Greetings All!
Over the past 7 years, I've become a sort of "extravagant Halloween costumer". At first, I did this to help support a small local children's Halloween festival. But then my sister-in-law got breast cancer, was treated, and fought it off successfully. And now, every year here in Kansas City, around Halloween-time, the Making Strides against Breast Cancer walk takes place... and my sister-in-law hosts basically an all-day-party, which we end by going to a big local retro bar for their Halloween costume contest. So, my friends and family have become my big fans on this.
In past years, I've done mostly human / humanoid costumes: Robocop was my first one (and dearest to my heart, since I truly was guessing my way through everything).
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/robo/Festival003.jpg
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/robo/halloween3.jpg
Then War Machine, then Iron Man, and then Davey Jones (dipped into latex mask-making there).
"http://www.davidraasch.com/images/war_machine/Halloween%202010%20003%20half-sized.jpg
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/ironman/064.JPG
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/davey_jones/12.jpg
So, this year, I've decided to build a Velociraptor (and have my wife accompany me as the "Jurrasic Park ranger" who has me on a leash).
I've got a "build thread" on this costume started over at the RPF forums: http://www.therpf.com/f24/velociraptor-build-thread-target-date-halloween-2013-a-188472/
Here's a slightly-out-of-date photo of the head I've been carving:
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/raptor/raptor_Aug8_progress_06.jpg
But I'm finding a LOT more helpful "how-to" tips and advice from Fursuit-ers (with regards to this velociraptor costume), since RPF folks mostly do human / humanoid costumes as well.
My key items of research right now (and this is where I'm asking you all for some guidance / advice / links / tutorials) are:
1) Attaching the foam head to my own head ? (I've seen where a lot of people glue the head onto a bicycle helmet? Any other key methods successful folks tend to use?)
2) Rigging up a jaw that opens and closes... also, rigging it up somehow so that I can manually trigger this? Keep in mind that my own head will be in the costume's neck.
3) How to build this thing so that I can see out of the neck, yet that's not so obvious? (I found one glorious Youtube video showing a moving jaw on a head that sits on top of the wearer's head via a helmet... and they SAID there was mesh in the neck, but they never gave a close-up and I sure couldn't TELL the material there was ANY DIFFERENT than the rest of the neck / head.)
4) Reptile eye-ball construction. (I recently found a reference here to a taxidermy site that I intend to check out in more detail. The eyes would need to be 2" in diameter or perhaps slightly more than that. That's a big reptile!)
Thanks very much!
-= Dave =-
Over the past 7 years, I've become a sort of "extravagant Halloween costumer". At first, I did this to help support a small local children's Halloween festival. But then my sister-in-law got breast cancer, was treated, and fought it off successfully. And now, every year here in Kansas City, around Halloween-time, the Making Strides against Breast Cancer walk takes place... and my sister-in-law hosts basically an all-day-party, which we end by going to a big local retro bar for their Halloween costume contest. So, my friends and family have become my big fans on this.
In past years, I've done mostly human / humanoid costumes: Robocop was my first one (and dearest to my heart, since I truly was guessing my way through everything).
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/robo/Festival003.jpg
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/robo/halloween3.jpg
Then War Machine, then Iron Man, and then Davey Jones (dipped into latex mask-making there).
"http://www.davidraasch.com/images/war_machine/Halloween%202010%20003%20half-sized.jpg
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/ironman/064.JPG
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/davey_jones/12.jpg
So, this year, I've decided to build a Velociraptor (and have my wife accompany me as the "Jurrasic Park ranger" who has me on a leash).
I've got a "build thread" on this costume started over at the RPF forums: http://www.therpf.com/f24/velociraptor-build-thread-target-date-halloween-2013-a-188472/
Here's a slightly-out-of-date photo of the head I've been carving:
http://www.davidraasch.com/images/raptor/raptor_Aug8_progress_06.jpg
But I'm finding a LOT more helpful "how-to" tips and advice from Fursuit-ers (with regards to this velociraptor costume), since RPF folks mostly do human / humanoid costumes as well.
My key items of research right now (and this is where I'm asking you all for some guidance / advice / links / tutorials) are:
1) Attaching the foam head to my own head ? (I've seen where a lot of people glue the head onto a bicycle helmet? Any other key methods successful folks tend to use?)
2) Rigging up a jaw that opens and closes... also, rigging it up somehow so that I can manually trigger this? Keep in mind that my own head will be in the costume's neck.
3) How to build this thing so that I can see out of the neck, yet that's not so obvious? (I found one glorious Youtube video showing a moving jaw on a head that sits on top of the wearer's head via a helmet... and they SAID there was mesh in the neck, but they never gave a close-up and I sure couldn't TELL the material there was ANY DIFFERENT than the rest of the neck / head.)
4) Reptile eye-ball construction. (I recently found a reference here to a taxidermy site that I intend to check out in more detail. The eyes would need to be 2" in diameter or perhaps slightly more than that. That's a big reptile!)
Thanks very much!
-= Dave =-