Winged Backpack

It's wings AND a lightweight drawstring back pack AT THE SAME TIME.

I made this with convention cosplay in mind.

Drawstring backpacks are my favorite way to carry things when I am in costume if I don't have a back or purse that matches my costume, because the strings are slim and subtle and the bag isn't bulky or heavy; it hides well in photos. Then I figured, why not take it one step further and make it a part of the costume by sticking wings on it? Viola! Instant cosplay for any cute dress.

View the Winged Backpack on AvalynArtistry.com

Victoria Secret Fashion Show 2012

Every year I love watching the Victoria Secret Fashion Show because it's a great inspiration on wing design, and the occasional costume design as well.  Unfortunately I was a little disappointing this year, didn't think the art direction was as great as previous years.  Either way, I think I'll highlight a few pieces that stood out to me.

Let's start off with some wings.  I love how the stars for the American flag aren't just painted on but float out.  And the stripped skirt flows well in the wind like a flag.

This was really fun to me.  The Clovers pop out of the body like wings, but it accents this Irish look.

No wings on this girl, but I love her Bustle.  It gives great body, and the trim really draws to the the shape that you otherwise couldn't admire on film without.

Another unconventional wing.  This for me was impressive because the flowers have such realistic details.  If you didn't know she was on a runway, you would think she was a tiny fairy.

I dont know why, but I love this look.  It's the new years baby with the sash, and celebration style of a sparkle top hat.  And something about the Golden Wings.  I just can't describe why I feel this looks so well put together.

I like the bottom half of her wings,  I'm not sure if they are wings or a bustle made from feathers.  They draped across the ground behind her as she walked.  

This one kinda took me surprise.  For you Anime fans, does it not remind you a bit of Rei from Evangelion?

Featured in Gothic Lolita Wig

SmallRiniLady submitted photos of her orginal costume from SakuraCon 2012 and got featured on the Gothic Lolita Wig Facebook Page

Making Foam Wings Part II

Part II, for those who were here earlier this week, I showed you how to make foam wings. 

You can stop there, but I'm going to show you the little extra effort I did to make it beyond awesome.

sorry for the bad quality image

Because I used a thick base for the feather, you can see the surface when you look at the wings from the.  It's like when you see the back side of a movie prop, sometimes it destroys your image of the magic.

So we go ahead and cover it up!.  I've made tiny feathers to shove in the gap between the front and back panel, and I add them up the spine of the wing.

Now how to wear?  I used two allegator clips on the back of the wing

These allegator clips are so strong that by clipping them on some pinched fabric of my jacket they stay on.  I put a set on each wing so it allows me to move the wings closer or farther apart from each other.   Unlike all those costume wings you buy at the store, these don't have to be attached at a seam in the middle, and frankly, what bird have you ever seen who's wings on the left and right are attached from a single point?

hope you enjoyed this tutorial

Making Foam Wings Part I

I've made wings in the past, but this time I wanted to make feather wings, but I didn't want to deal with real feathers.  So this is how to make Foam Wings.

please bare with the bad quality pictures.

as you can see here I've started with the base "meat" structure of the wing.  It's going to be much smaller than the end because feathers are attached by the tip only.  I'm using thicker sheets of foam for the base.

The basic shape of the feathers (yes it's not accurate to a real feather with a stem, but who cares since that part will be covered up) will be a long pointed ovals.  Here are two styles.

1) right:  is smooth, and will give a clean cartoony look

2)left:  more realistic,  gives more of the fluffy look (additional steps to come).  This one is more time consuming but if you want more realistic than you want this one.

using the powers of your figers, start ruffling the broken ends.  You want things to be uneven to be more realistic.

You are going to need a lot of these, and of varies sizes.  But keep them organized because you will need to place them in a patter

start with the longer feathers at the bottom.  The feathers near the center should point down, and as you move to the outer edge begin rotating them to point out slightly

as you continue up, start using smaller and smaller size feathers.  also rotate your feathers a little so they aren't all parallel, but sprawled out a little.  gives it a more organic feel

once you reach the top you can create one single curved feather that follows the ridge of your frame.  use it to hide the tops of the remaining feathers.

Yay for awesome looking wing made from foam.

you can stop here, but wait there is a part two to make it slightly better.  Later this week so see you soon

Vocaliod Magnet Headbands

Vocaliod Magnet is a Sony software for making music. The Mascots for the the Vocaloid have become so popular in japan. The characters are distinct that they all wear headphones to listen to their music



I made their head gear accessories out of Foam and ribbons making them lightweight yet sturdy.

• One has the wing headphones on a headband.
• The other has the wing headphones on hair clips, and comes with its matching top hat (whoops forgot to take a picture of the top hat)

I would cosplay it if it wasn't so overdone.

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Wing 0.3

Today we'll be focusing on the feather skirt on the left side of Lightning.  I dont know what to call it, I thought of it as a wing, but a girl on DeviantArt referred to it as a feather skirt which sounds more appropriate.  This project ended up turning out a lot better than I assumed it would and costed less than I assumed.  I bought $25 in feathers and ended up only using 2/3s of it.

Ingredients

1. A Few Large Trimmed Feathers
2. A Few More Media Trimmed Feathers
3. A Lot More Small Trimmed Feathers
4. A Lot More Small Fluffy *cheap* Feathers
5. Buckram or some other stiff white fabric. We don't want a flimsy fabric or else it won't keep it's shape, but we dont want stiff material because it should still flow a little in the wind as you walk.  Another alternative would be craft foam.  Honestly I used Buckram just because it's light, white, and just sitting in front of my face while I was thinking about this project.
6. Hot Glue

1)      Cut out a piece of buckram in the shape of an outline of the wing.  It will serve as the backing for the wing, and we will be trimming it later

2)      We want a single feather to be our tip, start with one large feather and lay it pointing out of the bottom tip of the wing, remember that the buckram is serving as our outline so stay inside the lines.

3)      Glue the tip of the bone to the buckram.  We want to limit how much glue we use for several reasons.  A) more glue means more weight which adds no value.  B) more glue down the bone means less freedom for it to shift in the wind.

4)      From there we continue moving up arranging and gluing the large feathers. Follow these arrangement guidelines.

a.       The bone tip should be near the vertical center of the buckram.  Never glue near the edge of the buckram.

b.      Arrange the feathers in different angles but all pointing down (South, Southeast, or Southwest).  Making them all parallel will make it look too manicured. 

c.       Don’t put them all in a row, vary the vertical and horizontal placement of the feathers

5)      Once you’re done with the large feathers you can begin mixing feathers.  Start off my covering a horizontal area* with the fluffy feathers to completely cover up the buckram.  Keep the same guidelines as above, especially not gluing to the edge of the buckram.

*Only do one horizontal area at a time so you can layer the feathers on top of each other as you continue up.

  

6)      Lay a few of the trimmed feathers on top of the fluffy feathers.  You can mix the medium and small feathers, or you can use the medium first and the smaller ones up north.  Up to you.

7)      Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you’ve reached the top.  Because the top line is covered up my the belt for lightning you can skip this step, but I’ll include it for anyone who’s making a wing for other projects. Cover the top row with fluffy feathers.  In this case they should point to all different direction and glue up and past the edge.  The fluffy feathers should use one another to try to cover up their bones.

8)      Now you’re complete with one side of the wing.  Time to start trimming.  We want to trim off as much of the “boarder” of the buckram so that the feathers on the edge are hanging off.  I try to cut off as close to any glued spots as possible. 

Depending on your project you may not need a back, or you may need to only fill up a portion of the back, or may need to fill up all.  Just remember to think about your cosplay being viewed from all angles of a sphere.  In the case of Lightning, pieces of the inner side of the wing will be visible as I walk, so I do want to cover it up. 

9)      I usually more of the nicer feathers for the front and save more of the cheaper feathers for the back since they won’t be viewed as often.  From here you repeat steps 4-7 again. 

WireFrame Wings

Some Wings I made from a 3D modeling software called Rhino:



I always love looking at the wireframe models, it's amazing what computers can do.