Better look at how I'm holding the tail up. Another strap or two will be added to the crotch, but for now this holds it pretty darn well.
The best thing if you do this is when you sew the nylon webbing around to fit, make SURE you push it up as absolutely far as you can make it go. I thought I had mine pushed up, but that purple dot is just how much further it went up when put on which resulted in quite a bit of sewing to fix it (the beltloops had to be made shorter, shorter and shorter...)
I ordered some fabric samples from SpandexWorld, the brown is cotton lycra and the pink was for the mouthflaps and it's a milliskin type fabric.
The pink is in the coral color, the piece is so tiny it's nowhere near enough to use for the mouthflaps unfortunately. I could *maybe* get one out of it. Not sure what I plan to do about that, but it's a last decorative bit of the costume anyhow I suppose. It's perfect for what I need, just not enough of it.
The brown feels like it would work perfectly but the color in real life looks like a blackish green depending on the lighting. In this shot it showed up more brown though, but it just isn't the right shade. Spandexworld has a "dark nude" color that's much too light so I guess I might get a sample of that and the white, and maybe try dying it. I don't know what I'll do about fabric now. It's nice and thin and breathable, feels like it will take paint well but I just don't know about it.
It looks much different than it feels, though, oddly enough.
Feather test! I sewed it onto the old sample from Johann's though, by the way. It's just a random one I had around here. It seems like it'll hold well, if you tug straight on it then it'll pull right out though. It holds well when I shake it around, doesn't slide but I don't know about it. I'd rather sew than glue but this is the best way to go about sewing it and it still moves--it might hold better to just bucker down and buy up all the E6000.
I changed my mind about the Velcro and decided to input a zipper, and we did so over the weekend. Way prefer it and I don't recommend velcro for a suit unless it's to cover up the said zipper. It holds the costume better, is slightly roomier and is just generally preferred. Seriously.
You can also sort of see where I pulled the torso foam off. We've decided that the legs need to go before the torso and that's what I'm doing next, although it'll be very hard. :x
You are an awesome human being. I was planning on making a velociraptor costume and then stumbled across your website. I was going to make the tail in the same manner as your first tail, and your blog showed me how that would not work and already saved me much time and effort. How are you going to get the mouth to move?
ReplyDeleteHey there! So glad you found the site. :)
DeleteThe mouth is not something I currently have done too much planning on, but I recommend looking up quadsuit moving jaw tutorials. Tiger of the Wind on the fursuit livejournal is a particularly good one.
How are you making the legs?
DeleteFor the jaw, I think I'm going to stick a PVC pipe through the head, secure it, stick a rod in the pipe, and attach the jaw to the rod for easy motion.
My best friend lately is an electric turkey carving knife.
That's something you'll have to wait for me to post (which may be a while as I'm on the hunt for glue currently as well as spare $$) because I don't think I can really explain it well within the comments. Just look at what Monoyasha did with her raptor and I'm doing something similar--padding.
DeleteHow long is your tail?
ReplyDeleteIt's a wee bit shorter than six foot. ^^
DeleteI don't know if you've gotten to the jaw yet, but mine's entirely made of foam, and it's not moving smoothly since it's foam on foam. Do you have any suggestions for the jaw?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm far from the head and I'm not sure I can help you with it since mine will be made from fiberglass. I recommend posting at fursuit.livejournal.com with images, they're pretty great. :)
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