GLAMOROUS Fallen Angel Wings

We've all seen them: white, fluffy angels at Christmas time, their gold-painted, aluminum halos on their heads and store-bought, feather angel wings slung gaily down their backs as they sing carols, hymns, and jolly Christmas tunes. Well, being the non-conformist that I am, I thought I would teach you all how to construct another king of angel- the fallen angel. These slightly tattered-looking wings arch up and have a wide wing span resembling the wings of turkey vultures. Of course, I decided to add a twist to this as well by making them BRIGHT PINK and adding some rhinestones, but you could always go for the more conventional dreary, black look if that is more "you." These gargantuan wings are also strapless so the wings look like they are coming right out of your back! It will seriously freak your friends out, not to mention delight, amuse, and fascinate kittens. You can also tweak this tutorial to construct the more conventional down-turned angel wings, or anime-style, short, perky wings. You can extend the design (and use thicker wire) in order to make absolutely HUGE wings. The possibilities are numerous. Have fun with the design and make it your own!

Having made wings on my site Fairywingsandthings.com for 10 years now, been featured in Maker Fair 2007 and the Maker Fair DVD, I thought I'd give back to the community that has given me so much by sharing this FABULOUS feather wings tutorial. Like a good sloppy joe, it's messy but a lot of fun. And unlike a sloppy joe, you can wear these wings out on the town for Halloween, photo shoots, weddings, or to spice up dinner parties. Enjoy!

Step 1: Get Ideas and Get Inspired

As with any costume, the first step is to decide what your wings will look like. This may seem simple enough, but I think once you start to look at lots of sets of different wings (real or not) you'll see that you have lots of options and narrowing it down can be difficult. There are LOTS of different styles of angel wings out there! A quick search on Google Images for "angel" should give you some good ideas and I've included some links below to sites that might help shape your vision. Also, don’t be afraid to sketch your own design too! I made some sketches to modify these wings so they wouldn’t be quite as huge. A sketch can also help you decide how many feathers you will need, of what kind, and where they will be positioned. It's important to have a clear idea of how you want your wings to look in order to choose a pattern that will accommodate it. You should determine the color, size (including wing span), and shape.

Wings, wings, and more wings (feel free to recommend some sites!)
http://www.nati-art.com Natalia Pierandrei (artist)
http://www.enchanted-art.com/catalog.php?category=5 Jessica Galbreth (artist)
http://browse.deviantart.com/?section=browse&order=9&qh=&q=angel - Deviant Art
http://www.animelab.com/anime.manga/pics/Angel_Sanctuary - Angel Sanctuary (anime)

Classic Angels:
http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Renaissance/Raffaello+Sanzio/Painting+details/Raffaello+-+The+Sistine+Madonna+_detail_.jpg.html - Raffaello Sanzio - The Sistine Madonna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Victory_Column - Siegessäule (Victory Tower) - Berlin
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:William_Blake_-_Christ_in_the_Sepulchre%2C_Guarded_by_Angels.jpg - William Blake - Christ in the Sepulchre
http://www.florin.ms/Jameson021.jpg - Angel by Rembrandt
http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Renaissance/Giotto+di+Bondone/Giotto+-+Angel+5.jpg.html - Angel by Giotto di Bondone
http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Renaissance/Fra+Angelico/Fra+Angelico+-+Annunciation.JPG.html - Fra Angelico - Annunciation
http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Baroque/Bartolome+Esteban+Murillo/Bartolome+Esteban+Murillo+-+The+angel_s+kitchen.jpg.html - Bartolome Esteban Murillo - The Angel's Kitchen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:028MAD_Sphinx.jpg - Sphinx - Delphi

Winged Characters (mostly anime)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokusatsu_Tenshi_Dokuro-chan - Club to death Angel Dokuro Chan (I recommend this one for those who haven't seen it.)
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/niwawillow123/TMM/Minto%20Aizawa/Mint9.jpg - Mint - Tokyo Mew Mew
http://www.geocities.com/johnnyfighter/Belldandy.jpg - Belldandy - Oh My Goddess!
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m47/cerraazizi/Card%20Captor%20Sakura/card_captor_sakura.jpg - Sakura - Card Captor Sakura

Comments

[HoopAngel]

wow!! I was thinking about making wings for my halloween costume but I found these ones and I think I am going to make them.. thanks!!!!

[Goodgodman1964]

LOve the rhinestones.... Too! Beautiful wings.

[yuanyuan9.mli]

is there something i could use instead of felt?

[yuanyuan9.mli]

Where did you buy feather's? I can't find any in the shade I like

[sharkman92]

you are pretty

[legless]

She looks a lot like Kari from Mythbusters in that photo.

[janiemw]

How does one clean these wings?

[Ancient Soul]

:D They're perfect! Thank you thank you thank you! I've been looking everywhere for a way to make wings for my costume and this is just perfect! *glomps* Uno question though...how much did it cost? A guestimate would be great

[floorwaxdesserttopping]

Actually not much at all! The main expense is the feathers. The goose feathers were, I believe, $5 a bag and I bought 6 bags of them at Pearl. The wire was only $6 for a 200 ft. spool at Cole Fox in SF (we love Cole Fox and the nice lady who does their awesome window displays). So I'd estimate with the other materials they'll run you less than $40.

[Thundertydus]

Would it be rude to say that I think you're beautiful?

[valamaldoran]

Love it! how cool me and my friends like love the book maximum ride, so these wings say, send some to "max" our friend who moved away, we are aways do maxride projects and sending them to her lol

[Ancient Soul]

I love your name ^-

[3kittygirl]

Maxride ROCKS! And so do these wings.

[your dog]

ditto

[youknowwhoiam]

well, for my taste, there a little too small, and too pink, but that looks easy to change.

[becauseican]

great ible. not to be a bible fiend but the bible says nothing about angels having wings or even having a form at all. actually some scriptures say angels are made of light.

[IrisLinnae]

the wings are beautiful and so are you! thanks for the 'ible i've always wanted to make some dark angel wings! :)

[acidXxqueen]

Hey! I liked your design so much, I made a pair for a wear-white party in Regina. put up pics when they're done ;]

[LuminousObject]

Perfect costume idea. But I, being a guy, wouldn't go for the pink. They're going to be bigger and black and grey.

[zafiros]

I'm doing the same thing to add to the wardrobe in the movie I'm making.

[dragonfire9000]

lol funny

[LuminousObject]

Thanks, I guess. I wasn't trying to be funny, but if you think it's funny, then good for you.

[maid63]

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh oooooooohhhhhhh she's pretty

[wupme]

I thought about buying such wings on an onlinestore (pretty expensive those things), need them for a photoshoot coming up. But now i think i'm gonna make them myself. Just in really huge and red with black, because the theme asks for it.

[punkatsub]

i may make a black version of this.

[ismailkumar]

goooooood

[Sunny124613]

nice,great for a party or a hall-o-ween thing w00T w00T

[Wiilittle]

The person who made this kind of looks like Kari Byron.

[rulerofthefreeworld]

Nice job, turned out well.

[chunya]

amazing idea!

[ItsTheHobbs]

Well, I personally would make them bigger, and darker, like gray and black feathers. Still, it's a really great 'ible.

[nimitz]

Small and gray works too:

http://web.mit.edu/anime/www/images/bg/haibane/rakka+butterfly.jpg

[floorwaxdesserttopping]

It's funny you should say that because the original sketch I had was for some gigantic black ones, but I changed my mind when I got to the craft store and saw the pink ones (; I love large wings but they're really hard to maneuver and I wanted something small enough to wear out.

[ItsTheHobbs]

Yeah, I have human-avian on my list for Halloween costumes, but I didn't know how to make the wings, so I'm definitely going to do that now.

[floorwaxdesserttopping]

Post pix plz. (;

[ItsTheHobbs]

I will, it's dark and cloudy around here today, so I might start the outline.

[Pumpkin$]

you guyz do know that fallen angels are demons cast out of heaven right? XD jk

[floorwaxdesserttopping]

Cast down and turned a slightly darker shade of pink yes yes (;

[Sandisk1duo]

yay not shopping at Halloween stores! you got a little javascript on step 13, might want to fix that

[floorwaxdesserttopping]

Danke! It's so funny that it wouldn't work. I'll fix it.