Nic's Fursuit Page -- Some Tips

In the process of constructing my fursuit, thus far, I have discovered some trivial details of costume construction that are useful to know, but no one ever seems to mention them. So, hoping to cure this problem, I offer the following

SIMPLE THINGS THAT NO ONE EVER MENTIONED TO ME

Sew in the direction of the fur's nap.

On my costume, I sewed down the edges of the fur pieces that I applied over the foam. This was a very tedious process of hand-sewing an edge-to-edge stitch. It was much easier to disentagle the long fibers of the fur from the thread when I was working down the nap rather than against it.

Pause about 30 seconds before pressing hot glue near your skin.

The easiest method of attaching foam buildup to a unitard is to smear the back with hot glue and then press it against the unitard. This presses the glue into the material, forming a solid bond. Through (painful) experimentation, I determined that you can wait a little while between the application of the glue and the pressing against your body (which makes it seem even hotter, since you're trapping the heat near the skin). After 30 or so seconds, you'll have to experiment, the glue has begun to cool, but it has not yet solidified; at this time, the glue as cool as it will get while still forming a solid bond when pressed to the unitard.

Cut long fur with scissors and patience.

Fellow costumers have advised me that using a razor on the backing of synthetic fur allows you to cut it without slicing the fibers of the fur. This works very well on shorter furs. On longer furs, like the stuff I was dealing with, it was a bit harder; when you turned the fur over, the long fibers of the fur coat produced a spongy layer beneath the backing that made it impossible to apply an even pressure with a razor blade.
I've found that a good pair of scissors will work, if you cut the fur the right way. Hold the fur with the fibers upwards. Cut using the tips of the scissor blades, moving forward in tiny steps. Keep your eye on the top blade, pushing it through the fur at the base of the fibers (i.e. don't raise the top 'scis' above the backing). This cutting technique is rather slow (you get fast after a while), but it cuts very few of the fur fibers.

Snap tape is good stuff.

The local FabricLand has a spool of "snap tape" sitting near the zipper section. For those unfamiliar with the stuff, it's a long length of black material that's a half-inch wide, wound on a little cardboard spool. In the material, at a spacing of about an inch, are snaps (front and back halves, on different strips of backing). The stuff is relatively cheap; it works out to about 10 cents per snap.
I've found that these are good for holding stray edges of fur; on my costume, for example, I needed a way to secure the flap of fur the I open to get at the costume's zipper. You sew the snap backs to the underside of one piece of fur. Then, you cut the snap front's material as a "tab" (the snap is at one end of about an inch of the backing material). Sewing one end of that piece to the underside of the other piece of fur leaves you with a snap on a little tab of material; the first piece of fur snaps onto the tab and the two pieces are held roughly edge-to-edge.
These joins are good at holding the fur there if there's not too much sag; unlike Velcro, the snaps don't hold sections of the fur flat. The fur may still buckle between the snap connection points. (Of course, you could install more snaps...)

Well, those are the points of trivial wisdom that I wanted to pass on to the other beginners out there. Comments are welcome if other people have had other experience; remember that I am claiming that these tips apply to the types of materials that I happened to be working with.