Some photos of the Ferret & his companions can currently be found in my Photo Album. (*Well, the photos still aren't up there....busy life, I guess..)

Construction
A more complete photo documentary was taken during the construction of the ferret head, air conditioned helmet & fursuit. (*and as soon as I get off my furry behind, the photos will be here too)

Concept Sketch:
There were no specific concept sketches made of the ferret, just mental images, initially. But we created a clay sculpted ferret head, and used images of ferrets and lanskenecht costumes for reference.

The clay sculpted model.

The Fursuit;

The same (pink) muslin created for the lioness was used for this fursuit also. All pins for the lioness were removed, and the muslin was repinned for the ferret. No body padding was used, to keep the body as slim as possible, but the suit was intentially left a bit long, so that the haunches would be loose. After transfering the ferret's measurments to another paper pattern, the fursuit was cut out, and a zipper added.

The Helmet

Materials List:
Bike Helmet, about 24" of 3/4" clear vinyl hosing, 2" of 1 1/2" clear vinyl hosing, 3" CPU fan, battery pack for 4 AA's

Many sources of reference were utilized in the design of this helmet. Among the primary sources were the Big Bad Wolf's website and advices from Daren Bost (of Lionspaw Mascot's).

Here are photos of the completed helmet. I suppose it appropriate that the pics are a bit fuzzy.

The Big Bad Wolf's online instructions were basically followed for all major aspects of this helmet.

Building the Foam Head:
For construction of this head,we had a total of 4 major foam pieces (plus ears). The foam head was built with the helmet in place.
1)a single foam piece which covered from the end of the nose, up the bridge of the nose and down the back of the head. This first piece was our determination of head length.
2)two identical pieces for each side of the head from the center point of the muzzle to the back of the head.
3)the lower jaw

The clay sculpture was "consulted" until we were satisfied by the shape.

This photo shows how we determined the basic proportions of the finished head.

Progress photos of the head, with clay sculture:

Furring the head & painting in the mask
The same general pattern method descibed in the lioness instructions. Of course, the pattern will be different for each head. The head was furred in only two colors, brown with a white muzzle & lower jaw.

To add the ferret mask to the head, partially diluted black artists acrylic paint was used. Although a non-diluted acrylic could have been used, I was concerned about the change in texture of the fur. It took approximately 3 applications of acrylic until the desired darker tone was achieved. As each layer of paint was added, it was allowed to dry to "almost dry", then gently combed to reduce matting of the fur. When the layer was dry, another was applied until we were satisfied with the contrast. (we think he's cute :) )

The Eyes
We were especially pleased with the buggy-eyed appearance of the ferret. First, the black window screening was added to the inside of the ferret's eyes. Then, a 3" clear plastic 2-piece ornament was adhered with contact cement from the outside of the eye sockets.

The orbs are barely visible in the above photo, funny how clear things are vampiric when it comes to being photographed.

The only downside to using the plastic orbs is that there is some slight visual distortion due to the orb's themselves. Not enough distortion to really cause a problem, but you can notice it. ;)

The Ferret Feet

The general premise used with Foxey's feet was used in the construction of these feet. Full soles will be added to stabilize the foam and shoe.

The shoe with the visible foam shows the placement of the foam on the shoe. (although the final feet had a slightly larger foam "toe") To make these feet more ferrety, black acrylic paint was later used to create the black socks. (not pictured)

More to be added....

Main page
Return to my fursuit page.