Morrigan Aensland (Darkstalkers) – MAKING OF

A rare sight of myself without any visible paint stains (good thing you cannot see the state of my hands)

I was only in charge of making the wings (both sets, head and waist). They were meant to be budget-friendly, so there wasn’t anything fancy involved in the construction process.

Building the head wings was pretty straightforward. After drawing a pattern based on the HMO statue -the reference I was asked to use- with GIMP and printing it to the desired scale, I made the wings out of high density EVA foam with a steel wire armature to keep them lightweight.

The difference heat-shaping makes (left is flat, right is shaped).

I then added the tiny spikes at the top and created extra volumes with foam clay.

A headband is worn under the wing, with two metal brackets attached to it, and you just have to slide the wings in. It can also be worn on top of your own hair but if it doesn’t have enough volume the heabdand might be visible.

I primed them with Flexbond, using it to create some texture on the part sthat would be painted black, and airbrushed the purple areas.

I then painted the rest with thick acrylics, by hand.

This old wig is terrible, but at least it wasn’t part of the project.

The larger wings started with an aluminium pipe armature and polyethylene foam. I cut each piece several times to create thickness and then carved everything with a sharp cutter blade and a rotary tool.

I kind of like the skeletal wing look.

They are supposed to be purple at the front and black at the back, so I sewed two layers of fabric together. Don’t ask me for the name of said fabrics, I have no idea.

From this point, the process is the same as the smaller wings. Extra volumes with foam clay, Flexbond on the foam parts, airbrushed purple, and thick acrylics on the black areas.

Front
Back

Sadly, I do not have any pictures of the harness. Basically, the aluminium pipes you see on the picture above slide into slightly larger pipes through two holes in your clothes. It also allows the wings to rotate in their sockets. Two extra pieces of foam -holding thanks to magnets- go on top.

You can find a video of the wings in action below.

Morrigan Aensland
Darstalkers

I love wings. My first armour build had articulated wings. The second as well. I have built seven sets of wings between 2016 and 2020, with various shapes, dimensions, and articulation, despite not specialising in them at all. The Darkstalkers wings are one of the props I’ve recreated more than once: three sets have been built in total (two for Morrigan, one for Lilith). You can see some pictures in the gallery below.

The headband holding the “head” wings is meant to be worn under a wig, making the attachments invisible. Same for the larger wings, the harness was conceived to make them look like they are directly attached to your back. They can also rotate in their sockets (see the demo videos below). Both head and waist wings can be separated from their respective harnesses to make storage and shipping easier.

Two sets are now in Australia, whilst the third one went to Central America.

Demo videos

Making-of videos

PDF ressources