So I’ve been in my dorm for 4 months, and I had an itch to cosplay with no chance to really make anything . As soon as I got home for break, I jumped right into a project the Touhou Project. I recently got into Touhou due to AWA and a friend, and I had always wanted to cosplay Flandre because I love her wings, so that’s right where I started! I took a lot of photos of how I made my wings, not too much of the actual outfit, but I can lead you in the right direction.
I’m going to divide this into a few sections, and I’ll link to them as they get added:
- Wing base (click read more)
- Crystals
- Assembly/Lights
- Wig
- Outfit
1. Wing Base; Trial 1: These fancy glowy things were tricky to make, but before we even think about adding lights, we have to give the crystals something to hang off of!
So the first thing to cover would be the materials. Now I ran into a few little bumps along the way and am still dealing with some (primarily because I keep putting off my harness, which is pretty important…) so if you change anything/improve on my ideas, let me know!
Materials:
- Foam Board (2-3 sheets is good, but it really depends on how you decide to shape your base)
- Glue (I used wood glue)
- Exacto knife/box cutter/carving tool
- Sandpaper
- Thin dowels
Process
- First, pull up your references! Touhou characters aren’t entirely consistent so variations are just fine! I pulled up figmas and nedroids to use as reference, since they were already 3D models, and observed the shape Flandre’s wings typically were. Got it? Sketch out the shape (I did it directly onto the foamboard) and cut it out.
Excuse that mess of cosplay and other junk behind my dressform - Got one cut out? Good now cut out 7 more so you have 8 in total. Just use the one you already cut out and trace around it. Make sure they are all the same length, this is very important in terms of stability!
- Now take and glue 4 together to make one wing. I didn’t do this with mine (I’m going to remake them because of it), but in the middle, sandwich a dowel along the curves and make them overlap. It makes it much sturdier and keeps the wings from gaining a weak spot (which mine has at an unfortunate place)
- Once the glue has set, start peeling off the paper/posterboard layer so the foam is exposed. You don’t have to get it ALL off, but the more you get off the better
- Now take your sharp object (exacto, box cutter, etc) and you’re going to cut the edges at an angle. Your goal is to make the wing less boxy and rounder (sorry for not taking photos!)
- After you’ve carved down the edges of the wings, you’re going to need your sandpaper. You’ll want to sand down the edges so that it is much smoother and cleaner. You might have a rough surface, that’s ok, because we’re going to cover it in the end. It should look like this once you’ve sanded it:
- Refine the shape more and finish both wings. Ta-da! You’re done with the main base, but you’ve still got quite a way to go; we can’t cover them and make them black until we’ve added the lighting.
I don’t have a harness made yet, so I made a makeshift one to keep it in my underbust but…they’ve got a bit of weight to them.
Notes:
- I’m actually considering remaking my wings because I screwed up and didn’t reinforce the foam with dowels, so I have one weak point that likes to droop at the very base where it’s supposed to go onto the harness, so I’ll keep you posted!
- This method should work though as long as you keep this in mind: when cutting out the pieces, make sure they are all the same length. I had pieces they were shorter than each other which caused a lack of support.
- It is very important to create your harness ahead of time, and I would suggest following a method like this.
Good luck and I’ll be back soon with the next step!