11 Foot Demon Wings

meltyface · Jul 16, 2017

So last night I was told by my wife (who I thought loved Halloween as much as me

, but still pretty close) that I went a little overboard this year building some wings. The nerve on this woman lol, J/K.

The wingspan WILL be ~ 11' and mounted to my demon I have posted HERE, but I have run into some issues hopefully I can get help with:

I am still working on the frames, but I'm unsure of what to use for the webbing between the limbs and how to secure it to the frame. I did get some "clear" (it's almost white from the thickness) 3.5 mil plastic to use, but I'm not sure if that will last for a few years. Currently my plan is to use paper mache clay to build the details of the wings, drill a few holes in the back, and then use gorilla glue to affix the plastic. Anyone know if this will work, or if using Great Stuff instead of the glue would. I'm afraid the wind will just rip the plastic off.

I am also worried that once I mount these massive things on the current frame it will tip, and the wind will damage the wings. I can't think of a way to prevent this.

Pictures of the current frame of one wing (still a LOT more work to be done, currently 5 feet long) and final idea for the wings.

Zombie4* · Jul 16, 2017

Love this!!!! Maybe try the clear plastic sheeting (comes in rolls) drape it over the wings and hit it with a heat gun? Just a thought. That way you wouldn't need any type of bonding agent...the plastic will adhere when heated

please continue to post pics as you build

annamarykahn · Jul 16, 2017

would double sided tape work? probably not, but it might be something to experiment with.

how about that stretch plastic that they use to wrap around stuff to keep it together? & hit that with a heat gun? maybe with double sided tape as well?

what ever you do, please let everyone here know what works

amk

meltyface · Jul 17, 2017

That's a pretty good idea, but I don't think the PVC pipe really melts too much

Annamarykahn

Double sided tape doesn't work as a permanent solution, I've tried that on projects before. I'll definitely keep either this or the post linked above updated.

OctoberDream · Jul 17, 2017

Lawn Fabric?

Bruzilla · Jul 17, 2017

We went through all this with our Jeepers Creepers wings. The best material we found for the skin was tan nylon shower curtains from Walmart. The material is lightweight, waterproof, and very tear resistant. You can also paint it with any sort of paint, draw veins and arteries with blue and red Sharpie pens, etc.

Also, forget PVC pipe. It is too heavy. We tried 1/2" PVC and even that proved too heavy to keep things working. What has worked the best is 1/2 Bamboo struts that Home Depot sells. You can soak them in water and bend them if you need curves. These are very light, durable, and you can staple the skin fabric to the back of them.

The best way to beat the wind is to make friends with it.

We devised a frame on the back of our Creeper that is basically four half-circle antenna post clamps on its back. Then the body-end of the wings has 12" long 1" PVC poles that slide down into those clamps, so the wings can move forwards and backwards with the wind. Not only keeps the figure standing up but provides a cool effect. We just run a bungee cord from wing to wing, over the Creeper's chest and under his shirt, to act as a spring and return the wings back forward when the wind pushes them back.

Restless Acres · Jul 17, 2017

[

The best way to beat the wind is to make friends with it.

We devised a frame on the back of our Creeper that is basically four half-circle antenna post clamps on its back. Then the body-end of the wings has 12" long 1" PVC poles that slide down into those clamps, so the wings can move forwards and backwards with the wind. Not only keeps the figure standing up but provides a cool effect. We just run a bungee cord from wing to wing, over the Creeper's chest and under his shirt, to act as a spring and return the wings back forward when the wind pushes them back.[/QUOTE]

Could you post a detailed picture of your apparatus? Sounds like what I am looking for. I am gonna add wings to the Home Depot T-Rex skeleton. Was gonna do PVC (the white works with a skeleton) but would consider bamboo (easy enough to paint. As someone suggested, black landscape fabric would do nicely for wings. The black would be a nice contrast to the white bones.

Thx,

Mike

Bruzilla · Jul 17, 2017

I have a tutorial in tutorial section, but with Photobucket's policy change you can't see the images anymore. Here's the frames that deal with the wing mounting.

meltyface · Jul 17, 2017

Bruzilla. Thanks for all the input, actually looking at your Jeeper's wings is what sparked me to these this year. So how did you attach the bamboo together to form the parts that come off of the main wing frame? And I really love the idea of using the bungee cord!

Bruzilla · Jul 17, 2017

I made a "hand" shape out of 2 x 4, then attached four 1/2" PVC caps to it. Put some Quick Steel into each cap, and inserted the Bamboo. Once the Quick Steel set, and we had the angles we wanted for the struts, I covered the hand, caps, and strut ends with Great Stuff, then carved the foam to the final shape.

meltyface · Jul 17, 2017

So when you used the PVC, what issues did you run into that made it too heavy that it wouldn't work?

Bruzilla · Jul 19, 2017

We used 1/2 inch PVC, four pieces that were 5-feet long and four that were 4-feet long. The first issue was when you attach the fabric to the wings, the weight of the lower three struts pulls on the top one, the weight of the lower two pulls on the second one down, and the weight of the lowest one pulls on the third one down, so there's sort of a chain reaction event going on where the combined weights is greater than the weight of the pieces if they were not attached. This caused the struts to start to sag over a period of a couple of days.

Just to give you an idea of the impact weight has, the Creeper you see in my avatar has the wings made from PVC pipe. They started out a little higher, but the weight brought them down to where they are in the picture. This is a picture of our Creeper with the bamboo wings. As you can see, we can make them much higher and they'll stay in that position all month.

The second issue was our figure was up on our roof, and just getting the wings up and attached was difficult given their weight.

The third issue was attaching the fabric to the PVC. We used a lot of PVC cement to do this, but even that wasn't entirely successful on a long-term basis. After about a week the wind had pulled some of the fabric away from the struts and we had to keep doing emergency surgery.

Lastly, PVC pipe is... pipe. It's just a smooth, continuous, pipe. It looks good from a distance, but when you get closer it's easy to see that it's pipe. The bamboo has a more irregular surface and joints that make it look more like bone even close up.

internet troll · Jul 19, 2017

I built wings for two props. A vampire and a hellspawn. I used plastic tarp for the wings and liked the look. It naturally gives it a nice veiny look after heating it with a heat gun. You can see pictures in this thread here. As for wind, maybe some cool looking tears in the wings would help give the wind someplace to go. The Hellspawn is also in that thread.

http://www.halloweenforum.com/hallo...oween-props/148097-finally-got-off-my-lazy-butt-started-making-new-props-7.html

Bruzilla · Jul 19, 2017

With the double-pole attachment we used, the wings can sweep forward about 45 degrees, and can sweep all the way back and come together at the rear, which makes for a cool flapping movement when the wind blows. The only issue we had was getting the wings to move together, and that was done by attaching bungee cords to act as a return spring from wing to wing and travelling under his shirt and coat.

Bosco P. Soultrane · Jul 20, 2017

if you wanted to use a fabric that won't blow it away, you could look into this from the dollar store. It is a sturdy rubbery fabric but wind will pass thru it but it still can be shaped and draped.

11 Foot Demon Wings

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