Fur Your Consideration

Halloween has always been my favorite time of year. Not just for the spooky aesthetics, or even all the sickeningly sweet candy, but for the costumes. The idea of being whatever you could think of was such a freeing idea. When I graduated from using safety scissors and was able to hold a glue gun I had always made my own costumes for Halloween. One year I was a zombie Nascar driver, another I was a Queen of ice and snow (I still feel like a certain mouse owes me royalties for that). In my older years I was a decapitated head on a platter and I even made myself into a chair transformer. And even during non-costume associated holidays I tried to dress up. I glued cotton balls to my face as Santa, and wore pantyhose on my head for the Easter Bunny. Even after all that I was still needing a fix and became intrigued in costumes outside of the holiday season. I was looking for any excuse to become something else even just for a day. I started wearing cat ears and cardboard robot heads, even looking up cosplay resources on YouTube and craft websites. Until one fateful day, I fell down a rabbit hole that led me to find my biggest unrealized dream: to be a giant walking stuffed animal.

Fursuits. Some may see them as creepy or disturbing. But I saw them as beautiful, wearable pieces of art. Glorified carpets you could probably say. They struck a chord with my animal loving, warrior cat role-playing self which to be honest wasn't super surprising. Anything you could think of it was possible. There were giant blue kangaroos, big pink cats, the cutest little dragon that made my heart melt. I felt comforted, seen, like I had finally found my community where people liked the same things I liked. It was such a unique way of self expression I was obsessed, I just had to make one. I bought foam and brushed out yarn for the fur look. I cut up a fabric softener bottle and black pantyhose for the eyes. I hot glued everything together and of course, it was the hottest of messes. There was almost no ventilation, it looked crusty like an old stuffed animal and I could barely see out of it. It was truly monstrous, and I get embarrassed just thinking about it. But I learned from it. I learned sculpting, color theory, patterning, and sewing. The more I made the better I got, I kept learning with every new project. I've worked a lot of jobs, I've made a lot of things. I've tried so many different hobbies like quilting, painting and knitting and I've loved them all, but never progressed beyond basics. Fursuit making utilized almost every skill I've learned, and these past 7 years I learned even more from it.

Anyone can go to a store and get a $25 costume and be okay with that, it's a reasonable, normal thing to do. These days, fursuiting is an incredibly expensive hobby and rightfully so. The materials are expensive and they take a long time to make. Standards are constantly changing, some designs are incredibly complicated and require hundreds of hours. But in the end, it's always worth it. The love, sweat, and tears I put into every project has always been returned tenfold when I get to see people's reactions. They put so much trust into me to bring their designs, their characters, their extensions of themselves, to life and that's something I will never get tired of. I love making fursuits, and I hope it's something I get to do for years and years to come.