Hey there and welcome to Furry, Explained! I’m Finn, a big black cat from the internet, and Furry, Explained is my show about furries and their culture. On today’s episode, we’ll be taking a look at fursuits, metaphorically speaking, of course, this is an audio based show. But you know those bright, colorful animal costumes that most people think of when talking about furries? Well that’s what we’ll be talking about today. We’ll go over where the whole fursuit idea originated from, and why members of the furry fandom like to wear these big, furry blankets in the first place. We’ll also go over the processes of getting a fursuit for yourself, and what you should expect when going about obtaining your own custom-made animal costume. But before we get started let’s just get this out of the way now, cut...cut the music. Don’t let these custom furry costumes be what’s holding you back from participating in the furry fandom. I’ll go into more detail in a bit but you don’t have to have one of these costumes to be an active member of the furry fandom. At the end of the day, they’re nice-to-haves, not must-haves. But I don’t want to digress too much; fursuits are a fascinating subject to go over so let’s get into it. Welcome to Furry, Explained and we’ll start right… here.

Alright so what is a Fursuit anyway? Well fursuits are custom-made costumes of an animal that is typically owned and worn by members of the furry fandom. Technically fursuits aren’t restricted just being worn by furries; it’s not uncommon for cosplayers to buy and wear them as well. But a vast majority of fursuits out there are owned by members of the furry fandom. And before I forget let me quickly define some terms that I’ll be using when referring to fursuits. Those who own and wear fursuits are referred to as fursuiters. And the act of wearing and performing in a fursuit is called fursuiting. Nothing too crazy and you probably would have figured that out, but I don’t want to assume anything, so hey, there you go. Now fursuits, as you may know, are what the general public thinks of when referring to furries in general. They were featured in that CSI episode back in the 2000s, and often the general definition that many people have of furries as a whole is limited to people who dress up in animal costumes. And you know what honestly, while incomplete, that’s a fair, initial guess of what the fandom is about, as fursuits are one of the most common aspects of the furry fandom that people of the general public get exposure to. Now, many people think that fursuits are no different than just mascots that you would find at a school or from a sports team, but there are some key differences between these two groups of costumes. One of the primary differentiators between mascots and fursuits is that mascots are typically tied to a specific entity or business, such as a sports team. Conversely, fursuits are tied to a specific individual or character, making them a lot more custom and personal than a mascot or any other general costume. Other, smaller differentiators usually come down to customizability and quality; you can get a fursuit designed of just about any animal, real or fictional, and the quality of a fursuit from a well-respected maker typically exceeds that from a more mass-produced costume. Fursuits as a concept can be dated back to, technically as early as the 1940s with Edwin Corle’s Three Ways to Mecca, a novel containing a story about an author who starts wearing a custom dog costume to try and satisfy some inner desire that he himself can’t quite understand. Sounds weird, haven’t read it, but that’s one of, if not the first mention of the concept of what we now consider as fursuits. That being said, fursuiting started to become a more permanent practice in the 1980s, when gatherings of people interested in the idea of furry were being organized at science fiction conventions and house parties. By the time the first furry convention, Confurence 0, came around, a programming track titled “Furry Costuming” was held, which gave those who owned or made costumes of their characters a chance to show off their work and perform. The popularity of fursuiting continued to grow from there, and it followed the general spike in popularity of the fandom in the mid-90s due to the internet, with the actual term fursuit being coined during this time as well. In those early days of fursuiting, most suit-making was done as a hobby by people who were generally dissatisfied with the quality of mass-produced, animal-based costumes. However, by the mid-2000s, fursuits became in such high demand by members of the community, that it allowed fursuit-making to be a viable, and profitable, business. And while many continue to keep the art as a hobby, the fursuit industry is now a multimillion-dollar business, with hundreds of suits being shipped each year. Fursuits are made of faux, or fake, fur that is sourced from different places around the world, including the prominent Fashion District in Los Angeles, California. They are usually completely custom made based on the exact dimensions of the wearer’s physical body, and can take more than 200 hours of work to create. Because of this, as you might imagine, these suits are not cheap. Fursuits typical cost thousands of dollars for the privilege of owning one, with suits from well-respected makers topping out anywhere from $4500 to $6000. Now furries may choose to wear fursuits for all sorts of reasons, but they usually boil down to a few common categories. Interestingly enough, some furries wear fursuits as their job, where they are hired through an agency to perform as their character for a certain amount of time, kind of like a mascot-for-hire. Some fursuiters will choose not to get paid for their performances, volunteering their time instead to entertain at various social functions. This could include doing work for charity, performing at events for social causes, or visiting children at hospitals to entertain them while they await treatment. On the topic of entertainment, that probably the most common use for a fursuit. Fursuiters will wear their suits at parades, meet-ups, and conventions simply for personal fun or crowd entertainment. And in places without no-mask laws, it’s not uncommon to find one or many fursuiters just walking around public areas to invoke a reaction, much like street performers in large cities. This by no means is an exhaustive list, but, no matter what you do with one, at the core of owning a fursuit is putting on a performance. Much like other costumes, wearing a fursuit usually couples with performing in a way that reflects the character’s personality. This is typically portrayed in body language that compliments the suit that the performer is wearing. Because of this emphasis on body language, many fursuiters may speak in a limited fashion with a reserved or terse vocabulary, or even not speak at all. This is due for a variety of reasons, but it’s usually to either preserve the anonymity of the performer, compensate for the fact that the actual suit they’re wearing muffles speech too much, not wanting to break character, or simply because they may not want to. In fact not speaking in suit used to be the standard for fursuit performances, but as the fandom has grown, the practice of staying silent in suit has fallen off for the most part. And with newer designs for fursuit heads better-accommodating speech, it’s not uncommon for fursuiters to speak completely normally as they would out of suit. But, like most things in the furry fandom, fursuits are what the owner makes of them. Some may decide to only wear their suits a few times a year, reserving them for elaborate performances at meet-ups or conventions. Others may take a more casual approach to fursuiting, wearing them often and otherwise acting no differently than normal. But, no matter the reason is for people to have one, fursuits are one of the most popular visual aspects of the furry fandom, and the demand for them sees no signs of decreasing. Speaking of which, now that you have a general idea of what fursuits are and what they’re used for, let’s say you want to go about getting your own. Well let’s take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll go over how you can go about getting your own, custom-made animal costume for you to enjoy. We’ll be right back.


Alright, we’re back. Now that you know a little more about what they are, let’s say you’re interested in commissioning a fursuit for yourself to wear and perform in. But before we get started, there are a few things that I think is important to mention about fursuits and how they’re regarded in the furry fandom. Despite being what most people think of when it comes to furries, only about 15% of members of the furry fandom actually own a fursuit. What this means is that you do not, I repeat do not, have to have a fursuit to be an active member of the furry fandom. I just wanted to start with that because the idea that you’re not a real furry until you have a fursuit is an unfortunate ideology that is relatively popular among members of the fandom, and especially from those on the outside looking in. But don’t worry, I’m here to say that it’s not true; you can have a character, make friends, go to meet-ups and events, make and share content, and otherwise be an active member of the furry fandom without ever owning a fursuit, which is what many people do. Heck, I don’t have one, and don’t plan on getting one for a considerable amount of time. But let’s say you’ve decided you do want to get one, the first thing you should do is to stick to a budget and make sure you are in the proper position financially to commission one. Fursuits are a proper investment and you should never try to be cheap when buying a fursuit; these artists deserve proper compensation for their work, and looking for a deal on a fursuit usually results in a lack of quality, which might actually cost you more, in the long run, getting a poorly made suit conditioned or replaced. Set a max that you are willing to spend and set that money aside for purchasing or, do what I’m doing, and set a savings goal to contribute to on a regular basis until you have the funds readily available to spend on quality fursuit. After you get that out of the way the next thing you should decide is what type of fursuit you want. There a number of different types and styles of fursuits that you can commission and perform in. The most common, and the type that most people out of the fandom attribute to furries, is what’s called a full suit. A full suit, just like how it sounds, is a full costume that encompasses the entire person under it in fur. They generally include a head, the bodysuit, separate paws for the hands and feet, and a tail. The bottom half of full suits are typically split into two subcategories: plantigrades suits and digitigrade suits. Plantigrade suits have little to no padding around the legs, allowing them to follow the shape of the wearer’s body more, and resemble the plantigrade style of walking on two straight legs that humans have. Digitigrades, on the other hand, do the opposite. They are designed to resemble the view of an animal that walks on the toes of its feet. Fursuit makers typically add padding in the thighs, calves, and rear end of the suit and have specially designed feet paws to help with the illusion. Because of their total coverage of the body, full suits tend to be the most expensive type of fursuits, easily ranging from $3,000-$5,000, adding anywhere from an extra $500 to $1500 on top of that price for a digitigrade version. Stepping away from full suits, in the next price bracket down, are half suits, which are suits that cover most of the body in fur. This usually results in suits that include all the pieces of a full suit, with the exception of either the upper, or lower body. These suits include a head, tail, hand, and feet paws, and either furry legs for the bottom half, or a chest and torso piece for the top half, with the lower bodying being either plantigrade or digitigrade as well. The other half that is not in fur is covered with something that is normal for a human would wear, like a t-shirt or sweatpants. Half suits are typically worn to save on costs and overall heat, as it tends to get rather toasty when you’re enclosed inside what’s essentially a multilayered blanket of fur. Next, we have partials fursuits, which vary in definition based on how much the fursuiter is covered in fur. A full partial, as oxymoronic as it sounds, is a fursuit that usually covers the head and limbs. They generally include the fursuit head, arm sleeves and hand paws, leg sleeves and feet paws, and a tail, with the rest of the body covered in normal human clothing. And, as you might expect, partial... partials, allow the wearer to have mostly human clothes on, with only some of their body covered in fur. Many partials have just a head, tail, and hand paws or feet paws. In fact, some may choose to buy and wear only the head of a fursuit, and what’s cool about that is that in the fandom, that’s typically all that’s required to be considered a fursuiter. Many refer to their fluffy headpiece as their fursuit in its entirety, and it’s one of the easiest ways for people to have some kind of suit without shelling out to get their entire body covered in fur. Along with these different types, there are different styles of fursuits that markers create with as well. The style of a fursuit loosely defines how the artist chooses to represent the animal character that they are going off of from an artistic standpoint. The most popular style of fursuit is what is referred to as the “toony” style. As the name suggests, this refers to the suit looking more like a cartoon character, than what that animal would actually look like in the wild. This usually results in features like the eyes, ears, or paws being exaggerated in shape and size, along with the fur being bright colors with various patterns and designs. However, if that’s not enough for you, there’s the super toony style of fursuits. These take the exaggerations from the toony style and turn them up to 11, with things like the ears, eyes, and tails being disproportionately large. Most of these exaggerations are shown in the fursuit head, with it being much bigger in relation to the rest suit, while still having the other features, like the paws and tail, being large as well. Then we have the other side of the spectrum, where we start to get into semi-realistic suits. These suits still have some toony aspects and features, but things like fur color, eyes, and the shape of the paws and tail are usually closer to the real version of that animal. And finally, there are realistic fursuits, which are suits that try to look as realistic as possible. These are a popular style that can be hard to pull off, but when an artist does, they look less creepy and more like a view into a world of what we would all look like if we were actually anthropomorphic versions of our favorite animal. Once you have a design chosen, make sure to have a ref sheet of the character you want to turn into a suit ready for the maker. We discussed reference sheets briefly in the last episode when about fursonas, so listen to that if you confused about what that term means. But the ref sheet is what the fursuit maker will be using to create your character, so make sure it’s as up-to-date, accurate, and as detailed as possible. With that ready to go, it’s now time to start doing some research on some fursuit makers whom you would like to commission. There are a bunch of makers out there, some with large operations with multiple people working on suits at once, down to a single individual that takes a limited number of commissions a year. Speaking of commissions, most fursuit makers open up their businesses for commissions a limited amount of times per year, so unlike buying something from say Amazon, timing is pretty important. See what makers work with your schedule, and if you’re saving up for a fursuit, try to time your savings goal to around when your chosen makers open up for commissions. From there, it’s just like commissioning any other piece of art. Make sure you read and abide by the maker’s terms-of-service, and follow any directions that they provide to try and get your suit in their commission queue. If you’re accepted, most makers will probably have you provide something called a duct tape dummy, which involves you wrapping your body around in duct tape, cutting yourself out of it, and sending it to the maker. Sounds weird but it allows them to have extremely accurate dimensions of your body to make sure the suit they make for you fits comfortably. Think of it as a three-dimensional ref sheet for your physical body. And from there it’s just a matter of being a good, patient customer. Make sure you follow the payment guidelines of the maker, as some will allow you to split up your payments over time, though I personally recommend that you pay off your suit in full as it will ensure you have the funds for it, and don’t go into any kind debt if you can’t make your payments on time for any reason. And then it’s just a matter of waiting. Some suits will take a few weeks to ship, some might take the entire year. But no matter how long you wait, I assure you the day that the large box arrives at your doorstep will be one of the most exciting days of your time in the furry fandom, or at least I hope it is. And once your fursuit arrives, it’s yours to enjoy, so enjoy it! Perform in it, make sure you wash and take care of it, and most importantly, stay safe (fursuits typically have very limited vision that takes some getting used to and, as I mentioned earlier, it can get hot when performing). But no matter what you do enjoy the fact that you now have one of the most unique, colorful, and fascinating creations that the furry fandom produces: your own, custom-made fursuit.


Alright, that’s it for this episode of Furry, Explained! Thank you so much for tuning in and listening, I really hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something new today. Also, one thing I noticed after preparing for this episode is that I didn’t talk about making your own fursuit. It’s a viable option for obtaining one, but I think I want to save that for a separate episode and I’m willing to argue that a vast majority of furries would rather let someone else with proper expertise make their suit for them. Anyway if you think I’m wrong or want to continue the conversation about fursuits or have any feedback for the show, let’s talk on Twitter. I’m @FinnthePanther and a direct link to my Twitter will be in the show notes as well as the references I used when researching this episode. If you want to support the show, the best way you can do that is to subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, feel free to give the show a rating and a review. You can also tell people about it, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you did that as well. We’ll be back next week with another episode of Furry, Explained but until then, stay wild out there! Peace.