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Sunnybrook1 — Realistic Wing Tutorial - P.2
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Published: 2010-08-16 06:11:20 +0000 UTC; Views: 116986; Favourites: 841; Downloads: 1792
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Please let me know if you need this transcribed, and I will do so...
9/21/16: If alligator clips are too pricey and/or you won't need to adjust the feathers much after you've placed them, just leave on 2.5" - 3.5" inches of extra wire to bend around the elastic. It's not as pretty or easy to adjust, but it's cheap & it works!
Also, some pro-tips from Imagi-Nethat :
- Old bedsheets are a much cheaper alternative if you don't want to buy fabric off the roll.
- While using fusable web instead of paint seems like a good idea, I do NOT recommend it. The web doesn't stick to the wire and you end up having to go through extra steps to correct it.
- For the wire, I cut it to the length of the feather and then folded and squashed one end down about an inch. It keeps the fabric on well.
- If you live in America, Menards had reasonably priced alligator clips. It cost about $9 for two people's (36) clips.
- While it's entirely possible to spray paint your feathers after the fabric has stuck together, be careful about it, as it can leave a mottled look if you don't spray evenly.
3/22/10: My first video showing wing-movement.
12/3/13: My second video with two wings~
8/5/17: Disney animator describes the Mechanics of Bird Flight - watch for the useful description of how wings are built from 8:40 - 11:31.
3/6/2018: Correct #1 Primary feather wrapping example
Part 0 - MATERIALS
Part 0.5 - TOOLS
Part 1 - CONCEPT
Part 2 - FEATHERS
YOU ARE HERE Part 3 - HARNESS
Part 4 - ASSEMBLY
Part 5 - COVERTS
Part 6 - ARM-COVER WIP
EXTRA - RESULTS : See what OTHER people have made following this tutorial~
The Feather Atlas
Slater Museum of Natural History
Already finished your wings? Please fill out this questionnaire , I'd love to hear about it!
Wing Design/Tutorial © Sunnybrook1
Related content
Comments: 267
Hey! So I just got to the point of painting the feathers together over the wire. I have a quick question.
Is the length of the wing including the excess wire for the pivot point, or just the cloth feather?
I measured out the length of the feathers, so they're cut out like that (for example, the first primary is 22") Did I just make the feathers unnecessarily long, and the /wire/ has to be the 22 inches? Or,,,,
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First note - it's better to have the wire too long than too short (can always cut off the excess, can't add length to a too-short piece).
If your primary feather's final length is 22", it should be that long after you've curled the tip (if you choose to do that) and looped the end to make the pivot-point connection. And the length of the Secondary feathers depends on whether or not you are using the alligator clips, or going the cheaper/quicker route of looping & crimping 2.5"-3.5" of the wire around the elastic - *edits the above tutorial to include example pictures* - it means it's a bit more difficult to replace a feather if it gets damaged (you'll have to uncrimp/unbend the wire's grip on the elastic) but it'll keep it in place~
Second note - if you look at step 3 of this tutorial, you can see where I position the wire between the fabric pieces. The end of the shaft is 1-2 inches offset from the tip of the feather, so keep that in mind when measuring/cutting your wire.
Does that help?
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Yeah, that helps a lot! Thanks man
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I have a question:
If you are using regular fabric for the primary and secondary feathers, then what would the felt be for?
also, thank you for this awesome tutorial!
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No problem and actually some people use felt instead of regular fabric. ALSO, I used the felt initially for the feathery-looking bits on my first attempt at an arm cover, but I've become a bit unsatisfied with it now. :/
So unless you are making your feathers out of felt, or using it in your wing/arm cover, it's not required. Does that answer your question?
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As someone using the crow pattern that you've posted, which feathers are the primaries and which the secondaries?
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Primaries are all the feathers that are attached to the Pivot Point (and hence end in a wire loop), and secondaries are the ones attached to the elastic!
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hey, i.m a german fashionstudent and will use the wings for one of my outfits for the fashionshow.
if you painted both fabrics together with the wire between and its try, are the feathers are stark and stiff? or does it depends which fabric i use?
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Glad to hear, I'd love to see photos or video of what you make!
And the painted fabric is stiff enough to hold it's shape, but will become floppy and unsupported if its too far away from the wire, anything more than 3-4 inches, at least with broadcloth & wall paint - I'm still testing if glue creates different results.
The fabric does make a difference, but as long as the fibers are thick/absorbent enough to hold the paint/glue, squish together around the wire, & dry flat, you should be fine.
Example - this person made their feathers using felt:
GIFs showing their movement 
And they look sturdy, yet still soft & pliable.
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So by my understanding, you take a cut out shape of your fabric (or in the person above's case, two cut out pieces of felt) and you paint them together on the wire with wall paint? also, does the type of paint make a difference?
thank you
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Sounds about right, I used matte wall paint, beyond that use a color that is close to your fabric color. Also elmers glue works too, but it's a bit pricier in comparison (but if the paint doesn't work as well, it certainly will)~
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i understand now, thank you so much for responding!
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urrm, for the paint section is it necessary to use the same colour paint as your felt? and will the paint stick to the felt?
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Some of the paint tends to seep through the fabric (or felt, in your case) when applying, so it's useful for it to be the same or similar color as your fabric (or final wing color) so that there is less cover-up to do afterwards.
And the paint I've listed has worked for me well so far. If you're not sure, only buy a small bit of it and try out making a single felt feather and see the results~
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Um, what kind of cloth do you use? is felt okay or should I use something else?
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Felt is fine, it ends up being a bit thicker but takes the paint more easily than the broadcloth I use myself.
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Also is the latex tubing supposed to be stretchy?
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Indeed~
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How can I keep the broadcloth feathers from fraying??
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Couple of ways - sealing the finished edge with clear nail polish, official brand raw edge sealer like Fray Check or Fray Stop, hot glue or super glue on really troublesome spots.
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is the full gallon of paint really necessary how much paint at minimum do you think i could get away with?
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Oh, I never used a full gallon for one pair of wings, that was just the smallest paint can they had. 
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so the cardboard is just for a pattern and not for the final feathers?
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Indeed, the cardboard is quite thick and would make the wings very awkward (plus you'd need a MUCH longer pivot point bolt to fit them all), but it has been done before. 
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How long should each piece of elastic be? I know it says 2-3 yards and to fold it in 3. Is that 2-3 yards per wing or is that for both wings? Is there a measurement for the elastic i need based on my arm measurements? Absolutely love this tutorial btw!
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The 3 feet folded over (to make one triple-thick foot) is for a single wing, so you'll need twice as much for both wings.
And yes, there is a measurement based on your arm/body, it's shown in Realistic Wing Tutorial - P.3 step 6, but you know I may not have actually specified that before, thanks for asking!
The elastic is tripled for strength/durability, and it's length is determined by the distance between the harness & the pivot point of your glove when your arm is folded in a comfortable "bird wing" position. That way the elastic is shortest when your wings are closed, with no stretch to it, and then lengthens/stretches when you open your wings, allowing the feathers attached to it to look like they're 'opening' as well.
Does that make sense?
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It does thank you 
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Not if you only connect it in a few key places, but that's what has been making the design of the arm cover so tricky for me. 
I've had moderate success by making a feathered sleeve that hooks to the wing elastic in 1-2 places, but haven't perfected it enough to make a tutorial on it, my apologies...
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No worries that helps alot. So I can either connect in a few places on elastic or try to sew it to the fully extended feathers. I'll see what I can do
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Hi! I dont quite have enough elastic and theyre pretty expensive where I'm from so is there anyway to skip the elastic here? You mentioned in your tutorial that I should just do the math but I cant seem to find the instructions for that
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Something to use instead of elastic in the arms to mount the feathers onto? 
And do you mean the math that determines the length of the feathers?
Hope that answers your questions~
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This tutorial is very interesting so far but my tablet can't zoom in enough fo me to be able to read it so I'll see if I can get it later on but I'll read the tutorial until the end.
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Lemme know if you were able to see it or not~
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Sweetheart, thank you for this tutorial. I'm using it as a guide to make my daughter wings for her phoenix persona that she uses as a renaissance faire. A quick question and I would love your input. I used spray adhesive to glue the wings together and while the first, test feather came out wonderfully, the rest varied from perfect to about 40% glued. It was my own fault since I didn't follow your instructions. Fortunately, broadcloth is cheap. My question for you is how durable is the paint-as-glue method? Will the feather halves stick together well even in wind and after use or do they need to be frequently repaired or replaced?
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Well, my first pair of raven wings lasted multiple years and a trip to Sweden, so I'd say yes, quite durable.
They do accumulate wear and tear like any costume, but most of my damage was on the wing tips (longer wings can drag on the ground when arms are down) which were actually easily reglued with regular or hot glue, and while water can cause them to droop and lose their stiffness letting them dry and even ironing them flat will restore them.
I'm even surprised at how well they lasted, let me know how it goes & if it works well for you~
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Thank you very much. One more question, if I may. I bought replacement fabric in order to retry the wings and I was trying to decide on paint color. The reason why is that I'm trying to make the wings with a red back and yellow front. I was thinking of using yellow paint so that the yellow front fabric would remain yellow but I didn't know how the red fabric would handle it. I'm going to test it on scrap fabric tomorrow, but I was just wondering if you or anyone else has had any experience with two color fabric for the wings.
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Ah, good point! 2 colored feathers are definitely on my list of things to try, I do agree that using yellow paint would probably work best since any bleed-through on the red side could be covered over with red paint.
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I ran a test with yellow and red fabric and yellow paint. The paint does penetrate a bit, but we're going to go with it this first time and if it looks bad enough, I'll spray paint the red fabric to cover it. Once I figure out how to attach pictures to my comments I'll put them up.
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I upload them to dA stash & copy/past links, or click the "add media" button on the bottom left of the comment box and choose "Sta.sh".
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Ok, here's the outcome of a painted feather with a red back and yellow front, using yellow paint as a glue. I didn't know how it would ultimately turn out, but considering that the wings are for my daughter who will be playing a phoenix, they aren't too bad. I'm going to wait and see how they all look together before I make any decisions about spray painting red over them or not. If it doesn't translate properly on whatever you're looking at, there is basically no red as it's turned mostly orange and there are splotches of yellow. I don't have the time to put into any efforts of directing the bleed-through. I don't think it looks TOO bad, but I may be fooling myself. Unless the colors are both pretty dark, I don't think I'll be trying 2 distinctly different colors like this, again. sta.sh/0191yvmcmhsf
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Thanks for the photos, I really think red spray paint will cover up the bleed-through (if you decide you really want red), I made white feathers & spray-painted them black once I knew they were going to be fora crow costume and it worked out fine. 
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Thank you so much for this fantastic tutorial, I'm in the process of making a pair of Articuno wings for Anime Central (oh crap 5 weeks to go!). I have a feeling I may not finish in time lol
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Less than 2 weeks to go, good luck!
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Thanks! A week to go, and today is my only day off between now and the con...I suffered a bit of a setback, cuz I bought the wrong type of fabric (got a felty, rather thick fabric), and it weighs down the wire enough that it bends, so I had to get some dowel rods to support the wire. The backside of my wings will look funky, but I'll be happy for my first attempt as long as the front looks good XD
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So, any luck finishing them in time for the con?
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unfortunately no, I got promoted to full time at work, and getting the extra hours at work made it so I couldn't finish them in time
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Hey no worries, congratz on the promotion!
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Hi!
Just a quick question--How much does the finished set weigh? Like is it really heavy or hard on your wrists after awhile?
This isn't real urgent, but I'd like to know before, say, June
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