# Papillon ears and tail



## Nargle (Sep 15, 2009)

For Halloween, I want to dress as a french person with Papillon ears and tail to match Basil in his Frenchman costume. I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice. 

Papillons have long, flowy fur, particularly on their ears and tails. I figured I could probably buy some extremely long faux fur, but I've never been able to find any at a reasonable price that's longer than one inch. Then, I thought maybe I could use a wig and glue sections of hair onto a foam base? I have no idea how much wigs cost, where to get them, and how on earth I would work with them.

Here are the ears:










And the tail. Think of it as a long, thin tail with long fur flowing downwards. It's usually carried curved up over the back.













Any tips? =3


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## Trpdwarf (Sep 15, 2009)

Distinctive has faux fur that has a 3 inch pile:
http://distinctivefabric.com/fabric.php?product=EXTRALONGFUR1


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## RoseHexwit (Sep 15, 2009)

I'd make the ears on a headband. They're less expensive and noticeable than wigs. Also, for the tail, you could use a wire or cardboard skeleton to maintain the curve. If you were going for a full suit, I'd suggest that you sew the tip of the tail to the back of your fursuit. If you want to use your costume's shirt for other things...then I guess that wouldn't really work.


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## Nargle (Sep 15, 2009)

Trpdwarf said:


> Distinctive has faux fur that has a 3 inch pile:
> http://distinctivefabric.com/fabric.php?product=EXTRALONGFUR1



Do you know where I can find any long brown fur? The closest thing they have is orange =/

Also, I'm thinking 3 inches is still way too short. The fur on Basil's tail is around 6 inches long, and he's 14 inches tall. If scale it up to human sized, it's gonna have to be pretty long =/



RoseHexwit said:


> I'd make the ears on a headband. They're less expensive and noticeable than wigs. Also, for the tail, you could use a wire or cardboard skeleton to maintain the curve. If you were going for a full suit, I'd suggest that you sew the tip of the tail to the back of your fursuit. If you want to use your costume's shirt for other things...then I guess that wouldn't really work.



No, I'm not making the ears and putting them on a wig, I'll probably use a headband. I was thinking of taking a wig and cutting it up and gluing the sections onto foam, or foam coated wire for the tail. I can't seem to find any faux fur that's long enough


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## Ozriel (Sep 15, 2009)

Cute doggie.


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## Tewin Follow (Sep 15, 2009)

Zeke Shadowfyre said:


> Cute doggie.


Everything Nargle posts and says always manages to be cute. :3


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## Trpdwarf (Sep 15, 2009)

The only other thing I can think of Nargle is turning to National Fiber Technologies: http://www.nftech.com/

It's 40 a pop per square foot of their brown beast, and you'd want to call and get a swatch first. 
You'd end up with one wild pair of ears and tail though if you invested the money. Well worth if it turns out right, bringing to con after con. I love NT's stuff. The nice thing is that the material length like a wig, but backing like faux fur. So it's the ultimate long length material for costume stuff like what you are doing. You don't have to worry about creating a backing when you cut up a wig, or you don't have to worry about how sparse and crappy most wigs tend to be with their backing.

To get a high dollar wig to tear up would be the price of getting a little bit of NT material.


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## Ozriel (Sep 15, 2009)

Harebelle said:


> Everything Nargle posts and says always manages to be cute. :3



I know. 


For Long-haired dogs, NFtech is the way to go for pile length over 7 Inches long.
But it can cost ya.


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## Nargle (Sep 15, 2009)

Trpdwarf said:


> The only other thing I can think of Nargle is turning to National Fiber Technologies: http://www.nftech.com/
> 
> It's 40 a pop per square foot of their brown beast, and you'd want to call and get a swatch first.
> You'd end up with one wild pair of ears and tail though if you invested the money. Well worth if it turns out right, bringing to con after con. I love NT's stuff. The nice thing is that the material length like a wig, but backing like faux fur. So it's the ultimate long length material for costume stuff like what you are doing. You don't have to worry about creating a backing when you cut up a wig, or you don't have to worry about how sparse and crappy most wigs tend to be with their backing.
> ...



Oh gosh, that would be SO awesome if it wasn't so expensive!! I can see myself having to use at least 1 square foot for each ear, and more for the tail. So that's at least $150 or so, not including cost of foam and glue and stuff.

How hard do you think it would be do attach a backing to parts of a non-high-quality wig? I have a bunch of felt I could probably sew onto it. Does the wig like fall apart when you cut it up or something?




Oh yeah, and Basil appreciates the compliments =3


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## Ozriel (Sep 15, 2009)

Nargle said:


> Oh gosh, that would be SO awesome if it wasn't so expensive!! I can see myself having to use at least 1 square foot for each ear, and more for the tail. So that's at least $150 or so, not including cost of foam and glue and stuff.
> 
> How hard do you think it would be do attach a backing to parts of a non-high-quality wig? I have a bunch of felt I could probably sew onto it. Does the wig like fall apart when you cut it up or something?
> 
> ...





Make a cap plug out of funfoam to secure it to the bottom of the wig? :/


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## Ilayas (Sep 15, 2009)

Nargle said:


> Oh gosh, that would be SO awesome if it wasn't so expensive!! I can see myself having to use at least 1 square foot for each ear, and more for the tail. So that's at least $150 or so, not including cost of foam and glue and stuff.
> 
> How hard do you think it would be do attach a backing to parts of a non-high-quality wig? I have a bunch of felt I could probably sew onto it. Does the wig like fall apart when you cut it up or something?
> 
> ...




Well consider mixing it up.  If you can match the colors you could use the shorter cheaper stuff for the cheaper parts and then use the more expensive stuff for the fluffy stuff at the ends you could probably get by with a lot less of the expensive stuff.


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## Trpdwarf (Sep 15, 2009)

Nargle said:


> Oh gosh, that would be SO awesome if it wasn't so expensive!! I can see myself having to use at least 1 square foot for each ear, and more for the tail. So that's at least $150 or so, not including cost of foam and glue and stuff.
> 
> How hard do you think it would be do attach a backing to parts of a non-high-quality wig? I have a bunch of felt I could probably sew onto it. Does the wig like fall apart when you cut it up or something?
> 
> ...



If you took and made the entire ear out of the NT material it would not look right Nargle. If they have a shag to match the NF color or close to it....What you could do is get something like the shag from Mendels (http://www.mendels.com/fur2.shtml ) which has a sparse flowly 3 and 5/8" inch pile to it.

You can make a front and a back, of the shag, and then study how it will go on over your form inside the ear that gets attached to what you are using to put the ears on your head. Then study how the long hairs flow out from the dog's ears. Sew to the faux fur or into it so it layers, strips of the NT stuff, and do it stragetically, so you can emulate the places where the long fur comes out without having to use all NT material. I could imagine doing this and only getting two square feet to be able to cover the ears and tail, if it's all brown.


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## Nargle (Sep 15, 2009)

I think the only parts that have short fur are the inner-most parts of the ear, which I could probably just trim, right? The rest is just varying lengths of long fur, so I'd have to probably trim it all up a little to get it to look right. I dunno about getting a separate short shag fur, though. There wouldn't really be enough places to put it to make it worthwhile.

EDIT: I just reread your post, and I think it makes sense now. Since the backs of the ears pretty much just looks like the hair extends from the top all the way down, maybe I could add a strip to the top, and then one on the bottom, with shag in the middle since you won't even be seeing it under the longer fur anyways? I'm not sure how I would do the front, though, since it's a little more complicated.


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## Trpdwarf (Sep 15, 2009)

Nargle said:


> I think the only parts that have short fur are the inner-most parts of the ear, which I could probably just trim, right? The rest is just varying lengths of long fur, so I'd have to probably trim it all up a little to get it to look right. I dunno about getting a separate short shag fur, though. There wouldn't really be enough places to put it to make it worthwhile.
> 
> EDIT: I just reread your post, and I think it makes sense now. Since the backs of the ears pretty much just looks like the hair extends from the top all the way down, maybe I could add a strip to the top, and then one on the bottom, with shag in the middle since you won't even be seeing it under the longer fur anyways? I'm not sure how I would do the front, though, since it's a little more complicated.



http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98/Sanguvixen/THingfornargle.jpg

See where I did those red lines? You would do something like that. Having it sewn in at strategic areas in the front to mimic what you see with the dogs' front ear.


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## Nargle (Sep 15, 2009)

I see.... Aww, Basil is cute X3

Tomorrow I'm going to Party City to check out what kind of wigs they have. I'm also going to see if I can get some make-up to make my boyfriend a faux "Emperor Palpatine" face XD We're going to his cousin's wedding on October 11th, and it's flippin' Halloween themed!! How cool is that??

Oh yeah, just out of curiosity, do you know if Nftech sells just by the square foot, or could they do half a square foot? If I only do little strips of the long fur, I'll probably need a lot less, and I could probably get another half foot of white for the white half of the tail.


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## Trpdwarf (Sep 16, 2009)

Nargle said:


> I see.... Aww, Basil is cute X3
> 
> Tomorrow I'm going to Party City to check out what kind of wigs they have. I'm also going to see if I can get some make-up to make my boyfriend a faux "Emperor Palpatine" face XD We're going to his cousin's wedding on October 11th, and it's flippin' Halloween themed!! How cool is that??
> 
> Oh yeah, just out of curiosity, do you know if Nftech sells just by the square foot, or could they do half a square foot? If I only do little strips of the long fur, I'll probably need a lot less, and I could probably get another half foot of white for the white half of the tail.



I don't know if they would be willing to budge. You have to call them to place an order, it might not hurt to ask. Usually things go by the square foot. Depending upon how money goes on my end, if you end up doing it this way and have to get a square foot of the white, I might buy the half that is left if you get the stuff I use on my dragon costume. It's 5 to 7 inch mod acrylic white. I need to stock up on it for the redo of the tail and head.


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## Azbulldog (Sep 16, 2009)

Find someone with long brown hair and wouldn't mind a haircut.
Other than that I don't really have any advice. I've seen papillons before, so I know how you're probably up for a challenge, but good luck!


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