Thread: Rabbit Fur and Skulls

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Okay, so we are using rabbit fur for our costumes and I am trying to find the best deal for getting the furs for a good price.
The furs will be used for our White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat costumes and extras may be used for our March Hare prop. We prefer them in white, natural or bleached, so that we can dye them to the colors we want.

Clipper and Cut up grades are fine for what we will be using them for. This site is the one I have found that seems to be the best deal.
http://www.chichesterinc.com/RabbitSkins.htm
Has anyone worked with this company before? Good/Bad reviews?

We are also looking for a large rabbit skull or something that looks like a rabbit skull. Something preferably close to the size of a human head. This will be used for half of our March Hare prop. It will be partially corpsified and used in the Mad Hatters room. The other half of the prop will be the Hare's body elsewhere in the haunt, either in the Queen of Hearts room or in the Technicolor Tunnel.

Any ideas on skulls that we could use and where to find them?

Check with Scourge on here about the rabbit skull,, he may be able to help you out.

Go to your local thrift stores and purchase the cheap fur coats maybe cheaper than the furs

How are you going to use it, I have heard of people using real fur for costumes and getting sever heat stroke as it doesn't breathe properly like most synthetics will. How ever if you are using kinda like draped over your shoulders and in various places it would be fine. I would check you local 4H or post a wanted add on craigslist for furs. My aunt is a Holland Lop breeder and she kills and skins the inferior rabbits for making coats and stuff.

Obcessedw\it - Most thrift stores don't have many white fur coats. We have contact with an ebay seller who sells damaged coats that may have something we can use. $125 for 100 furs isn't too bad of a price, and we may not even need that many.

Biggie - I am aware of heat issues and our actors in restrictive costumes that could overheat have been taking measures to combat that. Vest with pockets containing a cool gel pack or something similar that will made and be placed in the freezer when not in use. I am going to test their longevity but either way I plan on making 2 per actor. Chilled Water and Gatorade will be provided for all actors to keep them in good health.

The fur will be used on the masks and neck covers for the Cat and the Rabbit, as well as on the gloves and tails for both. Hopefully we can get a coat that we can modify to cover the Rabbit's upper chest and arms. The Rabbit's feet and legs may also be covered with the real fur, but since those areas will be close to the ground and easily damaged, I plan to use the small amount of white faux fur we have for that.

Any sort of fur and even some latex masks will have the risk of overheating and heat stroke. My Dad is a former firefighter and everyone participating knows how to react in an emergency. If one of our guide actors needs a break due to overheating we have two others who can take over for them while they rest. We also have no issue shutting down in the event of an emergency.

Cool, I have seen people use small computer fans in the heads of characters and having the exhaust come out the ears. You can have a pretty small package if you use the little 1" fans and a 9v battery.

I was wondering if you were going to do a mascot style costume or just latex appliances? Ive always wanted the rabbit nose and small cat nose with the happy or feline brow to make myself a critter for halloween from northfur ever since I discovered them.

The prices for the costumes are too much for me but the facial appliances and masks are more doable in the under $20 range, especially if you paint them yourself.

Heres a few videos of them and a link to their site is there too, its really cool.

I was thinking it would be cool making a mascot style head, kinda like the bobble head costume or like the creature reacher peter rottingtail, and add real fur to that. That way its not against the skin and like Biggie mentioned you can add fans and cooling inside the head part.

I really like the video of the rabbit face from northfur, but they do have other styles and can custom what you need too, like Big bucky teeth and more bulbous nose for the hare, he was the less refined looking of the 2 rabbits in AIW.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPcloawWLs"]YouTube- Rabbit Nose[/ame] bunny

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmhUrM9vk1s"]YouTube- Small Cat Face - Tiger[/ame] kitteh
http://www.northfur.ca/shop/index.ph...roducts_id=375

I'm making latex masks that will cover the front half of the actors faces. The back will be a cloth backing with velcro or a zipper to close. The fur will be placed over the entirety of both masks.
Mascot heads are useful for adding fans, but being that big and far from the face it you lose a lot of visibility and generally have to use false eyes.

Because we are going to have a lot of black light this year we want to use some UV reactive lenses. We will be getting pink lenses for the White Rabbit and green lenses for our Mad Hatter. Because we are using contacts our actors eyes have to be seen from the mask and should be in relative size to the rest of the face. It is quite difficult to get a mascot head to do that without looking goofy. (I have been trying to no avail with my werewolf head.)

The rabbit nose looks really good, and so does the cat face, but the other issue I have with buying face appliances is that I will have to modify them to get the complete look we want. Our White Rabbit is going to look beat up and have open sores on his face. Our Cheshire Cat has a quite literal face splitting grin. Both would be easier and possibly cheaper to make myself instead of spending a bunch of money on appliances to mutilate and potentially ruin.

I'm looking at rabbit fur because it is considerably cheaper than buying faux fur, even the cheap stuff, and I can dye it any color I want to, which is near impossible to do right with faux. I will be testing some ways to make the skin as thin as possible without losing fur, hopefully getting more use out of the skins and less heat trapping.

The masks will be moving jaw masks that cover the lower face for the cat and the entire face for the rabbit. I plan on extending the latex higher up to the top of the head to more easily attach ears. I can make the cat mask the easiest because I am playing the cat and I have a head cast of myself. I will try again to get at least a face cast of our rabbit actor so I can more easily fit the mask to his face shape. Getting schedules and supplies to line up right has been difficult.

For cooling, my main concern is keeping core body temperatures down. W. Rabbit will have fur on his face, neck, upper chest, arms, hands and lower legs. On top of all of that he will be wearing a vest, pants and a large tails, or frock coat. As the Cat, I have it a little easier, having fur only one my face, neck and hands. I will be wearing a dress shirt and nice looking suit that might be made of faux suede, for the texture.

If Halloween night is warm then I will get everyone in cooling vests before the night gets underway. If it is as cool as it has been for the past few years, I may just have people put them on when they are feeling to hot to be comfortable.

Originally Posted by the dogman

The rabbit nose looks really good, and so does the cat face, but the other issue I have with buying face appliances is that I will have to modify them to get the complete look we want.

I know my posts can be kinda wordy, so Im just pointing out again that that site I linked will customize or make a custom piece(s) for you, not sure on cost, but maybe asking them for a quote could work out for ya.

On furring the face, Im imagining youll have to shave the hair down, especially around the eyes, or you guys will just look like yeti faces, lol, and all facial detail will be lost.

I had wanted to use flocking for an imagined Anubis prop, I had found the info for "furring" to keep contours on someone who built a horse prop.
the link is below, above the first pictures theres a link to the completed look, I think it would look fantastic for what your trying to achieve.

http://animalmakers.com/Services/Cos...s/flocking.php

You can buy flocking sprays, the old glue and place method (individual supplies and kits), and the electrostatic versions at these sites. One day Ill be using these, great for props and costumes, because you can make anything as "furry" as you want, where you want and in levels for a very natural look.

I think it would blend in great with the natural rabbit furs. :3 I hope I helped ya, and I cant wait to see how everything all comes out.

http://www.luxuryflocking.com/

http://www.flocking.biz/index.html

http://www.donjer.com/products.htm#Soft%20Flock

The fur will be trimmed to add better facial details and the latex mask itself will have exaggerated facial details so that when the fur it put on it will balance out.

I know a lot of places do custom orders but I already have the materials to make the masks myself; latex, head casting stuff, clay, mold making stuff; all I am missing right now is the rabbit fur.
To me it is just easier to make it myself and not have to worry about having an appliance ordered then find out there are problems with it, or that a custom order was done but it looks nothing like I want it to.