Furring Tutorial

Hey, everyone! It's been awhile since I last made a blog post. The reason I'm making one is because I was asked by deviantART user SummerHeartWarrior. She request a tutorial on furring a fursuit head and I was more than happy to make one. I just... Had a hard time finding motivation to work. Then, my friend Tsuki invited me out to California to go to Further Confusion!

I wanted to re-do Eva's head because to be honest, she looks really tired. Eva will be my victim subject for this tutorial. If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask! I apologize in advanced for the poor quality of the photos. D:

Let's begin!
Step one: Gather materials

 What you'll need:

• Plastic bags or plsstic wrap. Even a garbage bag will work!
• Duct tape
• Permanent markers
• Pencil
• Thread
• Needle
• Pins
• A brush
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks
• Clippers
• Scissors
• Fur
• Xacto knife
• Your fursuit head
• A mannequin head. Make sure it's the same size as your own! This is Jeff. His head is the same size as mine. You can use a foam head and bulk it out with tape and plastic bags if you need to!

 Step 2: Cover your head!

• Not your actual head. Your fursuit head! Take a bag (or your plastic wrap) and wrap it around the head. I cut out the eyes here to make it easier when I start taping. Try to get anywhere that foam or any fabric is showing. If you don't, you could potentially rip it up when you take the tape off later.

Step 3: Tape!

• Rip off sections of tape and slap 'em on. Simple enough, right?

•  If your fursuit has a moving jaw, prop it open while you tape! This allows you to add in excess fabric so that the jaw will open after you apply the fur.

•  If your design is symmetrical, you only need to tape half the head. You can flip the pattern over and trace the other side. Hooray!

 Step 3: Mark it up!

• You'll want to draw on all the markings. Eva only has one spot on her face that has a marking, so that makes it easy. But you'll still need to make sure you make markings so you know how they line up when you go to sew them.
• You will also need to do this when you cut off the tape for every other piece. While Eva only has the one marking on her face, I cut out out a total of about 6 pieces just for one half of her face. You'll need to make marks so you remember how they all line up. Don't be afraid to write what each piece is and draw arrows showing the direction of the fur! (Fur ALWAYS points away from the nose).

Step 4: Cut out the pattern!

• For this, you can use either your knife, your scissors, or a combination of both. If you have multiple layers like I do, a knife is handy. But scissors are great when the piece has corners.

Step 5: Cut out the fur!

• Unfortunately, this is where the photos end... :( Sorry! I'll do my best to make details descriptions. I would like to eventually post photos.
• But once your have your pattern cut out, lay the pieces down on your fur. Make sure that the pattern is laying in a way that goes with the flow of the fur. Take a pencil and trace around the pattern. Be sure to leave space for your seam allowance! If you only taped half the head, be sure to flip the pattern when you trace the pieces for the other side!
• Once you have the pattern pieces traced out, use your x-acto knife to cut out the pieces.

Step 6: Pin and sew!

• Once all the pieces are cut out,  begin pinning them together. It may seem like a long (and kind of boring) process. But it's useful to make sure you have everything pieced together correctly BEFORE you sew it. Because let's be honest... It's easier to pull out some pins and adjust a piece than it is to unpick the seams and then readjust it.

Step 7: Glue!

• Once you've finished sewing, your blob of fur will fit over your mask like a sock. Kind of like this:

• It's terrifying, right? What you need to do, is glue down all the opening. Around the eyes, the nose, along the lips, etc. Go slow and make little lines of glue. Be sure to take the edges and fold it over JUUUUUUST a little bit. This will hide the edge of your fur. Don't fold it over too much or it'll end up lumpy and messy.
• When you're done, it'll look better fitted.

 

Step 7: Shave!

• Our fursuit is looking much better, but it's still not where we want it to me. Once again, I don't have pictures of this process... But right now, we want to shave our fursuit. Typically, I have around the mouth, nose, and eyes. I also shave the ears before I attach them. With my skull masks, I shave along the edges. I prefer to keep it short, then gradually let the fur get long as it gets away from wherever the short fur is.
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• I hope this shows a bit better what I mean.You can see right around the nose and mouth, the fur is shorter. But as you get towards the cheeks and back of the head, it fluffs out again. Of course, if you want fluffy eyebrows, you can skip shaving there. Or maybe the character has a fluffy chin. It's all up to you how you shave! But it brings out any markings the character might have, and allows you to see out of the mark better. :)

Once you're done shaving, look over your mask and fix anything that may need to be fixed. And then....

 You're done!

This tutorial did not cover making eyes, teeth, tongues, etc. This was just a simple furring tutorial.
I hope everything makes sense. I apologize for the lack of pictures, though. ;_; I forgot to grab the photos off my old iPad. Oops...

Like I said, though, I will try to update this tutorial when I am able to get new photos!

The process for furring a skull blank from DVC is very similar to this. Except, instead of furring the entire thing, you'll basically make a pattern for a fur hood.

If you have questions, feel free to ask!