The Furry News Coverage Continues

There were a few other papers which had photos of the VancouFur furry convention, but Ande didn't appear in them.  But we were both featured (talking!) on the CTV news last night.  I don't know if this is a permanent link, but here is the video.  I was nervous that people from work may see me on TV (although if they did, nobody has admitted it yet), but here I am, posting it on my blog.  Pretty safe, since my friends and family mostly don't read my blog!  Ha.

When I have a chance, I would love to assemble a few photos from the construction of the fursuit, and post them.  Would anyone be interested?  Or am I just posting for myself?  (Oops, did I actually type that?)

Oh yes, I finally did remember to get a photo of Ande and me together, on the last day of the convention:

Ande is Famous Already!

There was a photographer from the Vancouver Sun at the furry convention today, so "Ande" was in one of the photos in the online newspaper by this evening.  Pretty cool.

Here's the whole "page":

I got lots of photos today, but as I downloaded them this evening, I realized that the one photo I don't have yet is a photo of me with Ande.  So I'll need to remember to get at least one tomorrow.

Ande's Debut

I had the pleasure of finally meeting Ande tonight, he made his debut at Vancoufur.  He has been long anticipated.  Much time and love has gone into his making.  It was a wonderful moment to see him come alive!!  I hope he will be feeling better soon, and will be able to come out and play many more times this weekend!

Ande, you are so adorable!

Rattie Fursuit Feet : Part 1

This weekend we worked on our rattie fursuit's feet.  My 14-year-old provided a pair of comfy (I would have preferred new) runners as a base, and we built the feet around them with foam.  We have yet to finalize the trimming/shaping, and then need to cover them over with the pink fleece.  Here are a few photos of this weekend's progress :

I've got to do something about my glue gun.  I have a large gun which doesn't work well (although I forgot what the issue is), and a small gun which works well, but the trigger is really hard to push.  So even half an hour after finishing with the gluing, my fingers are still red and sore.  Last time, when we were working on a paw, my fingertips were numb for a couple of days afterward.  That's not good, since we have lots more gluing remaining - when we create the head.

Dragon Lady

Well, actually, just the dragon gloves.  But I think they turned out pretty cool :

I wasn't really planning to make dragon gloves, I was shopping for fur for my 14-year-old's rattie suit, when I spotted this wonderful shiny "black snakeskin" fabric which I couldn't resist.  Since my character is a dragon, that would be my project, if I were to build a suit - which is not my plan, just the gloves!  I'm not much for machine sewing (I don't even have a sewing machine), but I am pretty good with a needle and thread.   I designed the gloves myself, copying roughly from a pair of fleece gloves, and then I created claws and spikes from fimo clay.   Here's an earlier photo, before the fimo additions.

Here's the first paw and tail of my kiddo's rattie suit.  We've now started on the second paw, but we have quite a way to go.  The grey fur is folded up and sitting on the piano, waiting for us to tackle that.  We are designing the suit ourselves as we go along, so it is a bit daunting if I think about all the work ahead of us.  Especially the head.

Rattie Fursuit - First Paw and Tail

Now that my son and I have decided to build a rat fursuit, much of our "spare time" is consumed with shopping for and creating parts for his suit.  In the past couple of days, we have made good progress.  We now pretty much have the first paw :

It is built on a latex-dipped gardening glove, with foam to give it the oversized finger shape, and then effectively a pink fleece glove (hand-sewn) pulled over that.  Here is just the glove with foam, before covering with the fleece :

Yes, the two middle fingers are glued together, to achieve the rattie 4 fingered paw.

Now that we know how much work went into the first paw, it will be hard to convince ourselves to move onto the next one.  :-)

Today my son went to Grandma's house to use her sewing machine to sew the tail, and then stuffed it.  I think it turned out even better than I had expected.

Next (after the second paw, hopefully), we will tackle the feet.  Then we will likely switch over to the gray fur, and start working on the body.