| TUTORIAL DE LEMUR FURSUIT POR |
Construction of Kiki's head
Since people showed a lot of interest in my previous post (thanks for all the comments!!), here's the progress of how I made the head from scratch.
As said this was my first try at making anything like this, that's why there's a lot of stuff that I would do differently on a second head. I tend to do things on 'feeling' rather than planning, but I guess that's what makes the thing look like my drawings a bit more. And what makes the lower jaw insanely short ;)
There's a long post with a whole bunch of photos behind the cut, you have been warned!!
I basically wanted to make a costume to see if it was possible to make something super toony with a giant smile and giant cheeks. People told me to do my own character (I originally planned to do something that would translate better in to a costume), so this was the look I was going for:
I draw myself so I had the design in my head, if you don't draw (or even if you do but are not to sure of your shapes), I really suggest to do/get some good drawings, front and side views so you have a good idea of what you're going to make. Otherwise getting the proportions to work out will be very hard, unless you have a natural feel for it.
I started with making a base around my head out of thin (1cm/half an inch) foam sheets. I used pretty much the same method as Matrices used here. Cut and fold the base around your head, cut the holes for the eyes so the vision will be good from the start. I've made the base very tight around my head. I can't wear my glasses in the suit because of that but the vision is so good that it makes up for it.
The base is so tight that I cut a hole where the tip of my nose poked out. I drew on the eyes right from the start to have a good idea on how the proportions should be.
Next I drew the sideview of the muzzle on a sheet of paper and traced it on a piece of foam. Drawing on the foam a lot helps a ton! (only gets you dirty hands)
I carved out the shape with a pair of scissors, which worked fine for me. (I don't really dare to use sharp knifes since I'm horribly clumsy and don't want blood stains on the head D:)
From there on it's just carving and glueing on piece by piece. I did NOT use any hot glue on the head, I hate the stuff since it's hard and heavy. I used sprayglue which is PERFECT for foam, downside is that you'll have to go outside every time you spray something. (Since I was working on the second floor, I got a lot of exercise! XD)
Here you can see I just glued blocks to the sides of the face and then carved out the right shape. Kiki's eyes are low on the head to make her look cute, so naturally I had to add a lot of foam on the top and back of the head. Here I added the ridge between the eyes to make the profile look right.
Added a lot of foam strips to the back of the head to make the round shape. The entire back of the head is hollow but keeps itself in shape. Saved me a lot of foam and time.
Here the ear tufts are added (foam plates and some carved foam on the back) and I did some drawing tests to see what the head would look like with fleece/fur bulk added. I cut off quite a bit of the cheecks and muzzle after doing this.
I slit the nose vertically in half and carved out enough place to put a squeaker in that I took from an old dog toy.
Some more smoothing out of the foam with the scissors and the head is ready for furring:
Next up is taping to figure out the fur pattern (I just used one layer of cheap packing tape that easily comes off):
(I completely got rid of that 'cut' in the ear later while furring, since it turned out nearly impossible to sew and you won't see it when covered in long fur anyway)
Fur types/directions drawn on
The ears were done like this:
Next up is furring, this was definitely the hardest part in my opinion.
I cut out the tape piece by piece and pinned the fur on, to prevent all the pieces from getting mixed up.
Figuring out the pattern for the cheeks was a challenge, this is what they look like from the inside:
I recommend not drawing on the inside of white fur like I did, btw. Luckily this fur was good quality so it's not really visible, but your lines might show through on the outside with light fur, even when you drew on the foam. (or used green/blue foam!)
At this point most parts are only pinned on. A big mistake I've made with the fleece is that I've put the wrong side out on the muzzle. If you have anti-pill fleece, take care and check which side is the right one? I only noticed when I already had sewn the whole nose together, luckily it's not too visible.
(at this point I spent two full days looking for material for the eyes, and tried making them by heat-bending transparant yellow foil and painting them pink on the inside (which makes them orange) This didn't work since the material was way too thin and floppy so I scrapped the eyes later)
Trimming and handsewing makes a big difference. Nothing is glued on here, all the fur holds itself up just because it's sewn together and stretched around the shape of the head. In the end I only used glue on the 'inverted curve' of the muzzle/nosebrigde, in the mouth and on the ears. Everything else holds itself up. The fur under the cheeks is simply stuffed in and also holds without any glue.
For the eyes I got material from Jill0r (THANKS!), flat yellow plastic that it sort of bendable and stays in the shape you bent it in. I cut out the eyes and put them in a large halfround bowl, and rolled/pressed over them with a golfball for an hour or so until they had the right curve.
Then I painted them with acrylics and spraycoated them. (every layer needed several hours to dry so this took a few days)
Attaching the eyes was hard because I didn't think of how to put them on while carving the head, I'll definitely do that differently the next time. I first tried adding eyelashes on the back but that looked awkward, so I just put small black eyelids over the top of the eyes to make them look like a part of the head instead of being pasted on.
The lower jaw is extremely short and it's a bit hard to explain how it's constructed, but basically there's a piece of black fleece that covers my chin while I wear the head, so you don't see my face when you look into the mouth. The tonge is simply a stuffed tube with a seam in the middle, I put a black V-shaped piece of felt over it so the mouth appears to be deep, even though it's basically a vertical piece of fleece in front of my chin. Err, I do not recommend constructing a mouth this way but it works somehow!
Kiki's 'hairdo' is simply a patch of longer grey fur. Since the white on the forehead and the grey on the back run in opposite directions, the fur pushes itself up where the two colors meet.
I did the neck much later with Karpour's help, it was impossible to do this by myself!
The idea is simple but you have to figure out the pattern while wearing the head, this is what it looked like for Kiki:
With the end result looking like this:
I hope this was a bit helpful! Kiki already had fun on some outings, go say hi if you see her at FC!
