Faerie Fever

This week, Dawn and I bought our passes for FaerieCon East, to be held in Baltimore MD in early November. Fun thing about this is, though we've known each other for about as long as we've had kids, we never really hung out together much until she asked me if I'd like to go to FaerieCon in 2008. It was the first time the FaerieWorlds crew tried hosting a Con, and they had one of Dawn's favorite bands, Omnia, playing at their Bad Faerie Ball. So we decided to go.

It was quite the adventure - we spent months putting together clothes and wings and hairstyles and makeup techniques, making test runs for garb and makeup at Ren Faires and Dagorhir events, and then finally our first major road trip together to Philadelphia for the Con.

Turns out, Omnia never made it there. It was to be their first gig in the US, but they got paranoid at the last minute and chickened out. Which REALLY bummed us out. And to top it off, Brian Froud wasn't there because his retina detached a couple days before, and Alan Lee didn't come due to a death in the family. ALL the people we were excited to see weren't there.

Despite all that, we still had a total blast. First of all, it was Toby Froud and his goblin Ignatz who broke the no-Omnia news to us. That DEFINITELY helped to dull the sting a bit....mostly because they're both so damn cute. And we still got to meet all sorts of artists and craftspeople, and some of the event organizers, which then led to us making it to other FaerieWorlds and FaerieCon events.

So now, we're finally going back. Much has changed for us in the last five years.....and I definitely need a serious overhaul in the faerie department, as my last trip to the Ren Faire pointed out so painfully! I honestly need new everything - shoes have holes, corset doesn't fit anymore, tops and skirts no longer cover what needs covering, makeup essentials are missing....and my wings are absolutely MANGLED.

My last trip to the Faire *did* find me a new friend, though. His name is Cedric. He's a cicada. He is also dead....but don't sat that too loud around him, because he doesn't know it yet, and we don't want him to feel awkward. Cedric and his beautiful shiny wings was my constant companion at the Faire, and by the time I got home, I had pretty much decided that I needed a serious Cicada overhaul.

So that was my project this weekend, after buying FaerieCon passes, ball tickets, and making hotel reservations. I got to work on my cicada wings.


I started with this picture that Tom found for me. It was perfect! Using my light box, I traced the wing outlines, and the approximate relative distance between the right and left sides.


I knew I wasn't going to have the patience to do all the veining in the wings, especially since I was planning to construct the frame primarily out of 14g and 16g steel wire, held together with 24g wire wrapping. So I just made up a pretty vein pattern, keeping in mind that the pieces would need to be wire-wrapped together.
Once I got the design drawn out, I needed to enlarge it. I used my omnigrid ruler to figure out how big of a wingspan I wanted, then drew a grid over my drawing, 13 squares across so my final wing pattern would be 13" wide. Then I drew a 1" grid on pattern paper and transferred the design by following the grid.


I used an old sheet of plywood and some nails I had in the basement to build a bending jig, and some of my grandma's old pattern transfer paper to transfer the design to the plywood.
The tricky part was remembering that the wire always has to be bent around the outside of the curve. So if you're bending even a slightly sinuous curve, the nails you place will switch from being placed inside the line to outside the line at some point.


I did learn a few things in the process.
1. Only place nails for bending the main frame outlines on the main area for your jig. Trying to bend accessory pieces (and place the nails for bending them around) inside the main outline is a HUGE pain, and there's really no need.
2. Make a separate bending jig for each accessory piece on a different spot on your plywood.
3. Once your pieces are bent around the jig, you have to take them off, true up the wire by hand, and then finish the bending-to-shape by hand as well, using your drawn pattern as a template. The jig won't do the job - all it does is put the main corners and curves where you need them.
4. Use little strips of duct tape to hold joints in place while you do the wire wrap joins. And then epoxy glue the joints into place, because those stupid wire wrappings like to slide around!! I still have to do that part.


They turned out pretty well, I think! I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with them from this point, though. Leave them as just a wire frame? Prime and enamel them? Try covering them with cellophane or tissue paper and glue? I don't know! What do you think?

- Stell