What Are Fursuit Tails?
If the name wasn’t a dead giveaway, fursuit tails are tails for your fursuit. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors so it can be hard to put your finger on one to call your own. Like most animals, they each have a unique tail to suit them and when it comes to fursuits, these tails can get pretty crazy whether it be a 5 foot tail that drags across the floor with spikes and ridges for your dragon fursuit, or a small fluffy scut for your rabbit fursuit.
Blue Dragon Fursuit Tail
Image by ChasingTailsWorkshop via Etsy
Where Should I Get My Fursuit Tails?
Etsy
When it comes to any part of the fursuit, Etsy is almost always an extremely useful resource even if it is to find inspiration. You can find a whole catalog of extremely talented artists and fursuit makers most of which are even looking to sell their work. As well as this, they are typically super affordable meaning you can get a few you like and decide on one rather than just doing guesswork based on some thumbnails you’ve seen.
Etsy Logo (if you couldn’t tell)
Image by Etsy
The Tail Company
If you insist on specificity however, the tail company specializes in fursuit tails and they do a pretty damn good job of it. They are a team of fursuit designers who originated from kickstarter but now even make other awesome stuff like bluetooth sound reactive ears. As for their main business, they offer everything from frisky fox and dog tails to scary spined alien tails, so if variety was an issue of yours, not to worry. However, when it comes to pricing, things get a little bit hairy (no pun intended). Because they are an independent team paying for their own supplies, often you will be paying quite a bit but this is not at the sacrifice of quality as the price definitely shows in their work.
The Tail Company Logo
Image by The Tail Company
FursuitSupplies
The appropriately named fursuitsupplies.com is a nice middle ground between The Tail Company and Etsy in terms of quality and affordability. The average tail from fursuitsupplies.com will run you about $30 which is a pretty good deal considering that their tails aren’t vastly different in quality to The Tail Company for almost $100 cheaper than them as well. And, if you’re looking for any other fursuit supplies, as you could probably guess they are also pretty helpful.
FursuitSupplies.com Logo
Image By FursuitSupplies
Commissioning a fursuit has never been so easy!
How Do I Make A Tail Of My Own?
Maybe you aren’t too keen on parting with that much money though and if that’s the case, we’ve got your back. We get it, a tail is an integral part of a fursuit but $150 is a lot of money and possibly money you don’t have to spare on a fursuit so, here’s how you can make your own.
Supplies You’ll Need
The first thing you need to understand is that the process of making a tail will vary depending on the type of tail you are making so, for the sake of argument, we will go with the most common fursuit tail, a fluffy wolf tail. For this you will need the following:
- Needle and thread
- Large Piece of Cardboard
- Material for belt loops (elastic or nylon webbing)
- Felt tip markers
- NFaux fur
- Scissors (Any object to cut with will do though)
- Clips or pins
- Stuffing
- A comb
- A broom or any thin cylindrical surface
Ori And The Blind Forest Cover Art
Image by XBOX
How To Make A Fursuit Tail
If this is your first time making anything of this nature, you should probably buy an excess of some of the materials like the thread and fur and stuffing as there is a pretty good chance you are going to mess up. Also, read around the subject if you don’t find this guide sufficient enough.
1. Draw out a profile outline of how you would like your tail to look on the large piece of cardboard and cut it out
2. Place this piece of cardboard over your faux fur and begin to cut into the fur around the outline. Repeat this but this time with a mirrored version of the first outline you cut out.
3. Place the two pieces of fur over one another so that they are perfectly aligned and place your clips or pins around them to hold them together.
4. Begin to sew these pieces together with the non-fur side facing out. DO NOT sew all the way around and leave a hole about the width of a fist or hand. This is so that you can pull the tail right side out, hiding the stitching of the threads and also allowing you to later stuff it.
5. Next you want to attach a belt loop which is a touch tricker, so we recommend checking out this video to do so.
6. Once you’ve made your belt loop, pull the tail right-side-out and begin stuffing it until it’s as full as you want
7. Once you’ve done that you can now sew the opening shut and Voila! You now have your very own fursuit tail
Of course this isn’t a definitive guide on how to make a fursuit tail and we highly recommend watching several videos and reading other guides, especially if it’s you first time and even more so if you aren’t making the standard wolf tail.
