How Do You Get a Fursuit Made or Make One for Yourself?

Hello Papa Bear,

Me and my girlfriend are really wanting to get into fursuiting but we're really not sure here to get good fursuits. We know what we would like, but we have no idea where to get them, or how to make them ourselves.

Please help a Fox and a Wolf!

Many thanks,
Kaz and Mjay

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Dear Kaz and Mjay,

Thanks for your question. This is a two-part answer: first, how to get fursuits made by others; and second, how to make them yourself.

Commissioning a Fursuit

This I know, having gone through the process myself. Like you, I knew what I wanted in a fursuit (a bearsuit inspired by—but not imitating—the ones in Disney’s “The Country Bears”), so I went online and looked at pictures of fursuits on FurAffinity. After a while, I zeroed in on a designer I really liked: Beastcub. Then I visited her website, which was excellent and contained information on how to commission a design. You can also visit a really cool site called the Fursuit Database (http://db.fursuit.me/). This thing is HUGE and searchable. Find a suit you like and it will list the designer and whether he/she is taking commissions.

Once you have found a designer and agreed on a price, there are a couple things you need to do before the designer can begin:

1. Have a Reference Sheet made. If you’re an artist, you can draw one yourself; if not, you will need to also find an artist to do this for you. A reference sheet like the one below for Grubbs shows the design from several angles. It gives the designer an idea of color, size, and overall construction.
2. Provide the designer with a list of specific needs for the suit. What kind of eyes will it have? Will you have a movable or static jaw? Will anything else move? Do you want, perhaps, LED anywhere on the suit? Will the feet have flat soles or pads? Do you want an electrical fan installed in the head for cooling? And so on.
3. You will need to have a duct tape suit made. This is something with which you will need the help of one or more friends. A duct tape suit is when you literally wrap your body in duct tape (don’t apply directly to the skin; wear something underneath, such as long underwear, and make sure it is something you don’t mind destroyed because it will probably be cut when you remove the duct tape). This suit provides the fursuit maker with a very close approximation of all your body dimensions so you are sure to get an excellent fit.

Send all of this stuff to your fursuit designer and wait. Be patient, these things take time. Ask the fursuit maker to tell you when they actually begin construction and an estimated completion time, but don’t harass the maker repeatedly for updates unless you really want to be annoying.

Once the fursuit is done, received, and paid for, you’re still usually not completely set. Often, you will need to make some minor adjustments here and there on the suit until you are completely satisfied with it. Before you have a contract with a fursuit maker, ask him or her whether and how many adjustments you can make after the final product is delivered.

It’s a good idea to get in writing from the fursuit maker what he or she promises to do, when they plan to do it, and for how much. In other words, get a signed agreement so that, if things don’t go your way (such as the fursuit is never delivered) you have legal recourse to get your money back.

This brings up another good point: look for and contact other furries who have had fursuits made by your designer of choice. Ask them if they were happy with the work and whether or not the designer was easy to work with. When I chose Beastcub, I knew she was a reliable designer. I also knew that I would need to wait quite some time before she was available to make the fursuit, so I was prepared for a long wait. But it was worth it!

Making Your Own Fursuit

It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway LOL—that if you are going to make a fursuit yourself you had better be a very good sewer. You should also know how to do other crafty things not normally seen in sewing clothes, such as how to make a fursuit head and paws.

There are a lot of websites out there with information you can read and view, but one that I like is on Matrices.net at http://www.matrices.net/fursuiting.asp. This excellent site has a ton of information and videos on making your own fursuit. Kudos to Sara Howard for making this available to aspiring artists.

Fursuiting

Once you have your fursuit, now you need to know about performing in them and maintaining them. Fortunately! I have already written a column on that very topic here: http://www.askpapabear.com/letters/fursuiting-tips.

Hope that helps, Kaz and Mjay! Happy Fursuiting!

Papabear