An American Furry in Germany

Or, the upper half of a fursuit, so my character can technically run around shirtless but would still be 'furry'. =)

I'm still making the handpaws shoulder-length- the furred shirt would be short sleeved- but I'm wondering a couple things. I'm assuming I need a DTD for the project (easy enough). It'll have his white 'front', which will be a little bit of padded foam for his chest. Good thing I'm only 5'3" (less fabric!).

How much fur would it require? (I'm thinking half a yard is more than enough for the white part) Would I need a hidden zipper or just be able to pull it over? Would the 'shirt' wrinkle in weird places if I wore it? Am I getting in waaay over my head with this one or should I stick to painting a purple T-shirt and/or foaming/furring the white front part? Has anyone made a furred 'shirt' before? What's your experience if you have? Where can I get some good white fur? (preferably 2+" for the throat poof, I could trim it down to 1" for the rest of the front)



Thanks again,
Zumzum

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/04/london-cops-declare.html

I don't believe this....

There's now a poster campaign against photographers which is red in colour, a lot of red faded out cameras with one camera that isn't faded but looks like a Canon point and shoot.

Then the poster says this....:

Thousands of people take photographs each day.
What if one of them seems odd?

Then a phone number to call to report said person to authorities.....

What the fuck, is this Britain of some sort of Facist Germany under Nazi control or Russian back in the 20's where you're dragged off to some place and shot? I've been getting into photographing a lot these days and this is a serious issue for me as there are some prats, idiots in the security services in this country that seem to have no clue whatsoever on matters on this. It's like this whole new terrorism thing is beyond their abilities to understand and as such they're using terror scare tactics for the public to go and report on innocent photographers if they see them about in case they may be a terrorist etc.

So far I have seen the following from this Labour government....

1. Too Politically Correct.
2. Not enough rights for victims of crime. (Though if you're a crinimal you get all sorts)
3. Too much money going for people who have 4-16 kids.
etc. etc. etc.

You know, if there's another march in London to protest about this with photographers. I may actually go and join them as this is completely unacceptable now. Taking a photograph in public is fine, be it a park, city, whatever.

But having posters about the place warning public about photographers who could be terrorists and to call the 0800 Anti-Terrorist line is just really now taking the fucking piss.

*holds his camera high on principal....*

I read the (3) Memories on Tool Dip, but they didn't quite answer my question.

When using Tool Dip and plain ol' bought-it-at-the-fabric-store yellow upholstery foam, can you dunk the foam directly into the Tool Dip, or do you need to coat/seal the foam with something first? I know some chemicals and paints will eat through foam.

From what I've read so far, I'm pretty sure you can just dunk foam into the Tool Dip without any other preparation, but I'd just like confirmation before I ruin the carefully carved foam I just worked so hard on! o_0


Thanks!

I'm going to make a partial out of the crow head I made (icon), and I can't decide on what kind of wings to make. I know I want to have feathers that are stiff enough to keep their shape, different piles of furs, and feathers coming off my fingers so I can move them around and possibly grab stuff. I can't decide on what form I want them to be in, so I drew up my three ideas and was hoping for imput.

**EDIT**
Thanks everybody! Since alot of people liked 2 and 3, and I STILL can't pick between the two, I'm just going to make wings that are somewhere in between them in length. 1 looked alot cooler in my head, but thanks for telling me it sucked :D

Hey everyone! I haven't posted here in a looooong time because I haven't really been interested in costuming for a while. I am thinking of making a "doggy" suit. If I did, I'd want to make those "fat" looking fingers...you know, where the tips are wider, like a real animal's? I've seen tons of them like that but can't seem to find a guide. I'm assuming you either shape foam around your fingers and fur it, or just make the tips extra big and shove fiberfill in them. Any help and/or tips would be greatly appreciated. :)

EDIT: Found an example. This is from beetlecat's site.
http://www.beetlecatoriginals.com/jalbum/hooves%20and%20paws/slides/redpaw1.html
I might be looking for more of a "squared-off" look to the fingers but this is a pretty close example and I'm sure construction would be about the same.

well, its been a LONG time since i posted anything about my Mannoroth taur suit. i have been foaming like crazy, and slowly building up this giant suit. pictures courtesy of my dad for just now taking them, im still sweaty from the heat.

http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e255/Shaggy_Griffon/Mannoroth%20progress%20pics/

the tusks are hollow and made of fiberglass, the colors dont matter, its just the brands. i will paint those later, and they are not attatched to the head yet. the jaw is moveable with wide openings. great vision, i was surprized how well that turned out. the hands are made from someone's technique on foaming over fleece gloves from walmart, worked perfectly.

the body is made of 1" white foam, and its hollow inside but stuffed tight with packaging penunts and bubble wrap. the green back legs (which are hard to see ill get better pics of them later) are the 5" closed cell foam from joanns, very expensive. 1 leg cost about $28 dollars w/ a discount coupon. the torso part is just foam on a X-large sweatshirt from AcMoore. that strip of foam infront is the base line of the beer belly that this pit lord has. i will get to it later this week.

whelp, back to foaming, ill update again sometime!

catcha ya on the flipside,
Shaggy Griffon 2008

PS: how can i fleece this? like duct tape pattern it ALL or is there a trick? i forget your name im sorry but the person who made the dark ixi taur suit, if you could comment on how you furred it, that'd be great. b/c i have no idea.

i held a contest where one could submit art in the hopes of winning a head from me with a starting price of $100 rather than $300. the rule was it had to use the brown furs i had a surplus of of. the kirin took first place. the horn was $10 extra and the commissioner has also opted for the really realistic hand-made eyes like my goat has for $20. this is made with a baseball cap, a newly bought trashcan and plastic mesh. the horn is all foam and is very light weight. it is now ready for fur. (BTW that is a foam head mouted on a flowerpot via hot glue and ducttape...cheep but works)


  

this is made very similar to my goat head so i decided to post a pic of its start-to-finish picture for comparision to show how the mesh view ports and such looks/work

I'm making a golden monkey partial for halloween and beyond.  Her fur will match my hair for convenience, as her head will be mine, but with a latex make up job, get it?  I need arms, legs and a long, poseable tail, and Ive found the ideal fur here: http://www.bearycheap.biz/ezimerchant/prod227.htm    ; Can anyone help me with perhaps a commision or a little how-to magic?  She's my first costume Ive made myself, so I'm rather lost!  Help!  FYI, Golden Compass, LoL.

 so i have pets, many pets. i myself am very allergic to guinea pigs and rabbits and we still have those but they stay out side (they come inside and i huff and puff, i touch one i break out in hives). 

i like to have my cats keep me company out in my workroom but it was brought to my attention that customers could be allergic. so with concern that a customer may be allergic should i ban my cats and dogs from being in my workroom altogether? or should it be fine as long as they do not sit on the fur? would simply going over the costume with a shop-vac before mailing it be enough to remove any dander that may be ligering on the fabirc from having cats in the room?

I thought I'd try out a "style" of paws which I could be known for. I guess sort of like how you'd look at something matrices or beetlecat made and know straight off the bat that it was them.

( here's what I did )

So, what do you think? I'm quite proud of it, as it's certainly unique. I'm still willing to commission the normal fursuit paws, but I'm loving these. (I might consider making the thumb longer on commissioned paws, as it looks a little strange with the short thumb)

Finally, I reveal my special in the works suit. He's a six-limbed otter-like alien. Of course, its the extra limbs where I need help. Can someone please help me with the mechanic design? (I want the extra arms to move without visible string).

Here's a pic of the character:




( More Pictures and Arm Design Under Cut )

Any help or even new designs would be greatly appreciated. ^^;


Edit: The whole point of making an armature over string is that I want the second set of arms to be "huggable", or rather to have enough force behind them that if you get hugged, you can feel them pressing against you rather then just touching awkawrdly. That and I really dont like stringing 'em up. It's too obvious for my liking ^^; and frankly it works on the same basis of my armature idea (thoe im going to have to make a mock up first). I'd love to make them move following opposite arms but that just seems too complex for now ^^;

Oh hai!
So not too long ago, joecifur did a pair of "hoof boots" and I was instantly intrigued. No idea why. It's not like I have a horse character that I plan on making a suit of or anything, but I REALLY wanted to try and make a pair. So the other day I was at the local resale shop and found a perfect pair of shoes for $5...sooo, yeah.



( Questions and more under cut! )

Hey all!

Just a little bit of pre-planning here after raiding the Memories for different ideas on hand paws. I'm wondering:

*Whether or not to sew my fur directly to my spare pair of soft cotton gloves or open them up to make a pattern from them to cut the fur out

*If I do that, would it be wise to sew 'em back up again, and use them directly to sew the fur pieces to, or keep the pieces of the opened glove for future paws? (I had problems with the sandwich method on my practice paws- and some of the digits were too tight for my fingers, etc. I'm thinking keeping the pieces would be a wise idea, but I'm nervous about the fur pattern being too tight- after all, there's margins to add and sew on, and the seams can get a little bulky when inverted). I made an armature of my left arm, but the fingers are a little small. (And also, I noticed I'm much more comfortable with the concept of sewing fur pieces right onto the cotton glove, except I'm worried about whether or not that would actually -work-!)

Below is the pattern I'm planning. Any advice would be appreciated, since I don't have any spare fabric once I make the initial cutouts for the paws (eek!).

( picture under cut! )

I've gone and picked out this week's top photos, 10 in all to see if you agree or not as in vote. :)

Photograph 1
Photograph 2
Photograph 3
Photograph 4
Photograph 5
Photograph 6
Photograph 7
Photograph 8
Photograph 9
Photograph 10

Poll #1187009 13th May Top ten photograph
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which is your best photograph?

Why did you like the photograph you chose?

I am planning on bringing the oartial suit I'm working on to our Town's Memorial day parade. She's a friendly looking-toony coyote with white, purple and black markings.  There is going to be ALOT of little kids there since the library is encouraging a "dress-like-your-favorite-book-character" theme for the younger kids and teens.  I've already asked the library about wearing the coyote costume and they were reallly interested and glad I would wear it. So, that part is ok. 

 BUT,  since the partial has following eyes.....do you think it would scare the smaller kids?  A great deal of kids are scared just by a fursuit as it is. A fursuit that seems to be watching them constantly would probaly scare those kids even more. :/ 

 Do you think following eyes would scare the litter kids? Has anyone had any problems with this before?

Hello!,

Exdra here ;), just wanted to stop by and say that if you guys are interested in my fursuits,updates,news and more you are welcome to join & watch myfurcreations ,thank you for your time.

ps: If this doesnt belong here let me know and I shall remove it ;)

First, massive thanks to Beetlecat for giving me the proverbial reality-check when I needed it, and also to LouveG for sticking with my persisting questions throughout the process. Huge kudos too, to Fatkraken, meuniere and splitcat and everyone else who put up with my bombardment of questions and took the time to comment to me with their input. :)

What I wound up going with was a combination of duct tape and pipe insulation foam- I tried three different kinds of glue separately, but the foam was such a high-density it practically rolled off when I'd had to make notches to get the foam tube to not look tube-ish (and had to take the fur apart four times total after I took the polyfil and wire out. Wound up sewing about 5 times or so), and tried the armature on before furring. It wound up working wonderfully- I've got an awesome swishy tail at the lightest stimulus now, left to right and even a bit of up and down if I'm lucky. =)

Pictures and video clip ( beneath the cut! )

Next up: Handpaws! I've been practicing on some spare fabric with the 'sandwich method', but I made arm armatures and I'm considering making the pattern a bit differently to ensure a good fit (with properly symmetrical 'fingers' individually sewn on, and front of the palms sewn on also, then claws and pads).

Thanks again, everyone. :)

I've put 200-250 more photos on my photo gallery since this weekend and today. Should give someone something to do for like 30 minutes or so.

Still class myself as a newbie in photographing though.

A while back, a friend of mine showed me a really cool cheetah puppet from The Lion King on Broadway. I can't find the exact same picture, but this is the same concept:


(those giraffes are bitchin' too)

Basically, the person's legs are the cheetah's hind legs, and the rest of the animal is a puppet, forelimbs operated by poles in the person's hands.

Despite the, erm, awkward beastiality inuendo, it's a really cool idea, especially since there's a lot of folks who want to make quad-suits but are concerned with having to make uncomfortable arm stilts.

I'd love to see a suiter make something like this. If it's already been done, pictures please!

~Link

By the way guys, I need confirmed numbers for the movie night by this Sunday.

It's $15 for under 18s, $20 for over 18s, and includes pre-movie drinks and nibbles.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Saturday May 31st at the Astor theatre in Mt Lawley.

Please respond to this post if you're coming.