Skarmory Wings Cosplay Tutorial

Hello! 

        Welcome to my first-ever cosplay tutorial (and blog post, for that matter)! 😊 

This is a walkthrough of the wings for my Skarmory gijinka cosplay. The wings are made primarily from rigid insulation, which I loved because they ended up weighing less than two pounds!! This tutorial could also be helpful for any other large, flat wings such as Erza Scarlet or Pharah. So with that, let's get started ~

   Materials

    Wings

• Rigid insulation, 0.75 in
• Aluminum pipe (x2)
• Car body filler (aka Bondo)
• PlastiDip
• Mod Podge
• Black matte spray paint
• Acrylic paints (metallic silver, metallic red, black, metallic white, navy blue)
• Duct tape
• Gorilla glue
• Super glue
• Spray insulation foam (optional)
• Masking tape (optional)

    Harness

• Scrap wood
• Aluminum flagpole brackets, 1 in
• Black nylon strapping, 1 in
• Parachute buckles, 1 in (x3)
• Screws
• Epoxy
• Contact cement (optional)
• Craft foam (optional)
• Black thread
• Thick gauge copper wire

   Tools

• Dremel
• Jig saw
• Hand saw
• Metal file
• Utility knife & extra blades
• X-acto knife & extra blades
• Hand drill
• Putty knife
• Sandpaper (course and fine grit)
• Sanding block
• Sewing machine
• Screwdriver
• Synthetic sponge
• Natural sponge
• Small/medium flat paintbrush

   PPE

• Respirator
• Safety goggles
• Disposable gloves
• Dust mask

   The Harness

1. Cut a piece of wood that fits in between your shoulder blades. Sand down the faces and edges.

2. Screw on your flagpole brackets, angled slightly towards the top edge. These are what will hold your wings and allow them to be removed for transportation.

3. Sew together your straps and parachute buckles. What felt most secure to me was to have one strap go around the bottom of my chest, and then two straps crisscross across the front and buckle onto the bottom strap (see front-view picture at the top of the post).

4. Attach the straps to the wood with epoxy. I added some more screws for additional security. I also glued a thin piece of craft foam to the back with contact cement to make it more comfortable against my skin. The wood wasn't uncomfortable, so I just added it for extra protection against splintering.

5. Make a U-shape out of the copper wire and shape it to lie right against your spine. Drill holes in the bottom of the wood, and glue in the ends of the wire with epoxy. This part is crucial to make the wings stay on well. Even though they're so light, they'll still pull the front of the harness up without this wire loop. When wearing the harness, the bottom strap should go over the wire to hold it in place.


And that's it for the harness! I am going to incorporate a cover for the brackets into my backplate armor.

   The Wings

1. Start by making your template. I made a sketch in AutoCAD and scaled it so that each wing was about 3.25 feet in length. If you want my templates, shoot me a message to my Facebook page.

2. Print out your templates, tape the pieces together, and trace onto the rigid insulation. Cut out each piece using a utility knife, being sure to change your blade often. Remove any plastic film from the insulation.

3. Next, grab your aluminum pipe. You want it to be less than one inch for the outer diameter. I found that the flagpole bracket inner diameter was actually a little under one inch as it was. Keep the part of the pipe that will fit in the flagpole round, and flatten the rest of it in a vice. Before doing this, I inserted a round piece of wood in the pipe to keep the round part round. Wrap the round end with a layer of duct tape to give the pipe some friction to stay in the bracket (not pictured).

4. Cut out a slot for the pipe in the top blade of your wings. There might be a better method, but I just used a utility knife and just cut away small pieces at a time. Glue it in the slot with some Gorilla Glue.

5. Optional step: Spray insulation foam into the space around the pipe, protecting your working surface and using safety goggles and gloves (it will not come off if it gets on you). Wait to dry about 24 hours. Cut away the excess with an X-acto knife and cover the surface with masking tape. I did this for one of my wings and not the other. The benefit of this step is that it gives you a flatter starting point for the Bondo step, which makes your life easier. The drawback is using extra material and waiting 24 hours.

6. Next, you'll shape all eight blades. Unfortunately I don't have intermediate pictures of this step, just the end result. To do this:

• Draw a line parallel to the bottom edge of each blade to mark where your chamfer (sloped edge) will start. I made my line between 0.5 inches and 1 inch from the bottom for each blade. Also draw lines dividing the 0.75 inch-thickness of the insulation board into thirds. This will be where your chamfer ends.
• Use a utility knife to start carving away the chamfer. Use a Dremel to sand down the rest, and fine-grit sandpaper to smooth it out. You'll definitely want to wear a dust mask and safety goggles here because the dust gets everywhere.
• Use the Dremel and sandpaper to round off the top edges of the blade.

7. For the bottom six blades, coat all of the foam generously with at least two thick layers of Mod Podge. Spray paint dissolves the foam, so you want to make sure you have a pretty thick barrier.

8. For the top blades, on only the side with the slot, cover the surface with Bondo using a putty knife. Work outside and use a respirator and disposable gloves. Work fast and get this layer as flat as possible to save yourself work later. After the Bondo is dried, use coarse-grit sandpaper and a sanding block to sand it as flat as you can. Use more Bondo to fill in any low points and sand again; repeat as much as desired. It's not necessary to do this on the side without the slot and would result in a less-smooth surface, so just do it on the one side.

5. Spray 1-2 layers of PlastiDip over all eight blades of the wings. I use PlastiDip as the primer for all of my armor, so I wanted it to match. Alternatively, you could add a layer of Mod Podge over the Bondo to prime it instead.

6. Use a Sharpie to mark out where you want your sword scratches to go. Then cut out using angled cuts with your X-acto knife. The Bondo wears out the blades really quickly, so be sure to change your blade often. Sorry, I don't have a separate picture for this step.

7. Now the fun part, painting! Spray all of the blades with black matte spray paint.

8. Use a synthetic sponge to apply metallic silver and metallic red paints to the appropriate areas. I also sponged on a mixture of metallic red plus a bit of navy blue to add more of a garnet color. Next, add some weathering! I use a natural sponge to apply a few splotches of darker shades (silver + black, red + navy blue + black, and black). Use a bunched-up paper towel to blot the excess, than rub in light, straight strokes to blend it out more. You can then also rub in a circular motion more vigorously to lighten it even more if you want. Repeat for as many mottled patches as desired. Using the flat brush, add thin highlights along the bottom edges of your sword scratches, all the edges of the wings, and the line of your chamfer. I used pure white highlights for the silver sides, and white plus a little metallic red for the red sides.

9. Glue your pieces together, and you're done! I marked out where my glue would go with masking tape, and then applied a thin line of Gorilla Glue in the middle and super glue around the edges. I used textbooks under and above the wing parts to hold them together while the glue dried. 

Thank you!

I hope you enjoyed my guide 😊 And if it's of use to you, show me your results! Checkout my Facebook page to follow my progress on the rest of the costume.

I want to give a shout-out to #dersedreamer for her Davesprite wing tutorial and Chrix Design for her Mercy wing tutorial, which were very helpful to me in planning my process. I also wanted to thank my dad for giving me advice and teaching me to use the tools in his workshop, as well as Reddit user and Disney imagineer u/satiredun for the suggestion to use rigid insulation.

Update and the finished cosplay!

I altered the angle of the wings so they weren't pointing as far back, which made them appear much larger from the front. I did this by attaching some wood wedges to the base of the harness before screwing the flagpole brackets onto these wedges. 

The last thing then was to cover the harness with EVA foam to make it more cohesive with my backplate. I had to make a curved dome to cover the base since the wedges stick up in the middle.

And that's it! Here are the wings with the finished costume :) All photo credit to Cerberus Fotos.