Amsel the Blackbird

From Egg to Bird

Amsel as a character evolved rather than being designed from the beginning.  I had thought about doing a bird costume and my favourite bird is a blackbird so that was an easy choice.  I bought a bird mask from Primal Visions and had it painted up to look like a blackbird.  That was basically all I had at first.  From there I tried to think what my blackbird would be and I thought it would be amusing to have a bird that flew an aeroplane.  Immediately I thought of the fighter aces from World War One and figured he should be German since all the most famous aces from that war were.  From then on it was pretty simple.  I based his look on a photograph of Manfred von Richthofen (otherwise known at the Red Baron) and called him Amsel as the German translation of blackbird is die Amsel.

Construction of an Aviator

It didn’t take long to come up with an idea of what I wanted the costume to look like.  I had the latex mask as mentioned above so I knew I needed a bodysuit to go with it.  I chose a black stretch velour as it had a soft feathery sheen to it like a blackbirds and I’d worked with lycra fabrics before.  I didn’t have a pattern for it so it was all trial and error but I got there, making a catsuit with an attached open face hood to go with the mask.

I bought a pair of goggles from Affleck’s Palace in Manchester to add to the flyboy effect and also to cover the join between the mask and hood.  I got a replica Blue Max medal and a real WWI Iron Cross from eBay and again made up the pattern for a Prussian uniform.

The most difficult part were the wings.  I wanted to do something realistic and so I hunted the web for costume wings and found a couple of pages detailing how wings were made for a stage production (which seem to have vanished from the web but Frysco, who used the same designs, has saved them here!).  I used that as the basis for his wings which are made out of what seemed like acres of black felt.  It took many hours of sewing feathers but that was the final part of the costume.

Amsel in Action

Performing as Amsel is a little awkwards at times as I’m not used to having large wings instead of arms and hands.  My hands are usually grasped around the forelimb of the wing to control its movement and extension but there are slits hidden which can expose my hands making them useable which is pretty vital.  Visibility is excellent as I have a use-your-own-eyes mask.  Amsel moves with lots of very fast twitchy motions as you’d expect with a bird.  He’s pretty formal though, generally greeting people with a small friendly bow.  He does like to stretch his wings from time to time, showing off the impressively large wingspan.

I can perform as Amsel for quite some time although the uniform is quite warm as it’s made from dense wool over the velour suit.  The latex mask means I do tend to sweat quite a lot from my face but I don’t really notice it.  The only thing that’s limited the length of performances has been the fragility of the suit which brings me on to:

Evolution

For the last public outing for Amsel I added eye make up to the costume.  My eyes are painted yellow and then lined thickly in black with flecks indicating feathering from there.  It’s really finished off the costume and I think it’s a big improvement.   I’ve also lined the wings and trousers as I had a problem with the undersuit dragging them down my arms and legs.

There are still issues.  The steel wires that stiffen the feathers tend to end up poking out which is a danger to the people around me and warp the wings ending my performance.  My trousers still fall down!  I think braces are in order for the next performance.