Winging It

The two of us making cosplay wings and documenting our progress for posterity (also for anyone else interested in seeing how it’s going). Follow our main blogs, @jesusponine and @allison-marypotter-Winchester :)

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Our cosplays! @allison-marypotter-winchester looked so cool! 😊

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So here we’re the completed wings! If you were there today and saw me @jesusponine please tag me! I will finally complete this blog at some point to explain how the rest of the process went

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Ok, so an update:

Figuring out the wiring is taking a lot of trial and error. Also, I highly recommended planning out ever detail first, even things like where your actuators will sit on the frames to make them open and close as much as you want them to based on your size actuators, and make your cut for the hinges accordingly. Unfortunately we decided to do a little too much winging it (lol)

Lastly, don’t get T hinges! Get strap hinges. We got T hinges and they aren’t as stable as we need them to be.

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Constructing the frames pt 1: cutting and shaping

So we finally got to start actually building! Very exciting. Also, very long post ahead with the instructions. Today’s part of the project involved:

-pvc pipes (a 10ft pvc pipe cost about $2 at Home Depot, and we had them cut it into two lengths; one 5.5ft long, and the other 4.5ft long)

-heat gun (also found at Home Depot for around $20 I believe)

-saw (local hardware store, or your own house maybe)

-pvc board, 12x12 in, 6mm (1/4in) thickness (Amazon, $6.15)

-exacto knife

-sandpaper

First things first, cut the edges off the pvc sheet with the exacto knife so it’s more rounded, and sand down the sides

This was the first one we cut:

We started with the pvc board, which is our back plate. We used the heat gun to heat it through until it was pliable enough to press against our backs to mold to the correct shape. Do this outside or in a super well ventilated and non-flammable space!

Guys, this part was insanely time consuming and a little bit frustrating. When heating the pvc you have to make sure the heat is being evenly distributed but also that each part is getting hot enough to be completely pliable which I really struggled to make happen evenly. Some of it turned out a little toasted marshmallow, and each sheet took at minimum half an hour to get to where we wanted it to be. If you have an oven that you don’t really ever use, I highly recommend just baking these sheets in a pan for like 10 minutes until they’re completely wobbly. If you do use your oven though, don’t do this, because fumes.

Definitely a learning curve! You can see the difference between the first one we made and the second one in amount of burnt area, also the second one took slightly less time since we had more of the hang of it, and also @allison-marypotter-winchester is more patient with the heat gun than I am. We also marked out where the flattest parts were to add the battery pack to.

Then we started working with the pvc pipes. We laid out our template that we made earlier on the floor and lined up our longest pieces of pipe with the top line we had drawn

We made a mark where we wanted the bend, and just blasted that small part of it with the heat gun. We were a little over-eager, since we assumed this would be as obnoxiously time-consuming as bending the board had been.

Nope! It turned a nice rotisserie chicken golden brown in a matter of seconds and bent immediately over. Then just hold it in the exact shape you want until it’s cool enough to be that way on its own. We were a little worried that it would crack or break but nope! And once it’s fully cooled it’s definitely not going anywhere.

For shaping the curve, heat the end a little bit slower and more gently, and keep going back to your stencil to make sure it’s the right shape.

Since it isn’t put together yet, we had to make sure by laying down on top of it lol. We want the top of the curve to be just visible above our shoulders, from looking at the references we have.

Once we were happy with that, time for cutting! With our shorter lengths of pipe, we again held them up to the template we made and marked how long we wanted them to be. I think they’re about 19.5in long? We wanted to make sure they hit the bottom of the back plate and reached about our shoulders. We cut them with the saw. Here’s what these pieces looked like placed together with the back plate (not drilled down yet).

We will cut the excess of the ends of the curved bits once we have them attached to the straight pieces going down the back.

This is what we’re imagining they’ll sit like when they’re all drilled down

We then cut the longest parts of the tops of the wings a few inches in from the curve. This will be where we later attach the hinges, so they can open and close. We sanded down all of the rough edges from the saw.

And that’s what we accomplished today! All of the bending and cutting took us about three solid hours. Next time will be all of the drilling everything together and taking a crack at the linear actuators (the motors to make them move mechanically) and all the wiring!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having as much fun as we are :)

@jesusponine

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This was our initial sketch and parts list, also with where we went to get most of these things. As we work on each part I’ll post about what specific things are used where, and where we got them from

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Step one and three quarters (following an initial sketch and gathering supplies. Later I’ll put up our materials list, which we’ve already gotten everything from), making a stencil! Only need to make one, since both wings need to be the same. We decided that we wanted an 11 foot wingspan since in the show it looks like they each had a 12 foot wingspan, and we’re a little shorter lol.

The frame is going to be 3’6” in the top horizontal line, and then will be attached to another pipe with a joint. This second pipe will be curved just below our shoulder line, and then be bent straight downward to attach to the pvc board we have for the backplate. The top most feather is going to be 2’ to complete the 5.5 ft on this side of the wings, and then we outlined the general shape we want the feathers to follow and can eyeball sketch/ subsequently measure the distances from there. We decided also we wanted about 20 big feathers, which we could attach to the frame if they’re 2” apart. I think we actually got 21 drawn on

Also, you might notice some white out on the drawing—it’s definitely important to have either lots of confidence with a sharpie and whiteout or outline everything with pencil first. Most of those spots are where I didn’t think it through before sharpie use. Hubris will be my downfall, but I refuse to let it be yours!

Also on our spot for the backplate we realized we didn’t leave enough room for the battery pack so we made sure to make a note that the pvc pipe has to be spread out further than we initially planned

This @allison-marypotter-winchester standing in for size reference

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For NYCC this year, @allison-marypotter-winchester and I ( @jesusponine ) have decided to go as Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens as our cosplay. We also decided that making their wings was an absolute must. These are our reference photos from the show.

This blog will be to document the process, for our sake and anyone else who would be interested for whatever reason! We hope this can be a learning experience for all of us :)