Allison Jones

For Angels in America Pt. 1: Millennium Approaches, I was responsible for the construction of the flying angel during the final scene. I cut and constructed the under-dress, and assisted in the over-dress chain mail knitting. The moving skeleton of the angel wings was constructed by a Purdue Engineer student. This contraption was attached to a metal-framed backpack. The wings used a pulley system to open to an approx. 12 ft. wingspan. 

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The wings had an overlay of 8 Fosshape sections, cut into large feathers. I coated the sections with spray paint, using metallic silver, and then added black and white for shadows and highlights. I then hand-painted more intricate detail work in acrylic. We had 90 individual Worbla thermoplastic feathers laser cut into the proper shape. I sprayed these feathers with a darker metallic silver spray paint, then added black splashes to create texture. Hot glue was used for a raised center before each feather was hand-painted. These were each dry brushed with black and white acrylic to create more depth. They were then individually hand-sewn on to the Fosshape wings.

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The Angel's wig was a curly synthetic wig, that I used banana clips to pull into a Mohawk shape. I removed portions of a different black straight wig, and braided these new wiglet sections. I then hand-sewed each braid on the wig. The wig was then adorned with silver spikes, fashioned from painted zip-ties.