Author Topic: Yay! A Fox Tail  (Read 2435 times)

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Offline greenfox

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  • struct fox_t = { .color = COLOR_GREEN };
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Yay! A Fox Tail
« on: September 24, 2014, 02:11:39 am »
Yay!  I finally finished with my tail making (it certainly took me long enough :P).
Here's a photo, of course:


I'm quite happy with the results.  I haven't worn it much yet, except while I did my laundry yesterday.  However, it was 2am so I didn't run into anybody :P
I'll probably use it at furmeets, special events, or whenever I just darn-well feel like it.  I'm not too concerned if anyone thinks it's strange (everybody knows I'm strange anyway  (:), but I'm also not the type of person who really likes having special attention drawn to them, so we'll see.

I'll also add a summary of what I did and, more importantly, what I learned from it, in a bit.
"Vira pyveþ maze lirno kaietello jai."
I am only a lone man with ten-thousand dreams.

Weasyl: http://www.weasyl.com/~quyk

Offline Keitsu

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Re: Yay! A Fox Tail
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2014, 03:09:28 am »
Yay ^^ looks good. Nice big and fluffeh :3

Offline Sergalicious

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Re: Yay! A Fox Tail
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2014, 12:02:46 am »
Yay ^^ looks good. Nice big and fluffeh :3

yess big and fluffy
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts...
You are someone else
I am still right here


Offline greenfox

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Re: Yay! A Fox Tail
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2014, 03:34:51 am »
Yay ^^ looks good. Nice big and fluffeh :3

yess big and fluffy

Hehe, thanks.  What's not to like about having a big fluffy tail to hug?  (:  It's so squishy.
I could use a comb for it, though.

I've worn it around a bit in my residence hall, and was relieved to find that nobody really cares (which is what I expected, given the number of unusual things I see on a daily basis around here).
"Vira pyveþ maze lirno kaietello jai."
I am only a lone man with ten-thousand dreams.

Weasyl: http://www.weasyl.com/~quyk

Offline greenfox

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  • struct fox_t = { .color = COLOR_GREEN };
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Constructing the Fox Tail
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2014, 03:38:59 am »
Okay; finally got around to posting what I did/learned.  I really hope somebody finds this useful.

=============================================

The first thing I did after actually ordering fur and all was to design the shape.  At first I looked for some sort of template, but there wasn't really any good ones out there specifically for a fox tail (Sciex has a good wolf one, though), so I decided to just try and draw one out by eye.

It seemed easiest to divide the tail into four parts: the top (black) and the tip (green) are of course separate, and each is divided into lengthwise halves.  I finally decided on a 30" tail with a 7.25" cross section (when flat; when rounded, the diameter becomes ~2/3 of the flat length).  I drew that out on a whiteboard:
.

Following that, I got out my faux fur and re-sketched the relevant portion of my design onto the reverse side of the black fur.  In retrospect, it would have have been better to sketch it on a piece of posterboard, and cut that out so I could trace it twice, but I didn't think of that until after I had cut out the first piece.

At this point, I made a mistake: since the tail was wider on the bottom than on the top, I thought I could be space-efficient with the fur by cutting out the reverse half upside-down.  While I was busy playing tetris with my cutouts, I completely forgot that faux fur has a *direction* (the direction the fur points in) and it should match on the both of the length-wise halves.  So, now I have an extra, backwards piece of tail laying around :P  Make sure you keep the direction of your fur consistent on all your pieces!


Once I had two corresponding (and directionally consistant) cuts of black fur, I made a posterboard cutout template for the bottom half (the tip) and traced it out on the green fur.  That went quickly and without incident.  After I cut them out, I sewed them onto the black halves using my tracing lines as a guide (I cut made my cuts about ~0.3in from my template lines, to provide a nice margin).


Finally, I was able to align the two length-wise halves of the complete tail and pin them together (inside out, so I could use my template lines as sewing guides).  I had to use a pencil tube to carefully stuff all the fur inside as best I could before I could sew it.  You want all the fur to be facing inward so that when you turn the final product right-side-out, you don't have fur stuck inside.


Once the sewing was complete (this took several days), I pulled the tail inside out again so that the fur was on the outside, and pushed some generic stuffing inside.  Apparently, however, the density of stuffing matters - my first attempt left me with a tail that probably could have functioned as a baseball bat (the stuffing was far too densely packed, so it was really stiff and heavy).  I pulled the stuffing back out and gently seperated it with my fingers until the density was reduced to an acceptable level.  After pushing it back in again, I had to sort of "massage" it around inside the tail until the proportions matched what I was aiming for.

The final consideration was the attachment.  I had originally though that using velcro loops would be a great idea, but it turns out that velcro doesn't play nice with faux fur :P.  At that point, I was pretty tired, so I just purchased some large safety pins and attached them to the top of the tail, then looped my belt through them.  I would like to use elastic bands instead at some point, but I haven't purchased any yet.

And that's it!  If anybody sees anything that could be improved, feel free to comment.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2014, 03:03:23 am by greenfox »
"Vira pyveþ maze lirno kaietello jai."
I am only a lone man with ten-thousand dreams.

Weasyl: http://www.weasyl.com/~quyk