NZFurs Chat forum: Crafter in welly - getting interested in fur craft :)

Hi all

I'm a hobby artist in Wellington and I've very recently been captivated by the idea of costume making... and I think the bug has bitten hard!!
Been doing some searchers and found your NZ group - yay!

Just wanted to say hi, find out how active ppl are in Wellington and I guess ask what kind of experience ppl have at making fur suits. Is is really hard and expensive? I've made puppets, sculptures and fully armatured plush art dolls before so hoping its more of a scale difference ;)
also yet to try casting in resin even though I have some supplies.

As a crafty I find the idea a fun challenge - love the idea of working out the mechanics, but not sure if its a completely pointless endevour as I know NZ isn't big like the USA on costumes and such events.
I've got heaps of other craft projects on but I think part of me would like to rise to the challenge one day :)
I don't have any characters or anything.

also just keen to meet new ppl who like to have good clean fun :)
-C

hi there.
my name is krissy. The furry side of nz is bigger than you think, and there are only a few suit makers so there is lots of demand for the suits.
The suits are not that hard to make and as you have the experience in making things already i think this would be a great opportunity for you

scorch

Hi Scorch/Krissy

I'm Cayley (might as well put my name I have nothing to hide for all you nice folks lol)

Thanks for the feed back, learning a lot about how big the furry community is! tbh never new until I looked for it!

just been doing some searches to get an idea of how much a costume would cost and seems it varies a heap - and as you say very little in NZ.

guess all I can do is make some time and give it ago :)

hardest part would be I have no idea what to try make! would really help if I did have some character but I don't :(
I've sculpted all sorts (finishing a Diablo 3 demon atm), alpacas, a rather nice borderlands Skag, Courtney Gears from Ratchet and Clank,
made 2 kiwi art dolls, a gryphon cable puppet and my darling toothless. oh and a ball jointed doll coz I could :P - and much much more, but nothing character worthy.
if your interested http://cjm99.deviantart.com/gallery/

Already found lots of handy guides out there so making it will be the easy part. Shame the nice fux fur costs so much, would LOVE to know if anyone has a great supplier ;) ;)
I cringe every time I go to spotlight and get half a meter for dolls.

Hi Cayley
Spotlight is way to expensive for buying fur. I've found "emporiums" have good quality acrylic fur at cheap prices

OMG! thanks so much. seems I hadn't found the right key word to google. will need to go check out one near me sometime. Glad the fur I have got from spotlight has been on sale :D doesn't hurt as much - and it looks like everyone is getting yellow xmas presents this year as I'm guessing now I got way more that I needed for a head tail and gloves ;P

No problem :). And with the excess fur problem, you could always use the excess for other suits

Checked back and saw your profile pic - Scorch is lovely!! :)

Thankyou
Scorch is my first ever fursuit head that ive made. my other is scarlet moon, pics are on my profile page if you wana look

There's lots of furs that goto Armageddon and the like. There's a Skype group for wellington as well, check on the NZ Furry facebook page as well.

Thanks - dont have facebook though :P
I've got a bunch of supplies and going to try make a partial suit. Cant think of a character so going to try for a Lombax (so original - rolls eyes) But they are just so darn cute, so we'll see how it turns out :)

So I've managed to work out how to change my profile name. gonna be craftyC as I don't have any characters at this point.

spent the long weekend shopping for materials and today started making bits for a lombax partial :) I don't know how the community feels about existing characters rather than totally original, but I needed a starting point to have a go and at least I started.

so today made a lovely long floofy tail - complete with stripes sewn in, and a pair of gloves/paws. not sure if lombax's have paw pads? I think they don't, but as Ratchet had such bug toe claws i might add some claws to the hands later.

so far having fun, so if the end result isn't rubbish I could certainly have a go at making the odd bit for others - so far for fabric elastic and mesh stuff its cost me $70 (yay for sales!!) and I got 2x1m of yellow left after making hands and tail so looking good so far :)