My wings! (A work in progress)

[Cheshyre]

Well if some of you are paying well enough attention to comments in the cbox, the puppeteer is going to be ME! on Samhain this year...
But... to do me right.... (hehehe to do me...) She has to make my wings...
See, my original model is Belial, from Angel Sanctuary... who's angel wings are nifty butterfly wings...
So when The Goddess made me in the videogame Poolstroke got her, she had to make me with my butterfly wings!
In the game, my wings look like this:


(Yes, I am supposed to be doing naughty things to santa in this shot. Even Santa deserves a little love every now and again...)


And.. here in this thread, I shall show you the progress of those wings being made!

So... today: Phase one went SMOOTHLY!
I got the frame done.

Here I got the first piece:



So far... things looked good! The wire bends well, yet holds the shape... nice.
Then I got the other part done, and put them together for this shot:



Still looking good at this part...

I got the third piece... one of the harder bendies because of the odd form...



And then I finished the 4th part... which would look allot like shot 3... so I didn't take that picture for redundancy issues...

With all 4 parts, I finally set them all up on the table, the way they should all piece together...
And I realised then that they are turning out to be HUGE...
I had to get a bar stool out of the pool room, and stand on it to take the next picture.



Now... I think they look pretty damned good so far.
They just turned out to be a bit bigger than I thought....

I shall post more as this project progresses. But I haven't found the tights to put over the frame... so that will be a job for tomarrow!

[Katarina]

Do we get to see rhe final resulr on you?

Pleasepleaseplease?

[Cheshyre]

But of course!
There will be pictures of me in the entire costume too! but... later.

Today... not much work has been done on the wings.
I went to 3 different stores looking for the right materials.

And along the way, I found it... Gecko Green... actually LABELLED as Gecko:


Eh picture's a bit blurry... but they had it.
Sadly, they didn't have 'gecko' in the non-semi-opaque style... so it wasn't the paint I bought.

And I got home, and I started putting the nylons on...
The wings being so big, tactic one was a fail... and I had to re-bend the wire back to place...
And tactic 2... was worse... I got about this far:


Before I realized that this method wasn't going to work either. the further down I got, the more the fabric wouldn't cover the area needed.

So... I tore it off... and got a bit ticked off about it.
At this time, someone else comes in, showing me the first aide kit they got at work in a safety class today, and I see it!

Now I have to go BACK to wallmart... (4th time in like 2 days... oy.) and get some giant sheets of gauze...

[Cheshyre]

Never made it to wally-world to buy the gauze.
A buddy noticed my project, and told me he had something to try, he brought me a nightgown....

So, I cut a piece of material off, and did some testing.

First test: will the paint I bought work on this material?:



Check!
It worked too well... bled right through, onto my hand.. and dried very nicely and brightly green.

Next test: Glue. I took that tiny piece from the color test, and glued it to an small piece of the wire:



Check!
So now I cut out enough to make a wing:



And glue it on, cutting the trim well:



And BOOM! 1/4th read for paint.

(And this is where I took my break so I could be in the cbox chatting it up with you guys now)

Side note of amusement: This nightgown I am tearing up, was bought originally to be the nightgown a bride wore on her wedding night...

Which makes this the second time I have gotten to rip into matramony attire for Samhain projects!

*grins*

The first time I took a good friend's wedding gown, tearing it to shreds and covering it in fake blood....

I love Samhain season. Let me tell ya.

[Cheshyre]

And, got all 4 pieces clothed and ready for paint!
WOOT!



(the second shot I had to stand on a stool to get...)

[Cheshyre]

Well... got the paint done... after much mess and merriment.
I thought I wouldn't have enough paint, so I cut the paint tube open, and scraped out all I could to finish.
It almost worked... but then I had to try and set them somewhere to dry... and the bottom pieces stuck to the newpaper... which took off some of the paint.
So now I have to go back to the shop for more paint and apply one more coat to the bottom pieces...

But... progress has been made in leaps and bounds for one day.


(you can see in this pic, where the paint came off...)



But the top pieces are done and just fine. I can start the black paint on them tomarrow night, after the layer of green dries.

I got paint everywhere!

I love making a good mess.

[Cheshyre]

And now I've spent days slowly applying paint... it takes at LEAST 2 coats of all paint to have the right affect...

This shot here is where I'm at tonight, I estimate one more 'final' touch up paint job, and they will be ready to form into the actual shape/frame and be done!!

YAY!

[Cheshyre]

Progress report: not enough... but sooo damned close...
My 'touch up' paint job got tedius, so I said "Fuck it" and just did a 3rd layer of all paint. And that worked well!
Today, I bent them into shape, and put them all together...



I added the ribbon that is how they attach to me... and strapped them on... took a couple shots:





Of course, those shots prove that I have to actually paint the black lines on the 'front' of the wings, as they are on the back...
So... I have ONE more paint job (tonight) and then they REALLY should be complete!

So... I took one more shot with my top hat... hot glued a new and improved green band to it, and added the card....



And here ends the progress shots.
The next pictures I'll post here will probably be after Samhain, shots of me wearing them in costume!

[Cheshyre]

Oh yeah! End Notes!:

Materials used:

about a 4th a roll of 13 gauge wire

a mesh nightgown... *estimate* half a yard of mesh material.

2 tubes of green paint, 3/4 a bottle of black paint.

Roughly 12 Hot glue sticks.

an undetermined amount of electrical tape.

an entire roll of simple black ribbon.

Materials Wasted:

about $9.00 of craft wire that never would have worked.

2 pairs of white panty hose.

1 hot glue stick.

an undetermined amount of electrical tape.

New art items I gained that can be used in further projects: 2 expensive quality paint brushes.

And amused note: They actually turned out almost to scale of video game Chesh's wings... they turned out HUGE... I had to crab walk down the hall to my room to take the mirror shot.
Even as big as they are, they don't weigh much at all. They will just be a pain to navigate in.
If the parties I show up to are small and crowded... they are going to be a HUGE pain in the ass.

[Cheshyre]

alright... I lied.
I got a picture of the top half of the costume at a party tonight.
No clown makeup yet... as I rushed right from work to the party... but here's a glimpse of it.
No one knew who I was supposed to be... but they all loved it anyway.
And I got a TON of 'nice legs' comments... shame I couldn't get a full body shot yet...

(Don't mind the look on my face in this shot... I had just visited the hooka smoking catapillar... The Queen of Hearts and another hatter was there as well... if they actually get the shot of all of us together to me, I shall post it too.)

[Storm]

Cheshyre you have done an awesome job on your costume Love the details on the wing AWESOME Work!

[Katarina]

Whoo! Thank you.

Two words:

Divynals song.

[Cheshyre]

Thanks guys!

Glad you liked it SO much!

There will be a ton more better pics after the holiday.

[Cheshyre]

Well Samhain has come and gone, with fun and joy to be had!... mostly.

Sadly my night did not end as planned, so I really didn't get as many pictures as I'd hoped.


First full body shot taken, outside the club.


Pool table shot inside the club.


A wicked bar shot. There are no special effects added to this picture, that's all the bar lighting near the dance-floor.


Character shot: November and Cheshyre.

Makeup reference:

Sadly the night ended short, so I didn't get as many pictures as I'd hoped, and allot of the bar shots don't even show the wings.
Everyone loved the costume, and the wings.
The wings were just as I said, a public hazard.
I hit people with them in the face, walking through the crowd ALL night.
I even danced with them once.
Sadly, the broke in half before the night was finished.
I'm keeping the pieces, perhaps I'll try to repair them, I don't know.
It was a very fun costume.
I enjoy every part of being me.

[Cheshyre]

Opps! My phone died on the trip home, and now that it's got a partial charge, I found I missed one shot: