Vakyrie cosplay: Wings part 1

      Long before I seriously got into cosplay, I was fascinated by the idea of making wings. Even ignoring the lure of flight, wings are so intricate that the challenge appealed to me. I knew sewing wouldn't get me the wings I wanted though, and that I'd need some experience under my belt before tackling them once I started doing thermoplastics cosplay stuff. With both Thor and Taboo cosplays completed, though, I felt pretty good about taking on that challenge and finally making myself some wings.

     The last 3-4 months have been a lot of research - on what to use for the wing "bones," how to make them move, how to program the things that make them move, how to make feathers, how wings fold and extend in real life, etc etc etc. After figuring out the materials I'll be using and ordering a ton of supplies, I've broken the wings down into a couple broad steps:

1. Set up the program and power layout to move 5 servos at once. 
2. Attach 2 servos to wing bones and program the angles correctly.
3. Attach 4 servos to wing bones, sort out how everything will be placed on the wing base.
4. Make the wing base, attach everything, test open & closing of wings. 
5. Add the big feathers (test weight).
6. Add the small feathers/ skin (test weight).

     Obviously, this is glossing over numerous details in each step, but that's the basic plan of attack. It took 3 months to order things, mess with programming, find out I needed more stuff, wait for that, and keep messing with the programming. The process was rather hindered by the fact that I was learning a new programming language and slowly realized that the thing I want to do (move multiple servos at once, but not the same angle change and speed) is practically unheard of in the community that uses servos and this programming language. I finally worked out the code, however, and tested all 5 servos working at once:

     For the bones, I decided to use carbon fiber tubes - they're expensive, but on a comparison of weight to strength, they're the best. On a nice day, I set up a drilling station outside (carbon fiber dust is nasty stuff that you do not want in you, your house, or your electronics) and Dremeled off the sizes and drill holes I'd need to connect them. I grabbed an extra piece of balsa wood I had from making the gentleman's cosplay knife, and cut some holes in it to attach the wing bones and base servo to:

     And here I ran into another problem. How does one attach square servos to round, slick bones? Not really something you can pop down to the store and pick up, as it doesn't come up often in normal-people life. I do, however, happen to have all this scrap worbla lying around from two other cosplay projects, and it turns out that when lumped together and molded like play-dough, worbla does in fact hold screws well:

     It took surprisingly long to make 4 of those, and working with a heat gun and hot plastic does nothing for winter-dry skin, but I'm one step closer to wings!