Shark Suit
Speedy the Hamshark Suit
- Version 1
- Coming soon... :)
Version 1.0 of the Sharky suit, where it all began...
After attending Anthroon 2001, Sharky fell in love with the idea of making his own shark fursuit, and after a year of serious labor, Sharky suit version 1.0 was born just weeks before Anthrocon 2002. The costume was a big success, and certainly stands out among other fursuits for its originality (and sheer bulk!) The images below detail the creation process of the suit, from the very first scraps of foam down to the final product.
The shark suit is broken into three pieces -- the head, body, and tail. Each section fits into the other with a set of rods and tubes to hold them in place, and velcro attached to the fabric holds the seams shut when Sharky is in-suit and wandering around. Each of the three sections is constructed of rigid boogie-board foam, and can't be collapsed -- which makes transporting the suit a challenge, but it is this foam construction that gives the suit its distinctive shape.
Click on the thumbnails below for a larger view of each image.
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Some of the very first framing of the head for the suit. |
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More mature shaped snout for the suit, and the mechanism for making the eyes swivel back in their sockets, like a real shark. While this mechanism did work, it sometimes jammed up and was too hard to control from inside the suit. |
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Now we're getting fearsome ;) The teeth are cast from real shark tooth fossils, then driven into the foam with screws. The teeth had to be filed down before the suit went out into the world, as even the castings of the shark's teeth were sharp enough to cut someone if they weren't careful! |
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Fabric on the head, but without the eyes or teeth; the general shape of the head is finally coming along in this picture. |
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Added holes for the eyes... The jaw opens about 6 inches more than shown here, and has springs to lightly snap it back into a closed position. |
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The whole head assembly, finally completed. |
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A very early framing of the body with the boogie-board foam material, stuck together with hot glue (and simply melted together in other parts.) |
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Here's the lower body with some fabric on it, and extra padding along the inside to help smooth out the shape of the belly. |
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Here you can see the shape of the underside and tail, and the holes for Sharky's legs. |
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Finally assembled and finished! Sharky wore white tights when in-suit at Anthrocon, which helped distract people from noticing this disturbing pair of legs hanging out of his belly... |
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How about a hug...? ;) |