Furring a Balaclava hood?
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I'm working on a fursuit head right now, and I've chosen to go with the balaclava hood method.
Is there a "proper" way to fur this? I've seen people use duct tape to make a pattern, and I assume that this strategy will work with this as well. Any thoughts?
The first thing to keep in mind is that when furring you want to ensure the foaming is done completely. Try to ensure the things are smooth....once you get it looking something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnllLOEgjrE
You can go out and get a light tape that doesn't stick too much. Brown packing tape is good. Also get some duck tape, and a few good box cutters of at least three sizes...small, medium, and large.
You tape up the head first with the brown tape. That alone isn't enough because the brown tape is so fragile that when you take it off the head after cutting, it will easily shred. So to remedy that, put a layer of duct-tape over the brown tape. then draw out the basic shapes to be about equal on both side, and then put in arrows to point which way the fur grain should go.
After that use your box cutters to cut out the shapes, remove them from the head and you can use that as a guide for cutting out your faux fur material. Then you hand sow the pieces together, and attach the pieces to the head. I used hot glue for that, and then once you get some major pieces on, it is a matter of sowing each piece to the next. Be careful though to try to not make a seam, but ensuring you pay attention to your stitches.
This is how this head that Zeke and I made 90% done lion headfor a customer, following the above with one minor deviation...we didn't duck tape the brown tape and that was a mess. Next time though, we are using the duck tape over the brown tape.
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A balaclava is commonly used as a base to construct the head. Blocks of uncrushable styrofoam (used in foam mattresses and pillows) are carved to shape the character's head, and then sewn or glued (or both) to the balaclava. Sometimes duct tape is used to help stabilize the foam. From there, fur is then added to that. Again, I've seen it sewn and/or glued.
This is a technique used by many fursuit artists. Experiment and see what happens. There's no right or wrong way to do it, but some ideas work better than others.
For reference, take a look at this Wikifur article: http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Fursuit