But you aren’t a dog… you’re a human inside a costume… other people see you as a dog, but you see the backside of fabric and stitching. And what about those folks that say this isn’t convincing? If you can’t convince others then you’ve failed in your quest to be recognized as a dog.
It all comes down to other’s perception of you and there’s the weak-link. Can’t control what others think about you. I see a guy in a dog costume, therefor you aren’t a dog.
I was half expecting some ghastly plastic surgery… which would be real commitment, I must say.
I commiserate at least monthly with my child on her continuing disappointment humans cannot turn into cats at will. For her, this would be the primary benefit of magic.
This guy isn’t hurting anyone or trying to take advantage of anyone. Why not do something that gives him joy? Looks more fun than the thousands of people who spend millions of dollars on haute couture. Or pricey sports cars they then proceed to drive dangerously.
This part is sad
“I rarely tell my friends because I am afraid they will think I am weird,’ he said in a separate interview with the Mirror.
There is a gargantuan community on the internet that would probably compliment him on the costume, at least.
You would need to: a) add several zeros to the end of the cost for that; and b) I don’t think there are any medical professionals that would willingly perform that type of surgery, although I wouldn’t be surprised if there are.
/me nods.
There’s also the practical aspect that plantigrade legs and digigrade legs are configured rather differently, and walking on all fours (hands and feet) is a bit of a tough stretch unless you have something to extend and support the arms. (there are rigs out there, but they are also expensive.)
I looked into constructing a fursuit a number of years ago, and even back then, it was an expensive undertaking- several thousand USD and a couple hundred hours for a basic ‘mascot’ style setup. something realistic? the price that was listed in the article is about in-line for that level of realism and detail.
I’m thinking the guy had his ankles bound to his thighs/hips, so he was walking on his knees.
Also an arthritic old dog likely wouldn’t be groomed so nicely either.
Title should be “Man spends fortune on folly, convinces self but not others.”
I hope there’s crossover and cross-pollination from the puppetry world and the fursuit world to combine efforts and reduce development costs for individual furries. I posted this pic in an earlier thread about the full-body puppets at the Bronx Zoo “holiday nights” and they do some pretty incredibly stuff with simple PVC pipe rigs.
A lazy google search of the digitigrade leg tutorials available seems to show a continued reliance on just curving the animal’s raised “heel” around the human costume wearer’s knee (perpetuating the “backward knee” belief) rather than lifting or elongating the foot. Back of the napkin (so all due respect to those who’ve dedicated years to this) I’d love to see something like this, with proper analogues between human and dog joints.
I see the rabbit hole in front of me, and am feeling hoppy…
That… would be painful after a while, but it’s plausible. walking whilst doing a full squat is also difficult.
Let me help with that:
They do mostly rigs for CGI capture, but I imagine one might be able to do a practical costume rig with them. I have no idea how much those rigs cost, though- definitely not cheap…
I can see where using PVC for such a rig would be ‘good enough’ though. That’s giving me ideas now…
So I knew Stalking Cat in passing and sat on both sides of the table for more than a few panels with him at various conventions. Dennis was an interesting person to say the least and I was saddened to hear how his life ended. He said that his body modifications could not legally be performed as surgery, least the practitioner risk losing their license.
Yeah, that was my first thought! I’ve seen some really elaborate fursuits, but this is that rare one that reaches for realistic (for certain values of realistic) in both appearance and size. That’s an impressive feat on its own!
