So I’ve Been Attempting To Draw Four Feathered Wings On A Character. (Like Two And Two On Each Side,

So I’ve been attempting to draw four feathered wings on a character. (Like two and two on each side, cherubim angel type style) but I’m having a hard time getting proportions right... would you mind helping me? You’re the only other feathered wing artist I know. I’m trying to gain inspiration from Cloudjumper from HTTYD. And I have an idea, I just don’t know how to translate it with the feathers.

Proportion is tricky because its all entirely subjective and has a lot of influence on style and your own personal preference for anatomy. 

You know your characters and what they can and cant do, so use that too. If they have wings, are they functional? Are they just for display? Is magic or some other thing helping them fly? Is there something very niche that only they can do, and if so what is it? Just make little notes to go “ah yes, they need them tiny and fast” or “big for soaring.”. Leave the feathers until last after you’ve found a shape and style you like.

Personally, because I like overcomplicating shit for myself and over thinking, I would break down what lies beneath and how that could work first by looking at IRL creatures with 2 sets of wings (Dragonflies, Moths, Butterflies, Beetles, Lacewings etc, Get lots of different variations, that will help break things down.) to see how they fly and why they fly that way; 

I used a dragonfly as a inspiration here because there’s a lot of slow-mo footage of how their wings move which is useful as well as tonnes of photos that can be used for reference. From that I can go “they can move independently from each other, and at different speeds, so are pretty maneuverable without them needing to be huge, and can do x, x, and x.” Which helps with finding what path to take for proportion and style.

Then I would make some silhouettes like this:

To figure out which pair is the dominant set, then just mess around with different shapes and lengths to make a spectrum. Do both stupidly big, and stupidly tiny for both sets. You’ll know what is proportionate once you know what your spectrum is.

You could even be a little silly, and go for stranger creatures to get inspiration off and go on a random tangent away from your first point of inspiration, and end up with false multi-wings that open like this with lots of large feather-fronds held together by strange costa like structures:

Overall, just play and be silly with silhouettes and put a star by the ones you like. There’s no right or wrong, just lots and lots of doodling different shapes and sizes then adding the feathers later. Then just mess around again until you think you have enough feathers on that wing.