Author Topic: Fursuit advice  (Read 14141 times)

Offline aurora

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Fursuit advice
« on: January 14, 2012, 00:19:11 »
This is to be my first time fursuiting as I expect it will be for others attending so I thought I should ask some advice.

What should I wear under my fursuit?

Should I bring a needle, thread and hot glue gun just in case of emergency repairs?

How long should I wear my fursuit before taking a break and are there any dangers of heat exhaustion etc? I notice it gets hot in my fursuit even after a short length of time.

Can anybody recommend any cooling devices cool packs cooling vests?

Any advice would me most appreciated.  :)








Offline RizzoRattie

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2012, 07:00:36 »
hi There Aurora,

Firstly, nice to hear you will be fursuiting for the first time at ConFuzzled.  As a long time fursuiter, I can speak with experience the fun you will have running around in your suit.

With regards to what you shoudl wear underneath, this largly comes down to whether or not you are wearing a full body fursuit or just a partial. 

In both instances, its ideal to wear some sort of head piece underneath your fursuit head in order to prevent sweat getting into the foam and stitch work, and also to try and keep sweat out of your eyes.  Commonly, people will wear head bands or, as I prefer myself, a balaclava



If you are wearing a partial, then usually, whatever clothes you are wearing as the costume should do.  If you are a heavy sweater, you may want to consider wearing some sort of vest or under shirt that is thin but absorbs most of the moisture.  Most importantly, wear a good anti-persperant to prevent sweating under the arms.

If you are wearing a full body fursuit, this really varies for many people.  The most common thing for people to wear is a lycra under body suit:



These suits are excellent at absording sweat and also keeping you cool. 

Another option is, as above, to wear vest/thin t-shirt material.  Again these are usually very good at absording the surface moisture from you, and keeping it from soaking through the fur.

It is vitally important that you do not wear to much clothing or items that do not allow your body to breathe.  If you cut off all air flow to the suit by putting lots of clothing on top, you will suffocate underneath, heat will build up rapidly, and you will struggle to keep cool.  Therefore, if/when choosing a costume for your suit, be wise with how you design it and my advice would be to limit what you wear with it.

As for feet, this varies.  On all of my fursuits, I do not need to wear socks, and ifnact prefer not to as my feet often get very hot and sweaty in suit.  If you have shoe based feet for your suit (which mine is not) you may want to consider socks.  If however, like mine, you have foam based feet with no real insides, you coudl consider perhaps wearing slippers inside.

The most important thing of all is ensuring that you keep yoru suit dry after you have worn it.  Be sure to air it out at the convention and carry some form of anti-bach or febreeze spray that you can use to kill bacteria.  This will help keeping the suit fresh and, as is often overlooked, stop it from smelling and keep it dry.  This is important for people that will want to hug you in fursuit.

The convention provides a very basic sewing kit for on site repairs, but these are for only minor jobs.  Hopefully you wont need use of them.  if however you are worried, it never goes a miss to have some emergency repair kits of your own with you, especially if you know of known issues on your suit and already know how to best repair them.

Lastly, as for how long you should wear the suit?  Well, that is entirely up to the individual.  Some people cannot last an hour before they are exhausted, where as some veteran fursuiters can go 48+ hours in their fursuits without taking them off (not something I would enjoy myself, but have done a 16 hour session before in fursuit).  It is about exercising common sense.  If you are feeling tired, over heated and very low on energy, take a break.  Remember that when you are running around in fursuit, you will use twice teh energy than you ordinarily would, and will get tired quicker.  Be sure to keep yourself hydrated with regular drinks of water and, when you are winding down out of fursuit, drink an energy drink or lucozade to replenish your sugar levels. 

A bit long winded, but hopefully an indepth answer for you that covers all your questions.

Kind Regards,

Rizzorat
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Venue Liaison &
Head of Fursuit Relations
Forgive me for not jumping for joy, bad back you know ~ Scar; The Lion King

Offline SFW

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2012, 17:41:27 »
I'd also add in that taking regular breaks it a good idea. I have a very simple way of doing the dances, three songs and one song as a break. It's a short break and often and it allows me to have a cool down and keep going for longer.
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Offline aurora

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2012, 11:25:03 »
Thanks for the good advice.

The balaclava appears much like the one that my fursuit head is based on, looking on eBay it's a motorcycle balaclava.

I can't find a  lycra bodysuit on eBay of that type there just seems to be pages of Zentai suits, I already have lots of thin cotton T shirts so maybe that would be an option.

BTW have you any experience of using these ice-vests?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300587599797

Obviously they won't be of much use at the con unless there is a way of recharging them.






Offline Fermi

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2012, 11:50:36 »
Aurora, you might have better luck searching for Underarmour on eBay, that's a brand name of what Rizzo is describing, will probably give you some results :)

Offline Canis Rufus

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2012, 20:16:42 »
I'm no wonderful expert or brilliant performer, but here's my advice.

Unless I'm wearing it as a partial, in which case I just wear normal clothes I personally use a cheap Underarmour knockoff I picked up from Wallmart a few years ago at Anthrocon. I'm usually sweating before I've even finished putting the full suit on, but the underclothes do a good job of holding the moisture in themselves and not letting the suit get wet and icky. It still gets a good spritzing with antibactieral "pet oder remover" after wearing it though :P

If you buy Underarmour, which is a brand a lot of fursuiters use, be careful when you buy it, there are two types and it can be hard to tell the difference.

One helps you keep cool, the other warms you up... GET THE COOLING ONE!  ;)

Having said that, I know some suiters who just wear a thin t-shirt and boxer shorts, not sure I would recommend that myself but works for them.


With the rest, my main recommendation is to take frequent breaks in the headless lounge and regularly sip water until you learn your own limit, everyone is different. The headless lounge is also a great place to find things out, I've got some great advice and tips in there just standing in front of a fan and chatting to people while cooling off. Fursuiters in general are a friendly bunch so don't be shy  :)
« Last Edit: January 16, 2012, 20:33:06 by Canis Rufus »

Offline Lost Cause

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2012, 12:14:47 »
As mentioned Under Armor does indeed come in two lines.
The cooling line of under armor is called HeatGear.
The heating line of under armor is called CoolGear.

the diffrence between the two is on the inside.
If you feel the inside of the CoolGear it is very rough
if you feel the inside of the HeatGear it is very smooth.

I recently got a set of heatwear myself and by gods it works but it is not something for fearfully modest. All I can say is thank goodness for a thick layer of fluff going over it.
I payed about 65 Euro for a set or top and pants. I plan on getting a second set so I don't need to worry about washing it during the con though I am told this can be done fairly quickly and easily anyway.
I am terribly inexperianced in fursuiting so I am basicly just passing on what I have heard and have no idea if there are better options out there or how these will really hold up when the real test comes.
What I really want to find myself is a good balaclava. The one I have is far to heavy and if I can get one with a mouth opening so much the better. Less of a fuss to take a drink of life preserving water.

<edit>Ohh! and there are tags on the inside collar that distinguish the heat gear from the cool gear. :P Yeah. Handy those tags.</edit>

Also, you can have lots of fun finding out where your blind spots are! Lots of the videos on youtube talk about the limited field of vision in terms of how narrow it is. I have yet to see any mention how some some only have a field of vision to either side but are totaly blind to what is directly ahead of them :P
I neglected that tiny factor putting mine together. It resulted in a chipped nose.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2012, 23:25:15 by Lost Cause »
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Offline aurora

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2012, 23:09:17 »
That's rather confusing I wonder how many people buy CoolGear by mistake thinking it will keep them cool.  :-\

OK so I now have 4 months to shop for some HeatGear. And I also need to get some balaclavas.

And 4 months to get some alterations done to my fursuit (it's too big).

And some Febreeze.

And whatever else I can think of.

Thanks for the advice guys.






Offline Lost Cause

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2012, 02:12:11 »
yeah I found that a little puizzling too, but it's written on the store tags.
Also feel free to ask the staff in the shop. they can probably offer alternatives. allthe ones I saw were about the same price anyway and underarmor was still recomended as probably the best but there are quite a few diffrent things that do effectivly the same thing.
I am still looking for a balaclava myself.
But you can't go wrong as long as you read the tags.
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Offline aurora

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Re: Fursuit advice
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2012, 21:22:30 »
Quote
But you can't go wrong as long as you read the tags.

Most likely I will be getting mine online so will just have to trust the description as being accurate.