K'Lan's Costume and Costume Construction

To Start . . .

To start with, before we get to a little bit on the construction techniques, I just thought I'd give a few places for those of you who have interests in this area. First we have FurSuit, which is a mailing list that deals with the construction of fursuits. It's a great place to get help, but you have to show you've already made or worn a costume to suscribe. Second, check out In the Fuzz. Just about everything you need for help to get to places and such dealing with costumes can be found there. Lastly, for a great place to look at a bunch of costumes that other furrys have designed, check out this ftp site.

Construction of the panther version of K'Lan

To start off with, I managed to get my hands on some good black faux fur, which is what inspired me to do a panther costume in the first place. I took a pre-existing pattern I had from Simplicity and had adapted to create a tiger fursuit. A pattern is good to have, but it generally supports a more general size and to my experiences can be hard sometimes to adapt to personal measurments. Well, I got all the pieces out of about 4 yards of faux fur, but that amount will vary depending on how big and tall you are. I'm sorry about the lack of pictures, but as soon as I can find a scanner, I'll get a few in here.

The hands were a fairly easy part to do, however, for this particular fursuit I wanted them to be a part of the arms instead of a kind of gloves that you could pull on or off, or sewing the hands onto the arm. First I did a tracing of my hand, allowing about an extra inch for each finger. That was enough space for myself I had determined after earlier attempts that produced finger slots I couldn't even squeeze my fingers through with any amount of pulling. Cutting the tracing out, I pinned it onto the front sleeve/arm pattern, and then after cutting out both arm and hand I had to do an estimate. The base of the hand was only about 1/2 - 2/3 the length of the base of the arm. So I made a diagonal cut into the arm fur and that made it come out well later and look better. The hands were one of the early parts of the entire fursuit that I took the liberty to sew together by hand. I thought about using the sewing machine, but there was too much turning involved and the stitches needed to be on the very edge (almost) of the fabric. It came out well, and after picking some of the fur out of the already almost invisible seams, they (the seams) basically disappeared all together. The feet were fairly fun to put together. At first I had thought about making them another part of the main fursuit, which I had done with the hands, but after thinking about it for awhile, I opted out for more bootlike components instead. I had to get a pattern, but as I couldn't find one I kind of devised one for myself, well, almost did. I went out looking for some leather soles or such, that I could sew the fur onto there, but nearly died when I saw what the price was (about $10, but I didn't have much at the time). Instead I opted out of that, and for $4.00 I managed to get a pair of slippers from Walmart. They were these awful chicken slippers, but they looked somewhat decent after I had removed the chicken head and tail from both, making them almost perfect to become the feet for a snow leopard. So, I took the slippers apart down to the soles and took a look at how they were put together. I almost followed the pattern, but instead put together a set of spats, using an altered pattern, and then sewed those onto the soles. It covered them up nicely, and I was left with two good panther feet. Now I just have the need to add claws or some such to them. I'm still debating about whether or not to add some attachment to bottom of the leg sleeves of the main fursuit to be able to attach them to the feet so no skin will show by accident some time, but I haven't decided how to do it. The head, this has got to be the hardest part to my knowledge, as it is the only piece remaining that I still have not finished. I put a head covering together with a regular pattern, though I never added any attaching parts to the bottom as would be the norm if I weren't going to create a face for it, and then added ears to the covering. Okay, I finally got down to work and designed myself a decent head, sorta. Originally I used aluminum to try and make a skull, and it worked, but I decided to go a different route later on using an entirely foam make. I've used a tougher, stiff foam of fair quality which holds up and well, and created a skeletal head off of that, then added more foam to create the features, etc. Now I'm just working on furring the piece and providing proper ventilation for the head. Looking good so far . . . The tail was the easiest part all said and done, almost. Again, I used here an adjusted pattern, making the tail a little long than what the pattern had down. That was the easy part, and then I sewed it together with the sewing machine. The fun part was getting the polyfill stuffing into it. The thing was already sewed, so I had to find a way to get the fill all the way to the end. After trying various methods, like ramming it in with a large pole and other things, I managed to force it down and in a way that I can't really describe other to say that I used my fingers and worked my way down outside the fur. The bodysuit was one of the harder things to put together. It was made out of eight separate pieces of cut faux fur, four for the arms and and four for the body. Again I took advantage of a pattern here, though unaltered for once except for the arms because of the hands. The fun part came when sewing together the legs/crotch area. Being me, I just absolutely had to make one major mistake during the completion of the costume, and this place was it. I didn't have any old instruction on this part and so had to make do with what I remembered. Unfortunately, I managed to sew all the wrong pieces together in the wrong places. Going back, I corrected the problem using a tiger fursuit as the guide and the crotch and leg area done right. Having done all that, I sewed the arm pieces on then turned the entire thing rightside out, it was a nice fit when I tried it on, but there was still the zipper left to install. At first I put it in the front and left it that way for a while until I decided that the back would be a better place for it. I took it out and replaced it in the back, making it appear to be invisible and still managed to get it so that the fur wouldn't get caught in the zipper, which as many fursuiters know can be a difficult problem if you're not careful.

Other Costuming Tidbits

Now, making a fursuit may not be for everyone, it does require a little work and a lot of things can go wrong if you aren't careful. Many people out there are just interested in smaller things like a set of ears or a tail, or maybe even a set of paws. I'm just going to sketch a quick guide here for anyone who might like to make themselves any of the above. It's just a guide, anyfur is welcome to do what they please or change this in anyway.

These can be from simple from complex to make, depending on what you're looking for. They can be made using just about any type of fabric, but for here we'll use faux fur, which you can usually find small rolls of at your local Walmart, Kmart, or store like that for a fairly cheap price, rather than going to a fabric store and blowing some money on a yard of faux fur. (The stuff can be expensive, $15.00 a yard or more) Use your imagination for a an ear design, or get a book and look at a picture of the ears of the animal you want to create. For something simple, buy a hairband(?) (Horseshoe shaped piece of plastic that fits over the head and holds long hair down and back) and attach your ears to it. Make sure to stuff the ears with a little something to fill them out, be it cotton, polyfill, or whatever. A little glue can do the attaching for you. If you want actual ear coverings, it's going to be a little harder, and I can't really help ya there, though if you're looking for that kind of thing you can mail me and I'll try to help you out. Tails are easy and require little work depending on what kind of tail you are attempting to create. A tail for something like a panther, as described above is easy to make. If you're looking at something for a lion, it isn't that much harder. You'll just need to get some yarn or such and create a tassel with it. Create a loop with one length of yarn, then thread other pieces of yarn through it in a circular fashion all around outside, then pull the loop tight. It works fairly well. For more complex tails, say something like a skunk, it would be helpful to get some wire. Get a long piece of wire and bend it into shape for the size and shape of your tail. You'll need to give it a little reinforcement if you want bounce. After you've put the fabric together, insert the wire piece and then stuff the tail. If you need help, just let me know, I'll do my best. Paws are only as hard as you make them. For the hands, there are two different styles, the mitten and glove types. I described earlier in the construction above how to make a glove type. Mittens are much simpler. Here you only need a thumb space and then one general big area for the rest of the fingers. Depending on how you want it to look, you can use one or more fabrics. One for the top, and then another lighter color for the palm section. Feet can be done via spats, or you can go and make an actual shoe. It's your choice, and the spat choice is the simpler.

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Last Updated 17-Jun-96 Lyonzi@AOL.com
Copyright © 1996