This costume demonstrates the use of clothes to help create a character.The fur portions of the costume consist of a head, paws, and tail. The outfit, which I also designed and sewed, completes the character and makes her role clear: jester.

This costume was experimental in several ways. Besides using clothes for part of the costume, I also was trying new head techniques. The head is actually built using a wire framework construction. The shape of the head is defined by wires (lengths of aluminum fencing wire, actually) that are joined together to create a cage.

Plastic canvas is then attached to the wire framework to create an underskull surface. The wire provides a fairly strong and rigid frame while the plastic canvas creates a smooth curving surface. I used two layers of plastic canvas, heavily bonded with hot glue. This was probably overkill, since the head is heavier and very (overly?) sturdy.

Fur is then glued directly to the plastic canvas underskull. The hair is assembled from three (well, two and a half) cheap costume wigs. The wigs were cut apart to create smaller hanks of hair. These were then glued to the top of the head. The jester's cap hides the messy glue job at the top of the head from view.

Of course, the biggest challenge was being able to juggle in costume. If you don't juggle, you should know that it requires you use a lot of your peripheral vision. Given that most fursuit heads have very restricted vision, designing one that would allow me to juggle was tricky.

I solved the problem by trying to maximize the view angle of the costume. If you think about it, the amount you can see from inside a head is determined by two factors: how large the view hole or surface is and how close your eye is to that surface.

I built the head to be as close-fitting as possible. This ensured that my eye would be positioned near to the view surface, in order to get a maximum field of vision. The view surface was also as large as possible (without distorting the character). The eyes are entirely transparent from inside; they are simply black reticulated foam that has been painted white and blue.

There are still a lot of vision limitations. The nose and high cheeks, for example, make it hard for me to see my hands without tilting the head way down. But the vision is good enough that I can juggle fairly consistently, so I'm satisfied with it! That's pretty good for a fursuit!