The Fox (a.k.a. Russet the red nosed fox ) is the second creation of Jason. He won an award at WorldCon, worn by someone else, something like "Outstanding Hall costume" or some shit like that! He has travelled quite a bit, his most notable journey is to Japan. He marauded the streets of Nagoya, confusing and amusing the various passers by! He was attacked by children as he had his photo taken. In the photo to the right are some fine people(and friends) who showed The Fox and Jason a great time... thanks!

Wether it be bowling or running around the streets eying off the fine Pachinko parlors of Japan(or residing in a suitcase), The Fox feels at home. Feel free to look at the video footage of him strutting his stuff.

At home with The Fox and J.A.Wolf.... well, as you can see they can be either best of friends or can be worst enemies. Well maybe not.. but hey...

Step 1: Coarse cutting the foam block
At the start, I didn't have a clue of what I wanted to make. The original idea was a panda from Ranma 1/2. I started by glueing three blocks of foam together to make a decent sized cube of foam. The foam adhesive is pretty damn horrid to smell and gives you headaches. With a good supply of blades, I started carving.

Step 2: Deciding on the fox
I decided on making a fox, don't know why... but I did! Once I did this I scrawled out some lines to follow and went about carving the creature. Once the rough shape was carved I made a recess for a head to go into. This was made by cutting with a knife then ripping the rest out by hand. With the block as it was I couldn't make the whole of the ears and snout, the foam adhesive came back out again and I glued some offcuts onto the top of the partially made ears. Onto this the fur directions were draw.

Step 2: Cutting the fabric
Basically you make patterns on the foam. I drew lines where I roughly wanted each peice of fabric panel to end, then with some scrap fabric I cut out the patterns with the grain lines drawn on them. From this I cut the fur fabric, adding a bit extra to the patter for seams. Around the edge of each part I cut the fur pile down so that where there the peices join the seam is neater. So all the main parts of it were sown together.

Step 3: The mouth
I decided against an articulated jaw, as it was made in foam(and I couldn't be bothered in the end). I made a wired jaw, to which I added some fangs. These were made by filing some peices of MDF. On each fang, holes were drilled to place some wire through it. After filing the teeth were sprayed with white enamel.

After the wire with fangs were set into the mouth, the gum and mouth had to be covered. Once again, I made patterns and glued the parts to the foam. The tongue was sown to the foam.

Step 4: The eyes
A pattern for the eyes were cut out. A dinner table place mat was cut to the pattern. This was then in turn sown to the rest of the "skin" made previously. Fibreglass flywire screening was used for the eye holes. This was then hot glued in place. Inside the foam block black fabric was glued in it so the foam inside wasn't as apparent.

Step 5: Affixing the skin
Basically the skin made before was glued to the foam block, parts were tacked to the block as well to keep it all nicely together.

Anyway that is a bit of a look at making the fox. I'm not going to promise to say how the body suit is made(as it hasn't and probably never will be completed)