Costume Progress - Gracie Law Headdress

I have been busy making commercials, participating in G.I.S.H.W.H.E.S and generally being too busy for my brain capacity.  I have however made progress on the head dress that I think it worthy of note.

I drew out the side wings, started gluing on the feathers and generally continued in the trial and error or making.

I made the swan head out of air dry clay.  I had some issues with getting it to keep it''s shape once formed so I used some scrape pieces of paper to hold the curves I wanted it to take.

I then painted it gold with some basic acrylic craft paint.  I took a piece of craft wire and speared the clay and then pined it to the now firm felt and added hot glue to fill in the gaps.

We had to print some more feathers to help fill in the gaps and extend the gold feathers past the aqua marine wings.  

This is the shot from the back and the shot below is from the front.  I know the head form is backwards but because the head form's face tilts, I was having a hard time getting the front centered because of that slant so I just turned it around so I could keep things as centered as possible.  Now the only thing that's left is to glue on some pearl accents onto the feathers and make the dangles that hang from the furthest hanging feathers. 

 My only concern at this point is that the heat of the con may start melting some of  the hot glue and therefore compromise the stability of the feathers and wings.  I'm going to probably supliment some super glue.  The con is always the gauntlet.  I am pleased with the progress thus far and even if I don't complete the accents I have planned I'm pretty sure this is going to stand on its own .  Sure the beads may fall off and the feathers may fall off...I have these pictures and it's beautiful.

I have settled on a pattern that I am happy with for Silver Sable and if I have time I'll make a practice version before I get the final fabric.  I've been struggling mightily with Silver Sable.  I'm not a thin woman and since Silver Sable is one of my childhood loves, I didn't want to be lame....especially since my husband and brother's cosplay for the marvel noir day is pretty awesome.