Moving articulating cardboard wings have been something I have been playing with for a while now. I had seen mechanical costume wings and had thought, I'm sure I can create something similar. Using pieces of cardboard sliding over each other, creating wings that would open and close. And so the challenge was set.
And I had to finish it before this halloween because one my boys are huge Marvel fans and wanted the wings for their Marvel Falcon costumes. The styling of the costume has all been created by my son who had specific styling notes on how he wanted his Falcon Marvel character to look.
He has used a face mask as part of his costume and I think it actually works really well with his character. The eye mask is a really basic diamond shape with black stockings stretched in-between the cardboard to create his eye shields.
The cardboard wings also can make the best fairy or angel wings, below I interchanged the nature coloured webbing for a white, to help it blend into the costume.
The wings are opened and closed manually by pushing up on the lower wings and brought down the same way. My sons are quiet comfortable doing this however I think younger children may require some help.
I really want to make a note that this template takes precision and careful attention to detail to enable the wings to works. The wings simply won't work if one pivot point is out of align or the wings are in the wrong order. Hence this template is not for the faint hearted.
The template gives you the framework to make a set of wings that measures when open 145cm width, 71cm in height with each wing measuring 71cm from base to tip.
The wings will fit both a child and adult, as the straps are adjustable (however this was design specially for a childs portions).
What you need:
~ Single walled cardboard
(a FIRM cardboard
between 2-5mm thick)
~ Craft Blade https://amzn.to/3X4Zsvb
~ 14 Jeans Buttons and tacs (Updated link with new screw in tacs no hammer needed) https://amzn.to/3XthVTJ
~ 2 meters of Strapping 3 cm wide (webbing or wide ribbon) Twill Heading https://amzn.to/3Tb85DA
~ Glue gun https://amzn.to/3MlT9i9
Hot glue sticks https://amzn.to/3Xfe8rE
~ Blue Tack https://amzn.to/3yMtqMJ
~ Tape https://amzn.to/3yWT69j
The above links are to amazon products we currently use for making cardboard costumes. (they may differ from the video) but please use whatever available, these are suggestions.
See how the you can easily put the articulating wings together by watching this video.
by Zygote Brown Designs
