Over the past two months I've been working on making my own fursuit head. This is my fourth one I own. The first and second were ones I tried making my own base for out of cardboard, and the third one I ended up buying a base. This is my first time making a base out of upholstery foam. I already had some experience sewing, which helped, but there was so much to learn from various video tutorials. I primarily learned from Freckled Cat Creations and Skyehigh Studios, very helpful YouTubers. You're all probably interested in the processes here, so I'll talk about each pic from left to right, top to bottom!
1: Bucket base. I used my own head instead of buying a mannequin. It would have been SO much easier to work on if I did use a mannequin head, so I would strongly recommend that here for anyone taking notes.
2: Portioning of the snout. This was the first piece I added to the head, and here you can see it in its raw, uncarved state. It's longer than what I actually used, and I ended up trimming it down between 4 and 5.
3: This is how it looked before I adhered the snout. I was carving it all up to make sure that it would all look nice, but of course I worked on it even more after adhering it.
4: As you can see, a LOT happened between 3 and 4. There were a few low-quality pics that I didn't quite feel like showing, but you can see the general idea here. I just added a layet for the cheeks, then added a layer on top of that layer, etc., and I just kept working at it. There were little scraps of foam EVERYWHERE all over, so that was annoying.
5: I didn't want the ears to be thick, so I opted for EVA foam. I also cut out the foam underneath it in order to make the inner ears lead directly to the inside of the suit for ventilation purposes. In retrospect, I might have wanted to shape them a little more.
6: Patterning. I used masking tape to make the pattern, then I cut on the lines and peeled it off. Also, please learn from my mistakes and NEVER put masking tape directly onto EVA foam! The ears developed various tears because it was so stuck on there! I'm glad I was able to patch them up!
7: Eyes. While I ordered swatches and awaited the arrival of the fur, itself, I worked on making the eyes. Now, I make my eyes a little different from most fursuit makers. The norm is to use white foam for the sclera of the eye while using the see-through layer only on the irises and pupils. However, this only works if your pupils are big and circular. I wanted to remain true to Shize's eye shape, so I ended up using the see-through layer on the entire eye minus the border. This is what I've done with all my other suits, and it typically looks pretty okay. I still have some work to do, as there are some wrinkles in the thin fabric which I used. This is where having a mannequin would have saved me a lot of hassle.
8: These are all my patterns which I used before actually doing the sewing. Some oddly suggestive shapes, but other than that it looked promising.
9: Before sewing, I used some pins to make sure that it looked okay on the face. I was nervous because it looked wonky, but I had faith that sewing it together would be enough to change how it looked for the better.
10: Here he is after sewing the vast majority of the seams and gluing the fabric onto the foam. As you can see, there are some weird lumps here and there, but I personally don't think they're that noticeable. Maybe I'm just too excited? I honestly still can't believe that I actually made this.
11: Some finishing touches including eyelashes, shaved hairlines/eyebrows, bakelite teeth, and a sewn tongue. This is the state in which it's currently in as I post this, and there's only some minimal interior work to be done with the lining at this point, so it's basically all ready for pictures and funny skits and stuff. Speaking of skits...
A friend helped me film a little skit of Shize playing mahjong! Here it is for those of you who would like to see! https://youtu.be/w5_wazGtagE
So anyway, that's Shize for you! Again, it feels surreal that I was able to make this. It all feels like it was a dream until I see the physical head, and even then I still have trouble convincing myself that this was all me! I'm super proud of myself for this amazing accomplishment, and now I have to set my eyes on some new goals: For starters, human hands belonging to this fellow looks super unfitting, so I might try making some paws. I'm trying to make his hands less traditional paw and more like Beastars hands. I'll probably just make gloves with the remaining skin fur and then tack on some claws. I also think a tail is easily doable, so I'm going to look into those, too!
Thanks again for those of you who wanted me to share this on my gallery! I'll admit I was a little nervous to do it, but now that I've made this little photo collage I feel really happy to show this off to everyone! I hope you all enjoy!
1: Bucket base. I used my own head instead of buying a mannequin. It would have been SO much easier to work on if I did use a mannequin head, so I would strongly recommend that here for anyone taking notes.
2: Portioning of the snout. This was the first piece I added to the head, and here you can see it in its raw, uncarved state. It's longer than what I actually used, and I ended up trimming it down between 4 and 5.
3: This is how it looked before I adhered the snout. I was carving it all up to make sure that it would all look nice, but of course I worked on it even more after adhering it.
4: As you can see, a LOT happened between 3 and 4. There were a few low-quality pics that I didn't quite feel like showing, but you can see the general idea here. I just added a layet for the cheeks, then added a layer on top of that layer, etc., and I just kept working at it. There were little scraps of foam EVERYWHERE all over, so that was annoying.
5: I didn't want the ears to be thick, so I opted for EVA foam. I also cut out the foam underneath it in order to make the inner ears lead directly to the inside of the suit for ventilation purposes. In retrospect, I might have wanted to shape them a little more.
6: Patterning. I used masking tape to make the pattern, then I cut on the lines and peeled it off. Also, please learn from my mistakes and NEVER put masking tape directly onto EVA foam! The ears developed various tears because it was so stuck on there! I'm glad I was able to patch them up!
7: Eyes. While I ordered swatches and awaited the arrival of the fur, itself, I worked on making the eyes. Now, I make my eyes a little different from most fursuit makers. The norm is to use white foam for the sclera of the eye while using the see-through layer only on the irises and pupils. However, this only works if your pupils are big and circular. I wanted to remain true to Shize's eye shape, so I ended up using the see-through layer on the entire eye minus the border. This is what I've done with all my other suits, and it typically looks pretty okay. I still have some work to do, as there are some wrinkles in the thin fabric which I used. This is where having a mannequin would have saved me a lot of hassle.
8: These are all my patterns which I used before actually doing the sewing. Some oddly suggestive shapes, but other than that it looked promising.
9: Before sewing, I used some pins to make sure that it looked okay on the face. I was nervous because it looked wonky, but I had faith that sewing it together would be enough to change how it looked for the better.
10: Here he is after sewing the vast majority of the seams and gluing the fabric onto the foam. As you can see, there are some weird lumps here and there, but I personally don't think they're that noticeable. Maybe I'm just too excited? I honestly still can't believe that I actually made this.
11: Some finishing touches including eyelashes, shaved hairlines/eyebrows, bakelite teeth, and a sewn tongue. This is the state in which it's currently in as I post this, and there's only some minimal interior work to be done with the lining at this point, so it's basically all ready for pictures and funny skits and stuff. Speaking of skits...
A friend helped me film a little skit of Shize playing mahjong! Here it is for those of you who would like to see! https://youtu.be/w5_wazGtagE
So anyway, that's Shize for you! Again, it feels surreal that I was able to make this. It all feels like it was a dream until I see the physical head, and even then I still have trouble convincing myself that this was all me! I'm super proud of myself for this amazing accomplishment, and now I have to set my eyes on some new goals: For starters, human hands belonging to this fellow looks super unfitting, so I might try making some paws. I'm trying to make his hands less traditional paw and more like Beastars hands. I'll probably just make gloves with the remaining skin fur and then tack on some claws. I also think a tail is easily doable, so I'm going to look into those, too!
Thanks again for those of you who wanted me to share this on my gallery! I'll admit I was a little nervous to do it, but now that I've made this little photo collage I feel really happy to show this off to everyone! I hope you all enjoy!
Category Fursuiting / All
Species Lion
Gender Male
Size 2231 x 1651px
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