The wings on a Winged Humanoid come in many shapes and sizes to give the audience an idea of what kind of character they are. But just as importantly as what kind of wings they have, or how many they have, is where the wings are on the character's body.
If your character is female and you wanna emphasize her femininity, or he's a guy and you wanna show that he's In Touch with His Feminine Side, why not have the wings extend from the waist instead of the shoulders? Such wing placement would help to draw attention to the hips. When the wings fold around the character's body, they resemble a Showgirl Skirt. While it's not the most practical wing placement realistically, such a design can give a character an air of elegance and/or sensuality.
Real-life vertebrates' wings (birds, bats, and pterosaurs) are evolved from arms, and thus are attached to their shoulders. If your character is a Vertebrate with Extra Limbs, this reason is no longer applicable and the wings could be anywhere. Biomechanically, they'd probably have to evolve a second set of shoulder-like bones wherever the wings are, for the muscles to attach to, but this is usually handwaved.
See also Mercury's Wings for when a character's wings extend from their head or their feet.
Examples
- In the Lyrical Nanoha series, Reinforce Eins, the master control program of the Book of Darkness, is depicted with multiple pairs of wings in official artwork. She has two smaller ones on each side of her head and four larger ones located around her waist.
- Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: Wings at the waistline are a common trait of the majority of demons in the series. The types of wings can vary, as Lorem's wings are feathery while her son Gospel has scaly, dragon-like wings. The wings are also functional, enabling flight for the demons that have them.
- Jibril, a flügel from No Game No Life, has glowing white, feathered wings, befitting of her angelic appearance, extending from her hips.
- Albedo from Overlord (2012) has black, feathered wings extending from her lower back, complete with panels cut in her dress to accommodate for them.
- When Usagi Tsukino, a.k.a. Sailor Moon, goes into her "eternal" form, her sailor suit gains four angelic wings extending from her lower back where her skirt bow normally is.
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger/Power Rangers Mystic Force: Vancuria/Necrolai has a set of wings connected to her hips, which fold up into a faux-skirt when not in use.
- Some depictions/descriptions of the kinnari
, mythical half-human, half-bird creatures of Buddhist lore and spread in Southeast Asia, have the upper part be that of a human woman and the lower part like that of a bird, that is, wings below the waist, and bird legs.
- When Bayonetta does her Demon Masquerade with Mictlantecuhtli in Bayonetta 3, the gun-slinging witch becomes a succubus-like creature split at the waist with one pair of bat-like wings extending from her head and a second pair following this trope.
- Morrigan and Lilith of Darkstalkers fame are examples of Playing With this trope. While their wings technically extend somewhere from their lower shoulder blade when they're drawn from the back, they're shown with their wings framed at their waist so often that it can't be a coincidence, especially considering their Ms. Fanservice status. That is, they're deliberately drawn in a manner to hide the first digit to evoke this trope: drawing attention to their figures.
- Disgaea 5: The Sage class of demons has a pair of wings that extend from below their waists, coming to rest around their hips. This can be more easily seen when using their "Land Decimator" skill, as their wings extend outward during the skill.
- Brynn from Dislyte, whose Esper powers borrow from the Valkyrie. To her chagrin, those wings can be pretty annoying to her because they get in the way when she tries to sleep on her bed.
- Of the many pairs of wings the Garuda sports (including a pair on her head) in both the 14th and 16th installments of Final Fantasy, at least one pair on each incarnation is an example of this trope.
- In Final Fantasy VII, Safer Sephiroth is a rare male example of this trope, having a grand total of seven wings coming off of his body. One of them has replaced Sephiroth's right arm, but six of them take this trope to a logical extreme, forming an apparatus of some kind replacing Sephiroth's lower body from the hips down.
- Dissidia Final Fantasy NT: Safer Sephiroth appears as an alternative costume for Sephiroth, but he retains his legs unlike his original design with a pair of wings forming a hakama.
- Along with his signature one wing, Sephiroth even sports a second pair of feathered wings from under his jacket during his appearance in Kingdom Hearts II.
- Grimms Notes: A few characters have these, but no one is capable of flight.
- Chaos Marie sports a pair of small wings on her lower back that go well with her fancy Pimped-Out Dress.
- Hahn too, which is justified because he is half-human, half-rooster.
- One of the skins for Symmetra given out during Overwatch's Halloween events, the Dragon skin, turns her into a dragon woman with wings that this trope applies to folded around her hips, resembling a Showgirl Skirt.
- Persona 5: Main protagonist Joker's signature Persona, Arsène, has massive black feathery wings that sprout from the small of his back.
- Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Most winged creatures have wings sprouting from their shoulders, Succubi and Incubi grow a second smaller pair on their heads at maturity, and a rare few 'cubi grow a third pair of wings on their hips. These "tri-wings" are quasi-immortal and usually found new clans.
- The Dragon Prince: Fewer than 1 in 10 Skywing Elves are born with wings, which extend from their lower back. Downplayed, since, due to both male and female elves having the potential to have wings, this doesn't appear connected to sensuality.
