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Nooooo, I need to put basically all my artistic focus and free time into my cosplay so I gotta skip it this year. I'm also worried that if I did Artfight and carved out a freetime to do it in, it'd give me burn out and I wouldn't be able to work on my cosplay either because of that.

Part two

Alright, so... this specific part of the project was very daunting, and took about two months. I spent so much time cutting out pieces and then scrapping them and then trying to cut them out again, and then scrapping them again, as the head is the most important part of this cosplay so I really wanted to get it perfect. If I make the face look just okay, then the whole cosplay will look just okay, even if I do everything else very well (at least, according to me with all the pressure I'm putting on myself with this.)

Because of this, I haven't documented things all too well, as I'd either be so focused on working it that it skipped my mind, or because I had no confidence that what I was doing was actually gonna work, and didn't wanna bother taking photos if I was convinced it was just gonna fail.

Anyway, here's a really great tutorial I resorted to a lot — the way they explain things just makes sense to me, and teaches a lot of important foundations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbGVwx8M0s

Definitely watch a LOT of different fursuit tutorials if you plan to make one though, not just one. Collect all the tricks and tips you can from a large variety of makers.

So basically, I drew out how the side of the nose, top jaw, and bottom jaw would look on paper, and cut them out to use as a pattern.

(I actually ended up remaking these pattern pieces, though I don't have a picture of that... just made them longer, essentially.)

Having the right shape for the muzzle is one of the most important parts of getting your fursuit to look right — for example, I wouldn't just use the same muzzle I'd use for a wolf as I would for this Steven cosplay. I used frames from the show as reference, and kept small yet distinctive details in mind, like his under-bite.

I used the top jaw pattern to cut out pieces of foam in that shape, and glued them on top of each other so the snout would be wide enough. I hollowed out the inside too, for better ventilation, to make it press against my face less, and to be more accurate to how the inside of his mouth looks.

I did the exact same progress for the bottom jaw and nose, and then pinned them in place before I glued. It's good to pin things before gluing, so you can make sure everything's in the right place — I'm especially prone to gluing things on crooked/asymmetrical.

You can see that I drew his face on the base, just for fun. Not only was this unnecessary as I'd have to draw on the face again later, but it was actually super annoying because it covered up where I marked my eyes, and my drawing was asymmetrical and I was gonna make pattern pieces to draw the face on properly later, so it just got in the way. Thankfully, I had paint pens and could draw over the sharpie with those.

Okay, so... Pretty big jump here. Basically, I glued down the snout and bottom jaw, I added a cheek piece to both sides with the expression carved out, and added eyebrow pieces, plus some strips of half-inch foam just to make the snout and cheek transition smoother. You might notice I changed the expression — before, I made him angry looking, but I found that to be a bit generic, and I thought a sad look fit Monster Steven's personality better (more neutral faces are very good on fursuits/cosplays because they're much more versatile, but I personally like to sacrifice that and go for a more expressive style, and take artistic liberties rather than prioritizing accuracy. Neither of these are "the right way" to do things, just comes down to preferences.)

Here are these pictures that someone on Reddit described as "Freddy Fazbear mogging", which I don't disagree with. I carved the eyebrows some more to smoothen them, and I added another layer to the cheeks, bevelling the edges to give it a smoother transition. I finally got to a point where it's really looking like a fursuit.

Finally I cut out some triangles with half inch foam, and then bevelled the edges to give him teef :)

Very ferocious.

Alright, that's all for this update! Next update will most likely consist of me adding the tusks, horns, spikes, doing some more smoothing of the base, and lining the head.