Free wings SVG files

How the wings are drawn

A bird’s wing has an arm along its front edge and two kinds of feather behind it: long flight feathers, and shorter coverts that lie over their roots like tiles. The feathered wings here follow that plan. Each feather laps over the next one out, with a fine gap between them, and each gap stops a few millimetres short at its root end so that every feather stays attached. That is what lets a whole pair cut as a single piece.

The feather tips are pointed, as on an eagle or a hawk, which is the main difference from the round-tipped angel wings elsewhere in the library. The tribal and art deco pairs leave the feather detail out and use bold blades instead.

Sizes and placing

The gaps between feathers are under 1 mm wide when a pair is 100 mm across, so the feathered pairs want to be cut at 150 mm or more in vinyl, and larger still in wood. For small decals use the simple, tribal or art deco wings, which have no fine gaps.

To put wings on something of your own, such as a ball, a guitar or a name, place it over the middle of a pair and weld. The single wing is drawn as a right-hand wing; mirror a copy for the left and set them as far apart as your centre piece needs.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions