Hey Jo

Go into component mode and then the verts in the wings, with them selected goto windows->General editors->component editor, in the smooth weights tab set them all to 0, this removes any weights on them.

When your painting weights remember to only ever add, never take away weights when painting as you never know what joint/vert their influence is going to go onto.

Also if your in a hurry and you have 2008 and above, pose the character, select the verts that poke out/in and then goto skin->edit smooth skin->Smooth skin weights, you might have to do it a couple of times, this is a nice way to get a nice skinning going especially on the torso, it wont do it all off the bat but its a start that may save you some time.

To go back to your bind pose just select go to bind pose from the skin menu.

Hope it helps