Juniperpawz - Jupiter’s Little Collection

What I've learned from making 2 fursuits!

I've learned a TON from the process of both of these suits, making my 2nd suit I improved on a lot of stuff I had learned from the first! Here's stuff I would've liked to know before I started either of these

For reference, the white cat suit's name is Sophie and she was made first. The blue one is Raine, and she was made second! I'll be referring to them throughout this.

I've learned nearly everything I know about sewing and these types of craft projects from making these 2 suits, I haven't had any prior experience. This is all very much advice From a beginner TO beginners, experienced makers may say some of this is wrong, this is just my lived experience written down. I figured I'd write all this now while it's fresh in my mind! When you get experienced at doing stuff, you tend to forget what problems you faced as a beginner.

Fur Bulk

Fur bulk is REAL and a MASSIVE PROBLEM when making your sculpt. Regardless of what method you use to make your base, 3D printed or foam. Depending on how short you can shave your fur, fur bulk will add about 1cm - 0.5cm of thickness to your base

Look how much her mouth closed up from the base sculpt! I ended up still loving the end result, but it was a bit unexpected. (Despite learning about fur bulk from my first suit, and ALSO testing fur bulk in Blender with a fur particle system when I was making the sculpt for this head.)

Raine's ear is an unfortunate victim of fur bulk still, but I didn't have time to remake it how I wanted it. I even tried to make it slimmer on purpose since Sophie's ear ended up so stupidly thick 😭

Seam Allowance & Stitches

(Talking PURELY about hand sewing, I've never used a sewing machine, I cannot give any advice for that)

You should be using a blanket or whip stitch for most of your fursuit, in terms of speed and seams, they are the most effective! Whip stitch for most of your face, it's going to be glued down.. so truly you just need the fabric together and not SECURE since it'll be glued. Use the blanket stitch for things like paws or stuff that's more likely to pop a seam (ears? tails? etc)

More experienced suit makers might say use blanket for everything, that may be more correct 🤷‍♀️ Whip/Blanket are nearly the same stitch, blanket is just more secure than a whip stitch, takes a little longer, and uses slightly more thread. I haven't timed other stitches, but the blanket takes me about 5 minutes per inch to do.

On Sophie, I had made up my own bizarre version of a backstitch that was stupidly strong.. but also took a million years to do. It also made my paws near IMPOSSIBLE to turn inside out. Sewing raines face together with a whip stitch was way quicker!

For your face pattern, use next to no seam allowance for the cleanest look. The areas that I added seam allowance on Raine, I really regretted the bulged out look they had. If you aren't confident in your pattern making ability, some seam allowance does give you some wiggle room in terms of how easily your pattern fits onto your base

Designing your suit for airflow

This wasn't actually a problem for me, I did this from the start. But I've worn suits that weren't designed for proper ventilation, and it really just makes suiting a very unpleasant experience. You want to have a mouth hole that is right in front of your own mouth, so you can easily get fresh air in your suit. I'm not saying you HAVE to do this, as not all designs can accommodate this, but it's absolutely something to think about for your comfort!

Another thing I've learned, is the roomier your suit is around the mouth hole, the more overall airflow you get! I tried on my friends head which I sculpted, and they printed in TPU, significantly roomier than Raine, and much more breathable! Raine is still comfortable for me to wear even masked underneath, since I made her ventilation so good!

My future suits I make, I'm going to be looking into TPU due to the sheer weight and breathability difference from my PLA suit!

Non-Fur Supplies

I highly recommend getting hand sewing needles and EVA foam at Daiso if you have one! Daiso has lots of little sewing kits, and I got both of my main needles there. The little circle disks of needles you can find at other stores didn't have needles that were the right size and shape for my hands to comfortably use. Daiso also sells EVA foam in the smaller amounts that you'd need for a suit, unlike hardware stores which usually sell giant square packs of 5

For handsewing, I noticed going for the slightly thicker thread lead to stronger seams overall.

For what you should have in a sewing kit for fursuit, here's what I have (ranked by importance)

Multiple handsewing needles you're comfortable with, just in case you lose one

Pins

Wonder clips (the little plastic rainbow clips) ABSOLUTELY necessary for suit making honestly, they work better than pins in most situations

Seam ripper

Soft measuring tape

Some generic white and/or black thread, as well as your fursuits thread

Safety pins

Overall helpful fursuit supplies

Velcro patches

Masking tape

Duck/Duct Tape

Have garbage shitty scissors, and separate scissors JUST for fabric. Your fabric scissors will remain sharp for much longer if you don't use them on other stuff. (3rd pair of scissors that's not used on tape/sticky stuff, but thread and paper also is helpful. The garbage scissors can get gunky when cutting tape, and your medium scissors remain sharp enough to easily cut other stuff)

Xacto knife + LOTS of new blades. The blades go dull FAST when cutting fur and foam. If you're having to use a lot of pressure to cut through your fur's backing, that means you need a new blade

Box cutter + LOTS of new blades for box cutter. I have a Kobalt box cutter, it's nearly as sharp as my xactos. I use it for cutting out big sections of fur and foam.

I get my eye mesh from Curlworks! I love the visibility on it ^_^

Fur Brands

In terms of my fur company quality rankings, it would be this (I've tried fur from a million different companies on my sample hunt for Raine)

1. Howl Fabrics 2. BigZFabrics 3. MofuMofu.shop

Howl overall is the most dense, relatively soft, and best to shave out of all 3. (Canfur is of very similar quality to Howl, except it has a mild crayon or carpet smell. The smell wears off completely after around 6-7 months, at least on the small sample I got)

BigZ is kind of like a middle ground, but shaves HIGHLY powdery compared to the other 2. As well as shaves a little worse/choppy compared to better quality fur.

MofuMofu is the least dense out of the 3, but I would consider the softest. Best if they have a niche color you need. The fur tends to clump together when it is shaved like sheep wool, and is less powdery than BigZ.

Random furs from etsy are usually LQ/MQ and patchy on their density, not great for shaving super short

Fur Shaving / Length

If you're going for a high quality look on your suit, you want SHORT fur for the face, full-stop. Every suit I've seen that's truly made me go WOW has always had VERY short face fur. Shorter fur shows the look of your sculpt better, instead of hiding it all behind any lumpy fur bulk or unbrushed sections. (Brushing fur doesn't last very long after a suit's been put on haha)

If you can buy your fur in shorter lengths like teddy/beaver, ABSOLUTELY do so. It'll make your shaves much shorter and cleaner. The longer your fur is, is the harder it is to get it to a "HQ" shave length. I personally couldn't get Raine as short as I wanted her to be 😩 But her colors are niche, so I couldn't locate them in shorter fur lengths

Once your suit is complete, don't be afraid to go in there with scissors and your clippers to clean up the fur+markings as well! Raine's mouth opened up a LOT more when i trimmed it down to shape with my scissors

Pattern Making

Avoid putting any seams down the middle of your face, it is noticeable! This is roughly how my pattern for Raine worked, I think the eyebrows helped disguise that horizontal middle seam really well! (the fur from the "eyebrow" piece covers the seam to the forehead piece as it is brushed over it!) I also made the nose bridge it's own piece, to utilize the visible seam to create a crease for it.

I also recommend avoid making any + shaped intersections on your seams if you can avoid it, it's really hard to sew cleanly😭 Sometimes they're unavoidable, but I try my best to avoid doing them.

Wearability

I'm not sure how much this applies to foam suits, but I really recommend using some elastic, a parachute clip, and some velcro to make an adjustable strap to keep your suit on your head! I tried to use foam on Sophie to get a snug fit, it did not work and made her struggle to stay on. The elastic strap on Raine is way better and more secure.

Misc / Random

When making your ears, you don't necessarily need to sew the minky/inner ear onto the fur parts! You can get a much flatter look on your minky if you just glue it on seperate, and have the fur not connected to it

(Specifically for beginner suit makers making personal projects) Not everything has to be perfect! No one will notice your little imperfections, and you don't have to make a nice product for a client. You can leave some things unsewn, you can have tiny bits of foam show from weird angles. You can hot glue some things instead of sewing them to save time. You can have small accidental bald spots. You can have little unsewn holes in corners if it's too hard to sew around those parts. Take it easy on yourself!

You may spring for fleece to save some money on buying minky, I honestly recommend not doing this. Minky feels significantly nicer, and minky from Howl is really not that much more than some fleece, for small pieces like inner mouths, noses, ears, etc, all you need is a "Fat Quarter" sized piece. It's more than enough! And only $6.50 (if you want fleece specifically, ignore this haha. I just regret going for fleece instead of minky on Sophie!)

Carving a foam base, to me, is the hardest part of suit making. So much so, that I never plan to do it again :P It's some people's thing, definitely not mine. If you've been frustrated with how your foam results turn out, consider 3D printing! Or buying a base from someone.

When looking for fursuit advice and tutorials, beyond the obvious places to look (matrices, youtube, google), I genuinely recommend Tiktok! A lot gets posted there for small niche problems you may have

Use this method for tying a knot on your thread when hand sewing, it's extremely fast https://youtu.be/LWWhRtxl6eE?si=AEt2HDiwp09AigOS

When making a 3D printed base, do not go too thin. I'd do test prints to see what thickness feels right to you, raine was about 0.5-0.7 cm but I wish she was a bit thicker because I worry a lot about her shattering 😨

Removeable eyes are very useful, if i get hair in my face I'm able to pop out Raine's eyes to move it out of my way x)