Dragon 'fur'?

[panikwolf]

Hello, I was just wondering, what type of 'fur' or materials is most famous on dragons. It's not really fur and has a very short pile. Can somebody help me out with where I can get it? Oh and is it more or less expensive then faux fur?

[dinosaurdammit]

Mink?

[sunandshadow]

I always thought textured ultrasuede or other fake suede would make lovely dragon skin.

[Ozriel]

No furs for drsgons unless you are attempting to make it cuddly.

[Trpdwarf]

There are some unusual suede with patterned print(but it's rare and at times it seems the makers privileged enough to work with it/find it gaurd the source rather zealously) but if you ask me the best thing to do is use fleece or suede...and make us of airbrush paint. I've made scalies before, and if you pair that up with some creative scaling methods you can come up with some pretty rad stuff.

[Foxfairy]

Most people use fleece to make dragons and reptiles.

[Caffeine]

Fleece would work nicely c:

Maybe, if you're really really great at art, you could airbrush or try to paint scales onto it.

[OutcastBOS]

Would leather be workable for it?

[Blarmajin]

Eh, I could imagine Leather getting hot, sweaty and heavy, more so than fake fur.

And mink fur tends to be striped, which is undesirable for a fursuit.

I agree with fleece, or, even "seal" (a short pile, sleek fake fur.).

[Littlerock]

Would leather be workable for it?

Good God no. NEVER use real leather or fur pelts on a fursuit, unless you really know a good deal about taxidermy and leather-working. And even then, the finished product would be ridiculously hot, not to mention high maintenance and ludicrously expensive.

There are fake leathers and suedes that might do the job however, but they usually end up looking very wrinkly and baggy. One could always use a medium-pile faux fur, and literally cut and paint scale shapes into it.

[Taonas-Deridran]

I did a half decent job using marine vinyl that I bought at Joann's Fabric. It's fairly light-weight, but it doesn't exactly breathe. The one nice thing about it is that it has a scaly texture to it.

[Affliction]

I did a half decent job using marine vinyl that I bought at Joann's Fabric. It's fairly light-weight, but it doesn't exactly breathe. The one nice thing about it is that it has a scaly texture to it.

I put this on a pair of boots I made for someone with a star wars costume, and I think it'd look amazing on a dragon... Except like you said, the breathing of the material might be an issue. I don't know if anyone could handle being wrapped up in that for long lol.

[mirepoix]

I have plans brewing for a vaguely kigurumi-style dragon suit. I was planning on using this site (http://www.stretchy.org/) to draft my own catsuit, shimmying it over a duct tape dummy and airbrushing it myself. (I'm going to use his "zipperless" pattern with gloves and a hood attached and an extra sock for the tail under-structure.) The advantages I see to this method is I can guarantee fabric continuity between the body, tail and covering the face. The downside to using a spandex blend is that I have to be sure that everything is smooth and perfect underneath. (I wasn't planning on any padding, digitigrade or otherwise.) I also need to do tests on a sample of fabric to see if I can use an iron to heat-set the airbrush paints. I'm then going to embellish the suit with extra plate scales made out of a material yet to be determined.

Foofers' tail tutorial is a given, and I think everyone and their grandma must have it bookmarked at this point. I feel that spandex will be an interesting fabric to work with, as it will surely wick sweat away better than fleece or mink fur! I believe that starting with solid fabric and doing the scales myself will maximize customization (but boy will it take a while!) Also spandex can be shiny, yaaay. Also WAY less expensive.

http://www.spandexhouse.com/

http://spandexworld.com/!

[M. LeRenard]

Hmmm... old thread.