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Furring

Today I am going to attempt to explain the wonderful complexities of "furring" something -- in this case, a foam-constructed head. A technique I learned from the LiveJournal community fursuit was to use tape to create a pattern, which I'm going to explain in this how-to below, enjoy!

Materials

Foam object you would like to fur (such as a costume head)
At least 2-inch wide Tape (packing, duct, masking, or whatever you think may work best for you)
Razor blade.
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- and/or Needle and matching-colored thread (only requires minimal or no sewing if using hot glue for a head or footpaws)
- or Sewing machine and pins, if making a pair of hand paws.
Scissors (though I mostly just use a razor blade for the majority of it)
Fur (about a yard for a head, smaller amounts if for footpaws or handpaws, depending on size)
Chalk or charcoal pencil (for marking your patterns on the fabric)
Standard plastic hair-comb (for combing seams)

Start with the foam object you want to fur, in this case, I am going to be furring the foam head to pictured the left. But it could also be, say.. a hand or foot paw carved from foam.

Begin with a few rolls of cheap wide tape. I heard duct tape or masking tape works, but this was packing tape I had laying around that did just fine for me. The tape does not actually stick very well to the foam (that is why it is so useful to make the pattern from since it comes right off when you're done). Cut it in approximately foot-long strips or whatever is manageable for you (I had a helper cut the tape into sections for me as I applied them, and it made the process very quick.) This particular tape I had to apply a few layers to make it strong enough as I wrapped it around the form.

Once the tape was applied to the whole form, you can draw directly on top of the tape with a permanent marker. I included the face markings and the placement of the eyes and nose to give me a general idea of how it will look. Make sure to draw arrows to indicate which direction you wanted the fur to go on that particular part, so when you lay the pattern flat you can orient it on the fabric properly to get the best directional appearance of the fur. (it helps to look at pictures of real animals to see how their fur patterns go). Next, draw places you need to cut so you can get the proper fur direction, or just simply the proper shape so you can lay the pattern flat.

Use a razor blade and cut the pieces of tape apart and find a place so you can lay them all flat. Some pieces won't lay completely flat, but remember that fur has some stretch to it, you also may not want to glue the fur into every crevice. The tape-pattern is mostly to acquire a pattern so you don't waste too much fur. Mark each piece left or right so you know how to put it back together. Don't cut the smallest pieces out (the above-eye markings in this case, or if your character has spots) since you can just snip out the piece of fur once its mostly glued and replace it with your spots.

Figure out the direction your fur will be going for the pattern piece you want to cut out first. In this case I cut out the top of the snout first. The tape-pattern is really easy to use, just flip the fur over stick your tape-pattern to it flat, and draw on it with chalk or your charcoal pencil. I left an allowance (the margin between the pattern and the marking where I will be cutting) for myself in case I made a mistake.

Also, if you have not worked with fabric before, do you see the edge of the fabric on the right side of the picture? That is called the "selvedge" its the edge of the piece of fabric that is woven differently during manufacturing so it won't fray, sometimes with fake fur I've seen it also glued or bound. You don't want to use this (sometimes inch or so wide) part of the fabric, since it will usually have a different appearance from the rest of the fur. So orient your pattern so it does not include or overlap the selvedge.

When you have your pattern traced, peel off the tape (I save it until I am done with the mask in case I make a mistake and have to redo an area) and you're ready to cut it out. Use a sharp razor blade and carefully cut along the backside of the fabric. This reduces the amount of shedding and "shaving" the fur (where the fur fibers accidentally cut also, so it can get messy and the fur will have a "shaved" appearance, if using a razor blade it is just cutting the backing and not the hairs so they stay intact) compared to using scissors to cut.

(sorry for skipping a picture for this part) Once you have your fur-piece cut out lay it over your form and start gluing! You don't need much glue to tack it down. If making handpaws using this technique, pin together your pieces and you can either hand-sew or machine sew them together.

For a head or footpaws, smooth the fur out over your foam form as you go along and trim up the excess with your scissors or razor blade. Once you get the next piece of the pattern laid out and partially glued you'll know how it matches up to be trimmed. As you can see in the picture to the right this is a shot of two edges coming together, and in this particular case its on a curved section of the form, where there was a wrinkle that I was looking to smooth out. I cut one side (of the wrinkle) until the fabric on that side laid flat. For the other side I matched it up to the side I cut and carefully matched that edge so the other edge lined up (it will usually end up being a triangle or a curved piece that will be cut out if smoothing a wrinkle). In the next picture you can see that they now mostly line up. You can either use your needle and thread and hand-sew this edge (which has the smoothest, most "invisible" result), or run a zigzag of hot glue underneath the two edges and press the two edges together. When you pull the fur apart after its dried and inspect the seam, you'll notice your seam is diminished, but you can go back once again and run a single bead of hot glue along the edge and press it down and use a plastic comb to comb the fur over in the direction of the fur pattern to get it to be mostly invisible.