Tails

[Randyg]

A while ago I asked about where to find tails, and the only suggestions were cons... so, after spending 3 days that I *really* should have spent doing useful things, I constructed one myself... and since a couple other people asked about them, and there's a thread on the latex blue forum about them, figured I'd post something.



I see looking at the photo my tail is in need of a good brushing (it got fluffed up at the top while attaching the belt loops), and the angle of the photo isn't great... but it's a tail!

it's also a little large, the upper curve isn't quite right (I wanted it to hug my behind closer), this fur fabric really doesn't work too well (only thing I could find cheaply and quickly), it doesn't tend to sit straight for long (need to brace it somehow so it doesn't get crooked and stick off to the side), the wire I have to hold the tail up above my pants tends to get mushed,...


now the question is... how the bloody hell do you sit while wearing one of these? :)

alfador: time for a post with advice for occasional tail wearers.


Most of the 3 days was spent planning, trying different shapes, spending way too long on a failed pattern plan, etc... the actual construction, once I had a pattern, was about 6 hours. hot glue RULES.

didn't have to sew a single stitch... all horizontal seams are done by gluing the fabric to a backing, the vertical seams are done by stapling them to keep the shape then gluing. used a total of 20oz of stuffing.



unfortunatly, now that I have a tail, I've decided it's really not for me... guess I'm just not that furry. :(


oh well, I'll probably use it for my original plan, and that's it... traumatizing college freshmen by having their professor give the day's lecture (this friday, so no one thinks it's *too* odd) with a tail and pointy ears. :)


*is still sad he doesn't seem to like having a tail though*


--Randy

[Allan_ecker]

Well, Alfy's tails are only connected at the belt; he tends to lean forward slightly, pully them up and around him, then sit, with the tails splayed on either side of him.

Yours "hugs" your rear slightly, from what I can tell, so it'll be harder to deal with in most standard chairs. One possibility is to resign yourself to sitting backwards in chairs, or you could try and find some way to allow the tail to be moved more robustly.

On the other paw, while your tail may be more inconvenient, it's also extremely good looking!

[Randyg]

Well, Alfy's tails are only connected at the belt; he tends to lean forward slightly, pully them up and around him, then sit, with the tails splayed on either side of him.

Yours "hugs" your rear slightly, from what I can tell, so it'll be harder to deal with in most standard chairs. One possibility is to resign yourself to sitting backwards in chairs, or you could try and find some way to allow the tail to be moved more robustly.

On the other paw, while your tail may be more inconvenient, it's also extremely good looking!

good looking? you're kinder to me than I am. :)


while I'm not too happy with how it came out, it is the first thing I've ever sewn, and in fact the first time I've even touched synthetic fur. the most I've ever sewn before this was a couple small pockets, fixing the occasional pants seam, etc, and nothing resembling a project.

which is good news for everyone out there thinking of sewing their own tail... if *I* can do it, I'm sure anyone else here can. :)

of course, I use the term sewing loosely, since mine was mostly glued, but the idea is the same.



*hugs allan for the compliment*

--Randy

[RandomScribe]

Hey, that's pretty cool! Rather real-looking, at least as far as I can tell from the photo... and fluffy, too. Fluffy is good. Hm... I wonder what Saundra would think...

Yeah, I wish I had some suggestions for improving the design, but... I don't. >.<

You know, somehow I really can't imagine any of my teachers wearing a tail, even on Halloween... although I do have a friend who would wear a tail and cat ears to school every day if it were up to her... *shrugs*

--RandomScribe, who, sadly, seems to be completely incapable of building anything that exists outside of a computer

[Alfador]

now the question is... how the bloody hell do you sit while wearing one of these?

alfador: time for a post with advice for occasional tail wearers.

The usual method is, when sitting down, to casually swing your hand (either one, but I have to use both at the same time because I have three tails) back to grab your tail close to the base but with room to spare, because you'll want to have a little leverage to swing the tail around to lie parallel to your leg (whichever one is on the same side as the hand you used), as you sit down.

If your chair has armrests, you will be grateful that you only have one tail. I speak from experience. But I'm skinny enough that I can sit in lecture hall seats with one tail under the fold-out halfdesk, and the other two to my left, and just be snug and comfortable.

Don't sit with the tail behind your back, unless you happen to be wearing a squirrel tail, or Sabrina-style skunk tail. It just didn't work for me and my fox tails.

With practice, I can grab my tails, pull them out to the side, and sit down all in one fluid motion. (Well...sort of fluid. ) But if I'm at all non-horrible at giving directions, you should be able to easily sit with tail to side and minimal difficulty.

Hope this helps!

[Alfador]

Well, Alfy's tails are only connected at the belt; he tends to lean forward slightly, pully them up and around him, then sit, with the tails splayed on either side of him.

Yours "hugs" your rear slightly, from what I can tell, so it'll be harder to deal with in most standard chairs. One possibility is to resign yourself to sitting backwards in chairs, or you could try and find some way to allow the tail to be moved more robustly.

On the other paw, while your tail may be more inconvenient, it's also extremely good looking!

good looking? you're kinder to me than I am.

I like it too!!! *MURR* *hugs tail*

[Randyg]

The usual method is, when sitting down, to casually swing your hand (either one, but I have to use both at the same time because I have three tails) back to grab your tail close to the base but with room to spare, because you'll want to have a little leverage to swing the tail around to lie parallel to your leg (whichever one is on the same side as the hand you used), as you sit down.

If your chair has armrests, you will be grateful that you only have one tail. I speak from experience. But I'm skinny enough that I can sit in lecture hall seats with one tail under the fold-out halfdesk, and the other two to my left, and just be snug and comfortable.

Don't sit with the tail behind your back, unless you happen to be wearing a squirrel tail, or Sabrina-style skunk tail. It just didn't work for me and my fox tails.

With practice, I can grab my tails, pull them out to the side, and sit down all in one fluid motion. (Well...sort of fluid. ;) ) But if I'm at all non-horrible at giving directions, you should be able to easily sit with tail to side and minimal difficulty.

Hope this helps!

I suspect your tails are substantially smaller and more flexible than mine is... it's a full 7 inches diameter, and doesn't flex at all, since I stuffed it rather tight to get it to keep the curve shape rather than flopping down. it's quite large. :)

I've replaced the former wire pants-attachment device with a 3" wide elastic band around my stomach... holds it much better than the wire did, lets me flex it without fear of it mushing anything, and results in a nice bouncy/swishy look as it hits my legs when I walk.

I can sit using your method in chairs that have no or low armrests, as long as I sit several inches forward from the back of the chair... ones with high armrests, the best option seems to be having it behind my back until it flops over the armrest, or just have it like a skunk tail.

that or sit in chairs sideways, which for chairs with no armrests seems to work quite well, and even flows semi-naturally off the back. :)

I like it too!!! *MURR* *hugs tail*

*huggles back*. thankies. :)



--Randy

[The_Fox]

Well, I'd planned to look into getting a tail at AnthroCon next year, becuase I honestly nearly flunked sewing in Home Ec. =U-U= But, this tail is really good...hard to believe it's a first effort. But it gives a bit of hope. Perhaps I can do this myself.

The Fox - Who will almost certiantly end up hot gluing myself to something...

[Randyg]

welp, my tail adventure seems to be complete...

the class I teach was last night, 7-9pm, and I wore my tail and matching pointy ears to it even though it wasn't halloween for 3 more hours... several students said complimentary things about it, but only one made a furry-related comment. (a student I know outside of class... he made a joke about my being a furvert. on tuesday I plan on asking him how he knew what a furvert was, and suggesting it was due to firsthand expierence. :)


I also wore it all day today, including hiking down santa cruz's main road in traffic, two trips on the bus, to the dining commons, and to the classes I'm taking. (I teach a class on assembly language programming, microcontroller programming, and general computer architecture stuff, while taking classes, consisting of advanced algorithm analysis, computational models, and cryptography theory... the last of which, while I'm technically a student in it, I know the professor outside of class and we're working on some stuff for a paper)

while hiking along mission street for about 15 minutes, then waiting 5 minutes at a bus stop, I got probably 10-15 people who honked and waved to me, and a *lot* of people looking at me. most looks were positive, and all the honks/waves were from people smiling.

the first bus trip was relatively uneventful... a couple people looked at it, but only one case of anything more. not many people were in costume, but one girl in a *very* well done hand-made fairy-warrior-rpg-ish outfit spent quite a bit of time looking at the tail and smiling... I was about to ask her about her costume, and the 5 minutes she spent smiling eat-to-ear at my tail while standing behind me, but it was my bus stop. sigh. stupid shy me.

in my first class (algorithm analysis) someone else had pointy ears and fake-fur leggings, but I knew him to be a bit of a jerk, so didn't ask him about them, and none of the other students had interesting outfits.

in my second class (cryptography) the professor (the one I know personally) made a comment about it being quite cute, but none of my fellow students said anything, and no one was in costume... boring people. :)

then went to the dining commons for a snack, which got a good comment from the clerk, and a several positive comments from other students.

lastly the bus trip home, which got several good comments, and one of the few people I'd consider a friend got on... he said it was the most absolutely adorable thing he's seen in a long time. he said something simaler when I showed him some furry art once... I think he's a furry who doesn't know it yet. :)


MANY people first guessed it was a squirrel tail before guessing wolf... I guess I made it too bushy and curly. I like the shape better than the standard straight, medium thickness wolf tail though.


and there you have it! I've managed to successfully bore people to death with minutely details of my day, and you're still reading it. I'm puzzled. :)



I'm tempted to wear it on monday and tuesday too... while I don't think wearing them frequently is really my thing, it was fun.


--Randy

[Alfador]

The usual method is, when sitting down, to casually swing your hand (either one, but I have to use both at the same time because I have three tails) back to grab your tail close to the base but with room to spare, because you'll want to have a little leverage to swing the tail around to lie parallel to your leg (whichever one is on the same side as the hand you used), as you sit down.

If your chair has armrests, you will be grateful that you only have one tail. I speak from experience. But I'm skinny enough that I can sit in lecture hall seats with one tail under the fold-out halfdesk, and the other two to my left, and just be snug and comfortable.

Don't sit with the tail behind your back, unless you happen to be wearing a squirrel tail, or Sabrina-style skunk tail. It just didn't work for me and my fox tails.

With practice, I can grab my tails, pull them out to the side, and sit down all in one fluid motion. (Well...sort of fluid. ) But if I'm at all non-horrible at giving directions, you should be able to easily sit with tail to side and minimal difficulty.

Hope this helps!

I suspect your tails are substantially smaller and more flexible than mine is... it's a full 7 inches diameter, and doesn't flex at all, since I stuffed it rather tight to get it to keep the curve shape rather than flopping down. it's quite large.

I've replaced the former wire pants-attachment device with a 3" wide elastic band around my stomach... holds it much better than the wire did, lets me flex it without fear of it mushing anything, and results in a nice bouncy/swishy look as it hits my legs when I walk.

I can sit using your method in chairs that have no or low armrests, as long as I sit several inches forward from the back of the chair... ones with high armrests, the best option seems to be having it behind my back until it flops over the armrest, or just have it like a skunk tail.

that or sit in chairs sideways, which for chairs with no armrests seems to work quite well, and even flows semi-naturally off the back.

I like it too!!! *MURR* *hugs tail*

*huggles back*. thankies.



--Randy

Hmm...I'd estimate that my tails are about the same diameter--however, they're stuffed so that they're firm, yet flexible and soft. Not understuffed so there's noticable lumps, nor overstuffed so they're stiff and rigid. I don't know how I got so lucky with someone ELSE doing it...must be that she has more experience, given that she MAKES the tails. (Bushycat, from whom I bought each of my tails.)

My ears, also purchased from Bushycat, had a tendency to flop over. So what I did was buy a sheet of conductive foam from the EE store, cut it into the right shape to fit right inside each ear (with an exacto knife) and roll it up, stick it through the headband-hole in each ear, and unroll it within each ear so the foam stiffens the ears. Now they hold up even in rain (though I try not to go out in the rain wearing my ears and tails anyway, because they take ages to dry).

[Alfador]

Whilst waiting at a bus stop yesterday, I found myself among a group of mostly Asian people (I assume from appearance and voice) in costumes, who were so enthralled by my ears and tails that they took pictures of each other next to me.

It's fun to be the center of attention--even on Halloween.

[Randyg]

Hmm...I'd estimate that my tails are about the same diameter--however, they're stuffed so that they're firm, yet flexible and soft. Not understuffed so there's noticable lumps, nor overstuffed so they're stiff and rigid. I don't know how I got so lucky with someone ELSE doing it...must be that she has more experience, given that she MAKES the tails. (Bushycat, from whom I bought each of my tails.)

My ears, also purchased from Bushycat, had a tendency to flop over. So what I did was buy a sheet of conductive foam from the EE store, cut it into the right shape to fit right inside each ear (with an exacto knife) and roll it up, stick it through the headband-hole in each ear, and unroll it within each ear so the foam stiffens the ears. Now they hold up even in rain (though I try not to go out in the rain wearing my ears and tails anyway, because they take ages to dry).

hmm, I haven't had any flopping problems with my ears... but, seeing as I wore them for a total of a day and a half, not much of a test. I was worried they might flop before I made them, so I bought some stiff wire screen from the hardware store with the idea of bending it to the right shape and sewing it in the ear if it flopped, but it ended up not being needed.

There doesn't seem to be any current pictures of you with your new tails on your web site... need piccies! :P

the only tail pic I've seen of you is with a single, not that large tail.


mine is rather firmly stuffed... tended to loose its shape at the top curve and look droopy with less stuffing. this has the side effect of making it completely inflexible... I can tilt it at the elastic band around my waist, but anywhere else can't be flexed or squished.


I'm very tempted to wear it on tuesday as well... it's still close enough to halloween no one will think it *too* odd, right? :)


--Randy

[Randyg]

Whilst waiting at a bus stop yesterday, I found myself among a group of mostly Asian people (I assume from appearance and voice) in costumes, who were so enthralled by my ears and tails that they took pictures of each other next to me.

It's fun to be the center of attention--even on Halloween.

I went food shopping late last night, around 11:30, and a group of 3 people said the tail was the best thing they'd seen that night and they wanted a picture of me... somewhere someone now has a picture of me with tail and ears shopping. :)


I got an amazing number of comments about it being a really good costume... which probably really is just a sad comment on the costumes stores sell.


--Randy

[Alfador]

There doesn't seem to be any current pictures of you with your new tails on your web site... need piccies!

the only tail pic I've seen of you is with a single, not that large tail.

It's not one big tail that looks like three, it really is three of the same kind of tail. Only...the center one I've had for a year longer, and had taken my mother's advice to wash with...in the washing machine. Took ALL the long hairs out, so now it looks completely different in terms of texture.

But new-ish pictures can be found at http://www.nut.house.cx/~nemo/gallery/UJforumfolk , which also has pictures of various other folk from the Unicorn Jelly Forum. Also there is a gallery where I'm in the process of uploading my digital pictures from Conifur 2003. I've only had the time to upload the 10 sample images thus far, because I feel the need to caption all of them. Three of the images will not be shown on that gallery, as they are private.

[Randyg]

It's not one big tail that looks like three, it really is three of the same kind of tail. Only...the center one I've had for a year longer, and had taken my mother's advice to wash with...in the washing machine. Took ALL the long hairs out, so now it looks completely different in terms of texture.

But new-ish pictures can be found at http://www.nut.house.cx/~nemo/gallery/UJforumfolk , which also has pictures of various other folk from the Unicorn Jelly Forum. Also there is a gallery where I'm in the process of uploading my digital pictures from Conifur 2003. I've only had the time to upload the 10 sample images thus far, because I feel the need to caption all of them. Three of the images will not be shown on that gallery, as they are private.

I knew it was 3 seperate tails... I just had never seen them.


yours are definitely a different type of tail altogether than mine... things like sitting in a lecture hall seat wouldn't begin to work with one of mine, much less three... had to stuff mine way too tight to get the curve shape to stay.

yours are straight, so even when lightly stuffed they look normal... with less stuffing in mine, it looks horribly droopy due to the curves.


*hugs all three of alfy's tails* :)


--Randy

[Alfador]

It's not one big tail that looks like three, it really is three of the same kind of tail. Only...the center one I've had for a year longer, and had taken my mother's advice to wash with...in the washing machine. Took ALL the long hairs out, so now it looks completely different in terms of texture.

But new-ish pictures can be found at http://www.nut.house.cx/~nemo/gallery/UJforumfolk , which also has pictures of various other folk from the Unicorn Jelly Forum. Also there is a gallery where I'm in the process of uploading my digital pictures from Conifur 2003. I've only had the time to upload the 10 sample images thus far, because I feel the need to caption all of them. Three of the images will not be shown on that gallery, as they are private.

I knew it was 3 seperate tails... I just had never seen them.


yours are definitely a different type of tail altogether than mine... things like sitting in a lecture hall seat wouldn't begin to work with one of mine, much less three... had to stuff mine way too tight to get the curve shape to stay.

yours are straight, so even when lightly stuffed they look normal... with less stuffing in mine, it looks horribly droopy due to the curves.


*hugs all three of alfy's tails*


--Randy

*Myrfle!* *snuggles*