Your Costume Wings
Featured image: Demon Hunter from World of Warcraft. Photographer: A.Z.Production Cosplay Photography. Cosplayer: Willow Creative
Flight has caught our fancy since the dawn of time. Ancient Greek myths detailed Daedalus strapping wax-and-feather wings to his arms. Leonardo da Vinci diagrammed wearable winged mechanisms in the 15th century. Otto Lilienthal helped launch the sport of hang gliding at the end of the 1800s, and modern wingsuits have been around since the mid-1990s. This is to say, humans have always wanted wings.
Some members of the costume community feel the same way, and have built their own ornamental winged accessories. These always capture great attention due to size, realistic articulation, and that basic human desire to flap ourselves into the sky.
Putting articulating wings onto a costume can be a big undertaking. You’ll need a harness, an inner framework for the appendages, a method of motion (be it manual, electric, or otherwise), and outer materials for the visual aspect. The following wing projects will help get you started; all use a simple principle of geometry where the angles of a parallelogram change when its shape is skewed. Push a side in one direction and an attached appendage will stretch outward. Pull the side back in and the pieces fold back together.
Manually articulating wings
This is a good starting point for a build. Rachel McConnell uses lightweight balsa wood for her wing framework, and attaches them to the wearer’s arms. Raise and lower your hands to make the wings open and close, and pull your arms forward for a flapping motion. “Suitable for angels, bats, demons, birds (but not so much for butterflies or other insects),” she writes. “Decorate them with leather, feathers, streamers, gold paint, whatever strikes your fancy. Mine ended up with a 9-foot span when open fully.”
Pneumatic wings
By Ted Bruyere
Once you’ve got a moveable set of wings, you might want to give them a power source. Creator Ted Bruyere uses a pneumatic 4-inch throw piston to apply force onto the square aluminum tube wing frames, expanding them open. The wings then fold back in when the piston compresses. A canister of CO₂ supplies power, tucking into the backpack that the wings mount to. Bruyere strongly advises to limit the pressure on the system — the pneumatics will pop the wings open extremely quickly at full power.
Electric wings
Using a more optimized parallelogram-frame construction, Willow Creative’s approach substitutes an electric linear actuator for manual or pneumatic power. Batteries and control switches are routed strategically through the costume. The arms themselves are made from PVC, using custom 3D-printed linkages.
Willow Creative also includes tips on finishing the wings, both as leathery demon-styled and feathery angel. Her work is top notch, and it’s those finishing touches that take a costume to the next level, so pay close attention.
This article appeared in Make: Vol. 78.
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