ASH FOX AND KRISTOFFERSON FOX COSTUME TUTORIAL
For my most recent one, a couple of ideas crossed my mind. I had just become infatuated with Wes Anderson and all of his characters so it was a toss up between Max Fischer (of Rushmore) and one of my older ideas, Max from 'Where The Wild Things Are'. Sitting at the computer staring at pictures of the both of them, thinking about which would be easier and also more interesting to do I got hit by one of my best ideas yet; Ash Fox. The perfect combination of Max Fischer's social awkwardness with the same amount of dressing up as an animal as Max from WTWTA. Perfect. Plus, who can resist a little fox who modifies a tube sock as a bandit hat and wears it out in public? Not me.
There are loads of tutorials on how to make a Fantastic Mr. Fox mask, however none of them dealt with how to make the muzzle, something I wanted to do to make the outfit more authentic (as far as an Indian girl dressed as a fox in gym clothes goes...) So here it is, I hope someone out there finds it useful!
WHAT YOU NEED:
- Felt, in ORANGE, GREY and CREAM
- Needles and black thread
- 2 pairs of white socks
- White beanie hat
- Black balaclava
- Paint - white red and yellow. I used oil paint which was fine but it dries really slowly
- Compass
- Cream or grey: sweatshirt and sweat pants
- Cream towel
- Safety pins
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Due to it being the largest piece, cut out the tail first. Make it into some sort of tail like shape and about the length of your forearm (to your fingertips).
2. For the cream bit, just lay the cream on top and trace out the shape I’ve shown, and sew this onto the original tail.
3. Next do the face. Using a compass draw out a 7 inch circle onto the cream felt and orange felt. Cut out the whole circle for the cream then cut this in half. For the orange, draw a line through the middle of the circle and cut out just one of the halves (a semicircle).
4. Sew one of the cream halves to the orange half, try to make the stitches as small as possible so they don’t show too much. Even if they do it’ll make it look handmade so that’s not so bad. (I’ve shown grey up there as you do the same with grey for Kristofferson)
5. Once sewn together, cut out a wedge from the orange half, off centre. This will make the orange segment smaller than the cream and the reason for this is that on normal foxes they have a lot more white/cream showing on their muzzles than they do orange/red, so this makes it look a BIT more authentic as far as felt faces go…
6. Now, take the cut part that is further from the cream, and fold this over to the midline and sew it up - this is going to make a 3D cone shape muzzle for the face. At this point it will become a bit smaller in diameter.
7. Now you can sew on the nose with the black thread, make it sort of a triangle shape. I also added whiskers using those black plastic ties you get to hold wires together but just threading them through the sewn pieces and pulling them out the other end. Another alternative would be to use thin pipe-cleaners. It should look like this now, and will be a cone shape
8. Now for the ears. These are fairly easy and can be made with the leftover felt. Trace out an ear shape onto the orange felt and cut this out, then do a smaller version of this on the cream felt. Do the same for the other ear. Sew the cream onto the orange piece. I did it so the stitches showed and you could also do a BLANKET STITCH to make the edge black - I did this because if you look at Ash’s ears and foxes in general, the outer part of the ear fur is black and not actually orange. Not essential but just some detail to add if you wanted.
Now that all the foxy pieces are done, we move on to the best part, the sock mask!
9. Put on the beanie and put it on your face how you’re going to wear it. Cut 2 holes where your eyes will be and one for around where your nose/ mouth are. Make sure the eyes aren’t too far apart or it will look freaky, and don’t make them too close together or it’ll become a weird cyclops thing. Also, to add to the Ash-ness of the sock, I painted on the rim a red-then yellow- then red line to make it look like the neck of a sock. I did this with oil paints.
10. Looks like a Shy-Guy from Super Mario… Now to add the face and ears. Do the muzzle first - it’s tricky but pull it through the mouth hole and shape it so it’s symmetrical and the right sort of shape, check the profile and amount of orange showing vs cream. Try to get it right! I had to put a fold on each side of mine to get it to sit properly which you can incorporate into your stitches used when sewing the orange and cream together. Sew this in place.
11. Now add the ears onto the best suitable position and sew into place. Another option would be to sew the ears onto a headband, and cut holes into the beanie. This would help with times when you want to take the mask off, if you had some sort of nose or facepaint on. Bear in mind that it WILL get hot in this mask and the clothes!
12. Finally for the mask, add the sock on the top of the head, as this is what makes the mask really. To do the sock, paint the toe and the heel red; I did this using oil paints. I then trimmed the sock at the neck as it was way too long! Stuff it with the sock’s pair, and sew it onto the top of the mask. While you’re at it, paint a red rim onto another pair of socks - these are to wear and tuck your trousers into.
13. Finally, for the badge. Ash wears this little red ‘A’ badge on his top. To make it I cut out a circle of red felt using a jam jar lid, and drew an A on it. I then painted the parts that were meant to be cream (I’m not sure if it was yellow or white so I used both and it ended up cream…) and it should look like this:
14. Now sew this onto your jumper. Put on the towel as a cape and pin in position, pin the tail onto the sweat pants and tuck them into your painted socks, put on your mask and you’re done!
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