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By now your feathers should be dry. If there are any that still appear matted, just run your hands over them a couple times, it'll probably spring back. Sort them by size so you'll have a better plan of attack when glueing them on. |
| Try to keep track of feather that lean to the left or right, these look best on the bottom or along the ridge of wings because they make the rest of the feathers look like they're growing in a certain direction. |
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Starting on the inside of the wings, hot glue the longer feathers to the bottom first. Keep a close watch on these first feathers you're glueing as they'll be the ones that will set the final size of your wings. Try and push down on the fabric as you glue, this will evenually give the wings a natural curved look. |
| Continue to glue and press on the feathers. Tile the feathers for the best coverage, working from you larger feathers to your smaller ones. Remember to save some big feathers for the other wing. |
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Once you reach the ridge of the wings, you'll probably have too many long feathers. To fix this, just take a pair of scissors and trim some of the feathers to the appropriate length. Once you're done, cover the other side of the wings with feathers using the same technique. Try not to press down too much when adding feathers on this side or you might wreck the curve you've created with the wings. |
| Take the unused ends of the trimmed feathers and carefully split them with the scissors. Use these to fill in any blank spots you might have in the next couple of steps. |
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Trim the rest of the feathers to about 1" to 2". Begin at the wing tip and begin tiling towards the base of the wings. Whenever you have a bald spot, stick in a bit of down. |
| Using different shades of grey gives the wing depth and character. India ink works makes great spots for rotting wings. |
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