Dressing like a fairy has never been easier. It’s possible to create glowing wings, and Instructables user Mikaela Holmes has documented the process with a tutorial. She was inspired by a fiber optic dress made by Natalina and made fiber optic fairy wings. She used about 12 feet of fiber optics, neopixels, galvanized wire, duct tape, and other supplies to create the wings. She sourced some of the materials from Adafruit and followed tutorials from the learning center and went to work. She based her design on dragonfly wings and laid out the frame with thick wire and eventually covered the frame with a pair of light-colored tights. Eventually, it was time to make the fiber optic bundles. She said:
To begin creating the fiber optic bundles for the veins of the wings, first take some approximate measurements on the wings to determine how long to make each set of fiber bundles (referring back to your sketch to see where each set of fibers needs to travel). On my wings, the bundles emerging from the top LEDs would be about 30″ long, the next ones down 52″ and the lowest 36″.
Using a large pair of wire cutters, I cut the fiber optic cable into one section of each of these three lengths: 30″, 52″ and 36″ (you will be dividing each of these sections into two bundles of fiber so you have one for each side).
To release the fibers from the case, first wrap a piece of tape around the exposed ends, then use your exacto knife to carefully slice open the plastic sleeve. Be careful not to cut to deep or you could damage the fibers.
Then grab your fiber bundle and pull it out of the sheath.
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