I am SO fricking glad I'm self-employed...

[Barefootgirl]

Oh, that is amazing! You're very talented. The head in particular looks like it would take an awful lot of work to create.

[spark]

Yeah. The head is the expensive part. Takes about a week, give or take, just for the head.

And thanks!

[EvilEmpryss]

OMG! That's awesome!

At one point I made a stuffed horse and at another I made a fur hat. The hat was a bear because the seams didn't want to lie flat, and the horse was brown and white and just getting the all the fur to lie in the right direction and blend at the seams was a bitch! I can't imagine doing this on a human-sized scale.

I'd sew an Elizabethan corset by hand any day over that.

[Sapphire Silk]

These people have no idea what goes into sewing a costume. Time, lots of time, planning, measuring, material (which is not cheap, even when it's on sale), getting everything cut and matched up, fighting with the machine when it snags/bunches/rips the fabric or breaks the needle, etc.

I took four years of Home Economics in high school, and still can't sew a stitch (I was in it for the cooking half of the class). But I know how hard it is TO sew, and anybody who can make costumes has my

People are too used to the made in China, mass-produced junk you get at the costume store at Halloween. Custom hand work is an entirely different world.

Personally I think it's a huge waste of money to buy the mass produced crap from China because it IS so cheap. You get what you pay for.

[ArcticChicken]

is one I made recently, and is pretty typical.

For only $1300?! Skillz and great prices. Now I now where I'm going if I ever have the money to cosplay my Star Wars character.

[AccountingDrone]

They come in all sorts, but the most common has a head and hands and feet and all.

is one I made recently, and is pretty typical.

Nice. The one I am currently designing a costume for is a giant female mouse from some graphic novel [she is a white mouse dressed like i dream of genii]

[Betweenshades]

There are people like this everywhere! My favorite response from a cheapskate is "it's not how much you can make, it's how much someone will give."

Which is true to a point. But, if I've sold this thing you're lowballing me at for twice what you want to pay before, I will do it again.

[Shalom]

is one I made recently, and is pretty typical.

Wow. That is awesome. (And cute. I wanna go over there and scritch him behind the ears, although I don't know how a wolf would react to that.)

I have zero talent in that direction; it's just something I can't do, like drawing anything that looks like something, but I can recognise talent when I see it in someone else's work.

(I was going to say, why not quote him a price of twice your usual and let him bargain you down to your going rate, but it then occurred to me that unless you got 100% of the money up front, you would probably not get paid even that price, as once it's completed he'd be likely to try and bargain you down, figuring that once you've sunk all that time and material, you'd rather cave than lose your investment. And even if you did collect before you started, he sounds like he'd be a pain in the gluteus maximus to work for. You're better off without customers like that.)

[Darkforge]

god I hate people like that.

I do LRPing and ren faire style stuff myself and I know just how hard it is to make costumes.

I've made my own barbarian style costume using fake fur and that was such a royal pain that I swore i'd never work with fur again.

I know a lot of people who've established themselves making kit and costumes for all sorts and they'll agree with you and throw away idiots like that one as they just aren't worth the hassle.

also, your stuff is a bargain price for what the end result is, heck if i came into more money i'd probably have an order or two for you myself...

[Nayeli_Sabia]

Buh....a grand? For a hand made full body costume? O.o what in the nine hells is he smoking.

I mean, hell, I've been assembling a costume for the local renfaire over the past few years, and I've spent about four hundred bucks on just the basics, and I thought I was pretty lucky for that! And thats barely anything compared to what he wanted....

I consider myself beyond blessed to have a mother who sews (she used to alter wedding gowns, and she made my sister's wedding gown. She also made our prom gowns.) Our fest costumes... she made mine and my daughter's for the cost of patterns and materials, plus a few trips for coffee. We also gave her the free tickets from when daughter won the costume contest(she was in the "enters for free" age). We're moving now, and I'm going to miss her skills and professional sewing machine. I need to learn to sew.


To the OP: sucky customers like this is exactly why my mom no longer works with the public, sewing-wise.

[bunnyboy]

Buh....a grand? For a hand made full body costume? O.o what in the nine hells is he smoking.

Oh I know a few fursuitiers who are good up here who would do that for me Of course it's probably because I'd actually help when I could spend the 300+ dollars on fur and foam for them, and actually try to learn how to make one on my own.

Yeah I'm just that kind of guy.

[auntiem]

Wow Spark that is awesome work!
I made one fur cocktail dress and was bloody and in tears - a full suit would have me in the "rubber room".
If this is a trick of the trade you don't have to reveal it - but do you razor off the fur on the seam allowance? That is what I ended up having to do to get the dress to sit like a proper fitted dress.

As for dropping customers - isn't it great when you can "fire" the ones that give you grief?

[thansal]

As some one completely not in the furry fandom, I'm kinda shocked that you would make something like you linked for around $1300.

I always assumed that a full fursuit would run a minimum of $2K (assuming it's good).

My assumption on the SC?

It's a kid.
If a grand took him a long time to get together he lives with his parents and is probably in HS. Any one who has had a 'real' job (aka, any one here) has a better understanding of money.

I mean, I had the same outlook as him when I was in HS, I was thrilled making a couple grand over the summer, and I spent in seriously on my (then) serious hobby, aka: I built a really nice gaming PC :P

I always looked at the more expensive hobbies (anything from GW, LARPing, SCA, etc etc), and always thought "Wow, I will never understand how people could drop that much money on something". Didn't stop me from drooling over stuff, but still.




And I completely forgot to say:
That's an AWESOME piece of work.
As I'm curious, how much would/did that piece go for? If it's really only $1300 I'm shocked.

[Andara Bledin]

If a grand took him a long time to get together he lives with his parents and is probably in HS. Any one who has had a 'real' job (aka, any one here) has a better understanding of money.

No. There are plenty of fully functional and working adults who have no concept of the value of hand work. These are the same type of people who have no idea where the hell food comes from.

^-.-^

[spark]

It really was $1,300. If I buckle down and act like I have a real job (which I do sometimes, but not always! ) it takes me about two weeks to make one, so the price is reflective of what I'd like to make for two weeks work, ie. around $900 after supplies and things. Though I really don't make $1800 a month, since I *don't* always put in full time hours, I like to take time off.

Also, I think it's kind of funny how much most people hate working with fur, because I hate working with non-fur! I've gotten used to how forgiving fur is. If I end up with my pieces not lining up perfectly, I can ease the edges together, and if the easing goes a bit skiwumpus and ends up with those little bobbly ruffled edges... you'll never know! It's fur! How the back looks doesn't show!

And no, I don't usually razor the seams. Same reason. Unlike a dress where you can tell if it's lying perfectly flat or not, on a fursuit it doesn't really matter. Though on the head, and in the hands, and anywhere else where there's fiddly detail or where bulky seams *would* show I hand sew with a tight whip stitch, so there's no seam allowance left hanging over. But on the body it's baggy and fluffy, so it doesn't really matter if I trim the seams and iron them flat or not. (In fact one should probably not iron fur, it's way too easy to ruin it that way, fur doesn't like heat much.)