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At some point while working on the head and after the gloves were done, I started working on the wings. I had an advantage over most other people who make the attempt, in that I had already built a set for my Xodiac costume. All I was after here was to make a slightly better, stronger set. Preferably one that didn't need oiling - Xodiac's were starting to squeak.

The main difference between Xodiac's old wings (old because the wing pack, at least, will not be constrained to Onyx, thanks to multiple cloth coverings) and these is that the old ones were made out of aluminum bar stock, and these are plastic tubing. As you might imagine, making joints and hinges are a lot easier on flat bars than on round tubes.

Most everything else is the same. The dimensions are almost exactly the same, the tail still attaches at the bottom (albeit in a different manner) and I even transferred the old pneumatic system straight over to power the thing. Even so, it took me a month of measuring, cutting, grinding, and drilling - and, too often, doing it over again - just to get the structure engineered.

What you see here is the wing pack, or the beginnings of it. This is the piece that will go directly against the wearer's back. (For orientation, imagine the table is the wearer.) It's made out of PVC pipe and connectors, and the sides are angled as they are to help the wings close. Gravity should be enough to make them fold downwards, but by angling them like this they will automatically flap backwards as well. The connector at the bottom is where the tail will eventually attach.

In order to get those angles on the side, I had to fudge a bit. I had to raise the piping up a bit and then angle the pieces. It's tricky to explain, but easy to demonstrate, but essentially I used a connector piece as a hinge and then glued it in place; it was either that or have it at a 45-degree angle, which was far, far too steep. At any rate, this technique worked wonderfully, until I test-installed the pneumatic cylinders. The newly-raised angled axis is right in line with where the cylinder would go. In short, when flapping the wings open the pneumatics were hitting the pack, making it open only about halfway. The solution was to angle the back set downwards, letting the pneumatics pass over them. This was a fairly simple task, put it had its own consequences; the top and bottom were no longer in line, which in turn meant that some of the angles for pivoting out on the wing itself would be significantly tougher to engineer. But it was either that or raise the cylinder up unacceptably high. I figured, better to figure out the hellish angles now and have it look good forever than to take a shortcut now and be embarrassed to wear the thing.

This is a close-up view of the top of those angled verticals. Those tubes are meant to contain the vertical axis for the wings, allowing them to "flap" back and forth. But putting the axis directly against the tubing would probably not be wise. It wouldn't move smoothly, for one thin. So I used ball bearings, the inner diameter of which is equal to the fiberglass rod I used for the axis itself. Thus, the wings should always open smoothly, never catching. I added these bearing to the top and bottom of each side. (I didn't bother showing the bottom, as it looks the same.) I did have to grind out the connector a little, as the pieces wouldn't quite fit together, but that was hardly a problem.

The black tubing there is ABS. Its main purpose was to shrink the widgth of the bottom area that's just above the wings. That is where the air bottle will go, and if it's too wide the think will rattle around as I move. When I looked at it, though, it turned out that those extra tubes were perfectly placed for attaching the pneumatic cylinders themselves, and so they gained hinges and bolts and the like. As you can see, I made the bottom piece removable (though not easily). I gave a lot of thought to that, and I decided it would be worthwhile. Otherwise, if the black pieces broke for any reason the entire wing pack would have to be scrapped, for I could not remove them or add new ones without damaging the pack itself. Now, however, I can. I hardly expect the plastic to get damaged, or the hinges to bend or anything like that, but again it's a case of a little extra effort now will potentially reap big rewards later.

And here is the pack with the actual wings attached, in various stages. Folded entirely back, and flapped forward with one wing open. I only opened one wing because, frankly, the camera couldn't take a wide enough shot for both. It does, however, allow you to compare open and closed wings, and see how it all folds up. There's not really a whole lot to actually say, here, nothing to specifically point out. This just shows how things fit together. You can also see how the cylinders pass over that vertical axis as I mentioned earlier.

When I connected everything up, it worked pretty well. I did find that it had a tendancy, or at least a risk, of opening up all the way and then locking there. THat is to say, the lower members, the ones made of white PVC, could form a straight line or even invert, making it impossible to close by gravity alone. The solution, of course, was to make sure it didn't ever open that far. That would require putting a stopper on the wings, somewhere. For a while, the only thing I could think of was a rope or cable, preventing two points from getting further away than I wanted. I knew that wasn't really the best solution, of course - a robe or cable could break and surely would stretch over time. I needed a compressive stopper. But where to put it where it wouldn't interfere with normal operations? Eventually I found such a place. Right at the elbow. I cut a strip of ABS about an inch wide and heat-bent it into a triangle. (You can see it in progress in the left picture. The paper triangle is the eventual shape and angles I was aiming for.) This was then bolted underneath the upper elbow joint. When the wings open, the PVC tube hits the triangle exactly, and it stopped. I made a triangle rather than, say, using a doorstopper because I wanted a large surface area for the member to hit the stopper, and one made for a door is too small. This is more stable. Besides, I already had the plastic, and I didn't have a doorstopper. Why spend when I didn't have to? The black square on the PVC is a strip of felt. This way, there aren't any clacking sounds as plastic hits plastic.

This is a poster-paper pattern I made for the plastic that made up the wing pack's enclosure. Or at least one side of it - I couldn't permanently enclose it, because I would have to hook up and disconnect the air bottle before and after each wearing, and occasionally remove it to be refilled. It was this piece of plastic that all the pneumatics would be attached to. This was a little difficult to figure out. Oh, not the pattern itself, which took maybe half an hour. But how and where to connect it? I couldn't connect it anywhere on the sides, since on the upper area there's am axis going through that tube and down below it'd be a pain. So it is bolten only at the top and bottom. After a little thought, I added some cable ties around the sides, at least up high. Down at the air bottle, I left it attached only at the bottom. Unfortunately, I failed to take a picture of the piece after it was cut from the plastic sheet. It's not much of a loss, really - it's the same thing, but in black. I also didn't take any pictures of it after I bent the tabs at the top and bottom to wrap around the PVC tubes.

I decided not to go with the normal, padded straps to hold the wings on my back. For one thing, the black of the soft straps would show up against the background texture of the rest of the costume - for Onyx, that would be the blueish-grey unitard. I could encase it in a kind of sock of matching fabric, but the soft straps inside would make it bunch up and wrinkle terribly. Inspired by the rigs that snare drummers use, I decided to make "hard straps." While still black, a sock around these would be less prone to shifting around, because the straps themselves would move less. I could even add velcro to pin things down, if it becomes necessary. And lastly, by making these large hooks, it doesn't need to go all the way around my shoulders and under my arms. This should make it easier to put on and take off. My main worry was that, with the necessary padding, they'd stick up from my shoulders too much. But as you can see in the somewhat blurry photo on the right, it's not all that far at all. About an inch, but that's with no weight pulling down on them. With the wing pack attached, it'll be about half that. I figured out what the curvature should be by taking apart a wire coathanger and bending it to match the curvature of my shoulder. The hard strap is slightly larger, to allow for the padding.

This is the other half of the hard strap: the part that connects to the wing pack itself. I decided to make it in two parts because, as you can see, it adds considerable thickness to the wings. Letting the hooks be easily removed makes for easier storing and shipping. To the left, you can see the straps half-complete and taped to the wing pack in the position they will eventually be bolted. The upper areas have not yet been cut, because I wasn't sure exactly where the hooks would rest against them. The lines on the tape mark where I thought they'd match up, but at this point I wasn't quite sure. Once I had the placement more exact, I marked them on the tape (my estimate turned out to be close but not quite on target) and cut away the excess plastic.

After that, it was just a matter of bending the plastic of those permanently attached straps so it would match the angle of the shoulder hooks. Then a bit of drilling for the bolts, and they were connected, and easily disconnected with a screwdriver and nut driver. Meanwhile, the bolts in the foreground should never need to be unscrewed.

Here is the wing pack, with everything inside except the air bottle. The layout is a bit different from Xodiac's wings, but all the same components are there. Air goes from the bottle to a pressure reducer taken from a beer keg, and from there to a three-way switch intended for sprinklers. The switch leads either to exhaust, near the tail, or to another valve that allows me to adjust how fast air will flow through the tubes, which in turn determines how fast the wings open. From the flow rate valve the tube splits and goes to the pneumatic cylinders that lift and flap the wings. The box on the right side contains the electrical cicuit that controls the three-way switch. After a bit of internal debate, I've decided not to show that circuit. Taking a picture of the insides would just show a big mess (the wires a far longer than they needed to be, and so it looks not unlike spaghetti in there), and I'm not going to give away the circuit diagram. Sorry. That cicuit, and the exact dimensions of the pieces comprising the wings and wing pack, are both proprietary information. You'll have to figure them out on your own, or buy a set of wings from me.

With the pack, arm, pneumatics, and electronics all installed, there was only one thing left: the coverings. Without it this thing will, at best, look like a skeleton. And at worst it'll look like the mechanical kludge it is. If they're going to look like wings, they need to be covered. I made a few errors when I made my last set of wings, for Xodiac. Namely, I went straight to the final version without any sort of rough draft. As a result, the coverings ended up a little tight in some areas, making it difficult to put on (and take off) the mechanism. In some places the seams were even stressed, threatening to rip. Not good. So this time I spent the time to make patterns out of cloth and actually pin them over the mechanism, modifying the shapes as needed. This mostly consisted of draping large panels over the wing in open position, drawing on it the shape I wanted, and then when it was all done making sure the wing was able to open, close, and flap back and forth. The whole thing too literally a month. I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures of the process. These are pictures of the finished product. That is, the finished patterns. The ones on the right are what they look like with the wings open. Closed, they look like the picture on the left.

So, patterns made, it was time to start working on the real thing. Unfortunately - is it just me, or am I using that word a lot? - I screwed up yet again. The wings take over thirty pieces of fabric to make. Thirty! And putting it all together so the seams don't show isn't easy, something like a jigsaw puzzle. And I didn't get it entirely right. Plus, a seam at the "wrist" needed to be ripped open and a hole installed. Otherwise, the wing fingers were too awkward to install. But since the patterns hadn't accounted for the hole, I had to kludge a covering. Lastly, one area was still a little tight, despite the patterns. As a result, the wing was reluctant to close all the way. The wing is wearable, but barely. Luckily, I had a whole other wing I needed to make! I could use the mistakes I did on the right wing to make the left one better. And this time around, I'd take pictures. After literally every seam I snapped a shot. So be prepared for information overkill. I started the left wing at the tip, with the wrist and first finger. But first, I wanted to account for the wrist hole. It needed to be covered. I considered a zipper, but ultimately decided to go with fabric snaps. One reason was that the zipper, being not just at a seam but literally a corner, would itself be visible unless covered, so I'd kind of have to do this anyway. The other reason is that zippers require specific tailoring, and after all this time I wasn't about to do anything complex. This was complicated enough! So, these pictures show the creation of the small flap that would cover the wrist hole. First I sew the outer fabric - that's the bluish stuff - to the liner, which is the flesh colored stuff called Duck Fabric. Don't ask me why, I don't know. But it's essentially canvas. This provides stiffening, and also protects the more fragile cotton and taffeta that shows on the outside from the scraping action of the screws and PVC as the wings open and close. Here that's not much of an issue, but the stiffening is helpful. At any rate, with the liner added, I sewed on another piece of outer fabric, since this flap will be easily visible from both sides. So I had to cover it entirely. Then I added the fabric snaps, a line of six to hold this thing firmly closed with a minimum of wrinkles forcing it open.

With the flap done, it had to be attached to the wrist. First, of course, the wrist had to be sewn to its own liner, as shown in the first picture. Only then does the flap get sewn on.

Next was the finger. Again, the first step was to attach the finger to a liner. There's not going to be much movement in there when the wings open and close, but when the delrin rod is installed and removed it'll slide down the entire length. I don't want anything to rip. Next, the finger got sewn to the wrist. Very simple. And last, the finger got wrapped around and sen to itself to form a tube. This seam isn't inverted because it'll be hidden under the wing panels when they're sewn on. Besides, turning such a long, stiff piece of fabric inside out did not appeal. At all. And of course I had to make sure not to sew the wrist closed, as well. Only the finger gets this treatment. This really shouldn't come first, when making a set of wings. But part of the problem with the right wing was that the wrist didn't fit, thanks to problems with the finger. By doing it first, I could slide it over the first finger and see if everything goes where it needs to go. This time, it did.

Since it was looking good so far, it was time to move on and do things as they should be done. The first step to that is to sew the zipper liners together. These are thin strips of duck fabric that will go backwards, inside the tube of the wing, near the wing pack where the wing zippers to the pack. The explanation is a lot more complicated and incomprehensible than the reality. Trust me, it's necessary. Hopefully, you'll see soon. At any rate, they need to be sewn lengthwise in the proper order and orientation. Trickier than it sounds, actually, because the liners are the reverse of the zipper fabric that can be seen when zipping it up, which in turn is the reverse of the outside wing fabric that everyone will see. But in the end, I got it formed into the fabric ring it needed to be.

These rather hard-to-see pictures (sorry) show me doing the same thing to the liners for the shoulder and third wing panels (closest to the wing pack). Shoulder to back liner, shoulder to front liner, front liner to back liner, forming a tube for the wing mechanism to go into. I didn't sew the seams all the way down the edge, though, only for about a foot. Why I did that is, again, complicated and difficult to explain. It's something I learned while sewing the right wing, though.

And then the zipper liner strip gets sewn to the tube of liner I just made. The edge of one was a mirror image of the other, making sewing a snap. In the end, the zipper rested inside the tube, and one fabric rested flat against the other. In other words, no inverted seam.

And here we go again. This is the actual zipper fabric, the stuff people will see if they peel back the edge of the wing over the zipper. Like the liner, it needed to be sewn lengthwise into a ring. The blue patch is the shoulder, and the black ones are for the wing panels. Making wings of more than one color just makes them look better.

The fabric strip then needed to be sewn to the liner. This had to be done lengthwise again, but along the edge that was inside the tube. not the edge that would be at the edge of the wing. This seam is inverted, and the fabric folded around to rest visibly on the inside of the tube along the edge. That white circle is a fabric snap that will halp attach a small portion of the wing to the pack. It really should have gone through the duck fabric liner, as well, but I forgot. Now I'll have to be careful when I unsnap that thing, lest I rip the taffeta. Oops. The second picture shows the reults after the next step. At this point, the fabric had been sewn to the tube itself. This is done along the outer edge. The difference the third picture and the second one is rather subtle. It probably can't be seen in photographs at all. Essentially, the inner edge of the zipper liner is then sewn to the tube. This prevents it from inverting, pulling out of the tube entirely. Now it's stuck inside for good.

Finally, it came time for the zipper itself. Reatively simple to sew on, the main problem was finding exactly what line to follow. But I'd marked it on the patterns, so it was simple to transfer the information to the wings.

Time for one more tube. This one was for the actual shoulder and wing panels. Like the liners, this one didn't get sewn along its entire lentgth. However, it needed to be sewn for a longer length than the liners were. Very slightly longer, like an inch or so.

And finally, I sewed the fabric tube to the mess of liner and zippers that I made. This is done along the outside edge, with an inverted seam. When the fabric is turned in its proper orientation, voila! Not only does the seam disappear, but I get to say a French word. Not bad, I dare say.

Next it was time to sew another finger to its backing. These are the pieces for the third finger. Unlike the first finger, these need to be seperate, not rolled over on itself to make a tube. This was also a very annoying seam to sew, the extreme length made it tend to wrinkle on itself. The edge of the front and back wing panels then need to be sewn to the liner. However, it needs to be done only along the line that will be sewn to the finger. The seams on top (along the shoulders) and the bottom (where front meets back) remain incomplete. The reason for this will become clear soon. That done, it was time to sew the finger pieces to the wing panels. Face to face with an inverted seam, as you can see in the pictures on the left. Then I had to sew the front panels to the back again, along with the tips of the fingers. This was sewn only for an inch or two, leaving a large unsewn hole at the bottom of the wing. The seam needs to go mostly at the fingertip, with just a bare touch along the wing panels themselves. The scissors are there pointing to where I stopped sewing.

The next part wasn't easy to figure out. But it's why I had to sew so many weams only partway. First, I pulled the bottom of the liner out through the unsewn hole in the bottom of the wing fabric. This allowed me to sew the liner shut in the proper orientation. I had to be very careful around the finger, since I couldn't seperate the fabric from the liner very much. If I'd slipped, I'd have sewn the liner to the fabric in a way I didn't want. You can see the liner pulled through the bottom of the wing in the top picture on the right. Next, I took the bottom of the wing fabric and pulled it through the unsewn hole at the top of the wing, along the shoulder seam. This let me sew that seam in its properly inverted orientation. This was hardly tricky at all; the hardest part was fguring out this was what I needed to do. The results, as you can see, are quite acceptable.

Compared to that, this next part was easy. I just had to sew the elbow fabric to its liner, and the shoulder fabric to the shoulder liner along the seam to the elbow - much as I sewed the wing fabric to its liner along only the finger seam.

Then I simply sewed the shoulder to the elbow. Face to face, of course, in an inverted seam.

I then had to sew fabric to liners, again. The tops of the wing fabric pieces to theirs, and the shoulder to its own along the wing piece seams. I stiched it back as far as I could, meaning just before there the liner was sewn to itself and the shoulder sewn to the wing panels in two seperate seams.

Then it was a simple matter to sew the shoulder piece to the front and back wing panels. Once again, this seam shouldn't go all the way that it possibly could; it really only needs to go past the shoulder/elbow seam. The point was to avoid making corners, which are hard to sew.

In preparation for things to come, I sewed the curved bottom edges of the rest of the wing panels to themselves, simply folding the edges over by a quarter inch or so. The panels would eventually be sewn together, but I knew there was no way to do it inverted, and so in order to present a uniform edge I had to sew it over. Since this would be a lot easier to do while the pieces were unsewn, I did it then instead of later.

Time to sew another finger! This one was done the same way as the third finger: front and back fabric to their respective liners, and then the two pieces sewn together face-to-face at the tip.

I then sewed the back wing panel two to the back of the third finger. I sewed down the entire length except for the couple inches around the fingertip; that'll get done later. I then sewed finger two to panel two, and panel one to finger two. All back pieces, none alone the front, and theaving all the tips unsewn. This sequence was kind of fun. It's extremely simple, and it really looks like progress.

See? Progress! It's really starting to look like a wing! At least from the back, and especially after I sew the back panels and fingers to the elbow piece, as I have here. For the sake or reference, this is the left wing's wrist area, as seen from the back. The wing pack would be off-camera to the right.