Costume of Paro the Dragon-tailed Fox
Paro / March 2022
I’ve always been interested in costumery so here is my latest attempt at producing a fluffy costume of my character – Paro, the dragon-tailed fox… thing. He is a a mix of parts created between myself and Tiny Wyvern who is the one who created Paro’s head.
This suit was an interesting build because I used a lot of unusual techniques.
Head
As mentioned before, the head was created by Tiny Wyvern. They did a fantastic job and I highly recommend commissioning them! I did this because I originally wanted this suit done for a convention in 2020 and wouldn’t have finished in time if I did everything myself. The con was cancelled due to COVID but I don’t regret the decision of commissioning Tiny Wyvern one bit! Such a great bit of art!
Photo by Tiny Wyvern
Feet Paws and Legs
The feetpaws were constructed by 3D modelling the foot and lower leg in Fusion 360, mostly because I don’t know how to use any other software.
I then inverted the model and produced a model a mold. This mold was 3D printed and filled with expanding foam! Before casting the feet I made a sock out of quilted broadcloth and glued it to a bit of high density foam cut in the shape of the bottom of the foot. This was to add some comfort and a basic structure to attach everything else.
The lower legs were then attached to some tights and I finished off the upper part of the leg with regular 1 inch upholstery foam. I also made a little butt pad out of upholstery foam to make the leg shape look more natural.
I then covered everything with duct tape to produce a sewing pattern.
Then I cut out the fur, installed some vinyl claws and glued everything down. I 3D modelled some pawpads in Fusion360 as well and 3D printed them in a flexible material called TPU which has very similar chacteristics to shoe soles. I also installed a zipper on the paw cuff so it can attach to the body suit. This gives a nice near-seamless look.
Hand Paws
At this point I was spending waaay too much time on this project and wasn’t looking to invent the wheel for the hands. I opted to purchase the very good handpaw pattern made by Kloofsuits. I changed the pattern a bit to make the paw pads beefier and added a wrist escape since these paws would be sewn directly to the body suit.
Body
I created a duct tape dummy of myself by covering my entire body with duct tape and having a friend cut me out. I could then stuff the duct tape shell of my form with polyfill and use it as a double for my body shape. I created a chest pad to give the chest a more barrelled shape like an animal and placed it on the dummy. I then put the leg padding on the dummy from the previous step and then covered the whole thing in another layer of duct tape. This was only done on half the body since the final product will be symmetrical.
I then drew on the markings and after cutting I had a finished sewing pattern.
I then cut the fur out with the pattern and sewed it together!
Finally I sewed the hand paws on to the body.
It is a bit baggy since I let the duct tape dummy sit for so long as I made this suit. I tailored it in manually for a better fit.
Tail
Soooo…. I didn’t take any photos of this. I mocked up what I wanted the tail to look like in foam and used the same duct tape patterning technique as above to cut and sew the fur. However, the foam was a bit heavy and didn’t move very nicely.
It was incredibly frustrating trying to get a dragon tail that stands on its own and move nicely. I didn’t want it to drag on the ground. I ended up 3D printing a weird skeleton that weights a ton and I’m not 100% happy with. But for now it works.
Finished Suit!!
Here are all the bits of the finished suit.
Photos
Above photos by (in order) Red Claw and Tseatah
Photo by Kravotir
© 2023 Paro -- Artworks ©