Spade 1.0 • Built in 2023
As my partner Astra and I readied to go to our very first furry convention in 2023, I decided to finally take the plunge and make us some fursuit heads. Honestly, for a very first attempt at a fursuit, I don’t think it’s terrible, especially considering I took probably the worst path to get there.
Starting with only a handful of video guides and a dream, mistakes were made from almost right off the bat. I guess that’s not entirely true. I think the base looked good, especially for my first time working with foam. And I already had some experience with pattern drafting from some plushies I made back in high school. But, I made two critical mistakes when it came to the next step: adding fur.
#1: I didn’t want to break the bank buying expensive faux fur from reputable sources like Big Z or Howl, so I bought this short, silky “bunny fur” from JoAnn Fabrics (R.I.P) that ended up being a pain to work with due to how slippery it was.
And #2: I made my character a warm purple color, because it is my favorite. Unfortunately, that is apparently a very challenging color to make in the world of synthetic fiber, and (referring back to issue #1) I was trying to do this all on a budget. So I made the obvious choice to dye it myself.
That’s right. I decided to hand-dye fake fur with zero prior fabric dying experience. It went alright. I actually think I got the colors pretty close to how I wanted it to look. The trade-off was hours of dyeing, re-dyeing, and generally stressing about messing everything up and having to start from the beginning with new fabric (and costing EVEN MORE money). Did I mention I was doing this all in a very small apartment kitchen?
By the time the fur was the color I liked, the deadline of Anthrocon was rapidly approaching and, already fed up with the fabric as a whole, I did the lazy/rushed thing and skipped sewing most of the pieces in favor of gluing the fur directly to the base. It certainly has its rough parts when looked at too closely, but it passes as alright from afar.
Nevertheless, I was so excited to wear it to AC and I even got a fair amount of compliments (despite it’s lack of finesse). Unfortunately, Spade has mostly been retired and I do not have plans to make an updated version due to one tragic fact: I can’t seem to wear traditional fursuit heads. As someone with eye problems, wearing the head for longer than a few minutes gave me a terrible headache and left me with disappointingly blurry vision for half an hour after I took it off. In 2024, I even switched out the 3-D printed eye blanks to increase the amount of mesh I could see through. It helped a bit, but still left me seeing double after a short time wearing it. Maybe some day I’ll figure out a way to incorporate a small VR headset or a screen so I won’t have these vision problems. But until then, Spade remains mounted above the fireplace (not really, but can you imagine how fun that would be?)
Materials
- Bunny Faux Fur - JoAnn Fabrics
- Some cheap minky fabric I found at Walmart
- Rit DyeMore Synthetic Fabric Dye
- High-density upholstery foam (1" and 0.5")
- Craft foam (3 mm)
- Other miscellaneous art/craft supplies that I don't remember because it was like 2+ years ago