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Pause for Paws

10/12/2022

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Feral canine handpaw prototype
It's been a while since I checked in about my paw project! My last update was in March, when I finished building my most recent Foam Foot from which to make a pattern. Since then I've sewn up Prototypes #4 (with pink beans) and #5 (with red beans) and hopefully have made some progress. As I've mentioned before, I have fantasies of selling this pattern as a download, and maybe actual finished handpaws too. I have been told that the furry world could use another good feral handpaw pattern and that there's probably untapped market demand there.  
Feral canine handpaw prototype
Feral canine handpaw prototype
Above, Prototype #4 (I think?? I'm losing count.) My big problem here is the overly long toes and overly short palm/back of hand, most visible in the second picture from the right. Looks more like a lizard hand than anything canine. 
Feral canine handpaw prototype
Picture
Above, Prototype #5. I still think the toes are too long, but I'm pleased with their overall shapes and that of the hand in general. 
Feral canine handpaw prototype
Side by side comparison of the changes between #4 and #5. I've lengthened the palm in #5 and smoothed out the juncture between that and the bottom of the toes. IMHO this curving, regular line is much more aesthetically pleasing than the previous version. I hadn't actually shortened the toes between the two versions, thinking lengthening the palm would be enough, but I can see that still needs tweaking.
Knuckle comparison of feral canine handpaw prototype
Another side by side comparison of #4 and #5. The seam going straight across the knuckles on #4 seems to flatten out and lumpify the paw. The scalloped seam on #5 in my mind is a great improvement.

There are lots of other differences between the tops of these paws. I made an attempt at tendons in #4 (those vertical seams on the back of the hand) and a more detailed attempt at knuckles in #5. The jury is still out on where I'll go from here. One question is, how much does this add to the aesthetics vs how much work does it add to the project? Also, it remains to be seen if I can actually make tendons/knuckles **work** in this context. IMHO neither #4 or #5 is there yet.

Onward! At least I have plenty of moral (and adorable!!)  support!!
Random cute kitty photo
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Feat of Foam, Part II

3/25/2022

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foam handpaw for fursuit
I think....

​
foam handpaw for fursuit
...that I...

​
foam handpaw for fursuit
...might have just finished this paw. And I'm very pleased with myself. 
foam handpaw for fursuit







And if not, well.... In case you didn't know, that's the canine equivalent of your index, you know, middle finger!!!













​
OK, backing up a little bit and telling the tale from the beginning.
reference picture for canine paw
reference picture for canine paw
It all started with these pictures, my favorite reference pics out of stacks and stacks of pics for dog feet. The pic of the tan dog foot is especially useful as it's relatively easy to see the bony structure underneath the skin.
sketching a pattern for a handpaw for a fursuit
sketching a pattern for a handpaw for a fursuit
Using my handy dandy Artograph projector, I enlarged tracings of these two pictures, one for the bottom of the paw and one for the top, to the size I wanted my finished handpaw to be. These would be my "master patterns" and I would use them to trace out smaller parts of the pattern....
cutting out patterns for a fursuit handpaw
cutting out patterns for a fursuit handpaw
....like so Here are patterns for individual toes and pads, traced from the "master patterns" using the light table and cut out.
I had actually started using these patterns before I started the clay feet I blogged about earlier, but I then I hit a snag and at the time couldn't figure out how to get around it.  
sketching a pattern for a handpaw for a fursuit





​

​Previously, I had also made a master pattern for the side of the foot.

​I used this side pattern to carve out toes.  I used the bottom pattern to make the bottom of the foot, with the pads and toebeans glued  in the appropriate places.  I used the top pattern to make a piece just from the wrist to the knuckles and invented a piece to fill in the sides. I glued it all together and... 
an ugly fursuit handpaw attempt
Yuck. This looks more like a hoof than a paw. There's the question, what to do with the space between the fingers? How to make this work as a glove? The fingers here are all separate pieces but they're all attached to a one piece underside. How would the fingers move?  (I could figure this out now, but this doesn't change the fact this paw is just plain old ugly.)
 a cute cat with an ugly fursuit handpaw attempt


(Awww, poor unwanted ugly paw, Trixie will give it some love.)








a handpaw for a fursuit made of foam
foam fingers for a handpaw
That's when I switched over to making and taking patterns from the clay feet, coming up with this "tubular" style of toes in the process. Here we have our friend the foam foot from my previous post, made from the enlarged and refined clay foot pattern, along with a selection of unattached toes and toebeans, showing off their tubular style. 
But then, as it so often happens, just as I was ready to tweak the sizing a little bit and then call it done, I got very excited about how cool the palmar pad for this foot looked, carefully carved and patterned the way it was. Then I got the itch to do the fingers that way too. I could carve knuckles! And tendons! How cool would that be??
palmar pad pattern for a fursuit handpaw


Here's a refresher ​I​n case you're wondering what a palmar pad is, it's that large pad on the underside of a dog's front paw. Here is my carved foam palmar pad (the thing that looks a little like a yellow fried egg) the pattern I made from it, and a test version sewn from the pattern. It's beautiful, trust me.
foam handpaw for fursuit
foam handpaw for fursuit
 Here, the foam foot with the original tubular toes torn off and replaced with carved toes. The potential  is clear, but at least for me, carving each toe out of a single piece of foam made it easy for proportions and proper placement of various parts to get out of whack.

​I decided to try out a combination of carving, using the "tubular toes", and tracing and cutting out parts from my original patterns, thus coming up with this most recent foam foot. Here's a little demonstration of my method, making a random toe.
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
 First, using the patterns pictured at the beginning of this post and a sheet of 1/2" thick foam, I traced and cut out out two finger pieces and one knuckle piece and glued them into a stack. I inserted a claw shaped piece of cosplay foam in the end of the finger to mark the placement of the nail. I then used a pattern piece from my previous foam foot attempt and glued it underneath my finger/knuckle stack for the "tube", leaving an opening for the toebean. I then started to give the whole thing a little shape with scissors and an Exacto knife.  
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
Next, toebeans. Using my patterns again, I traced and cut out toebeans from the cosplay foam and some  1" thick sheet foam. I glued the cosplay foam into the end of the "tube", being careful to check my reference pics to get it aligned correctly and  at the proper angle inside the toe. (Be sure to line up the tip of the toebean wth the claw!) I then  glued the 1" foam toeabean in, using the cosplay foam toebean as a base.  Using a Sharpie, I sketched out the side of the toebean on the 1" foam and gave it some shape with my scissors and Exacto knife.   
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
Now, to  give the top of the toe a little bit more of a curve. Again I used my patterns to trace out just the half of the knuckle nearest the claw, and just the part of the finger underneath the knuckle. I tapered both pieces with the Exacto knife so they would be thickest around the knuckle and thinnest towards either end of the finger, and glued them into the appropriate spots on the "stack". Then I shaped them a little with my scissors and Exacto knife. 

​Using the patterns like this takes a lot of the guesswork out of the placement of the different parts, such as knuckles and toebeans.
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
The outline of the knuckle was getting a little  lost with all the layering and trimming, so I made the outline clearer by curving a thin piece of foam around it, gluing the foam down, and trimming the top a little to blend it in.   
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
Now to give the underside of the toe a little bit more of a curve. (I'm sorry but that first picture looks really rude!) With a Sharpie, I marked where I wanted the curve to be, cut a slit along that line, pulled one edge of the slit under the other and glued it down.  A curve, tada!
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
And here, our finished demonstration toe. I continued to refine the toes on the handpaw adding little pieces of foam and carving them down to get them just right, but this toe does get the basic process across. 

Now to start taping this foam foot and making the pattern for a fabric foot! So excited!
a fursuit handpaw made of foam
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Feet of Foam

2/9/2022

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a cat and a handpaw built from foam
 As you recall from our last thrilling and chilling adventure! (Trixie can't stand the suspense.) I made a pattern from a clay paw I sculpted, enlarged the pattern with the aid of a projector and sewed together a draft of a handpaw, using the method furry how-to goddess Matrices describes in this tutorial. I promptly discovered that little irregularities become very big and nasty irregularities when they're enlarged like this and wound up with a rather lumpy and misshapen handpaw.  In this episode, how to fix?

One thing I did was play with the pattern on a lightbox, tracing and retracing the pieces to make them more even and symmetrical, and test the revised pattern out by building a foam handpaw. The advantages being that (other than that I could go down a rabbit hole trying something I hadn't done before) if parts didn't work I could rip them off and try different parts, I could be sure all the revised parts would fit together, and I could also retape the foam handpaw for new patterns if necessary.
foam handpaws in progress
Left, one of my earlier attempts at a foam foot. You can see the toes are all different lengths, which was actually intentional. Real dog toes are like this. The two outside toes, the ones corresponding to our pointers and pinkies (the pointer being the one next to the thumb/dewclaw), are usually depicted as being the same length, but the "pointer" is actually a little bit longer. Ditto the two inside toes, with "middle" toe being the longer of the pair.   There's not a big difference though, and for the sake of simplicity I decided I'd make the two inner and two outer toes the same length. Right, the foam pattern with the revised toes.
foam toebeans added to foam handpaws
In addition to playing with the pattern on the lightbox, I also did some revising by building some new parts directly on the foam handpaw. Above, the underside of the paw, with foam "toebeans" added, from which to make fresh, even, symmetrical toebean patterns. Carving the toebeans out of foam and pinning them into the ends of the toes was simpler than trying to revise the enlarger toebean patterns with all their accompanying darts. 
taping foam toebeans to make a handpaw pattern
taping foam toebeans to make a handpaw pattern
Next, taping the toebeans to make the revised toebean patterns. I only taped one inner toebean and one outer toebean, and then flipped the resulting patterns for the other two toebeans. Kitty provides close supervision.
adding a palmar pad to a foam handpaw
Similarly, I revised the palmar pad by building it directly on the foam handpaw. Above, sketching out the shape of  this pad on top of the pattern for the palm.
Adding a palmar pad to a foam handpaw




​And, the carved foam plantar pad, pinned into place to check its appearance before taping.​ (The toebeans vary in number in all these pictures because since they were only pinned on, they kept falling off!)
taping to make a handpaw pattern
Taping to make a pattern for a handpaw
taping to make a pattern for a foam handpaw
Taping up the palmar pad. I wound up cutting the tape pattern apart and re-taping it together a couple times to  to get a pattern with seams I like.
part of a handpaw pattern
Part of a handpaw pattern
Some finished patterns. Toebeans, left, and plantar pad, right. 
handpaw in progress made out of felt
Above, a draft sewn out of felt for this new revised pattern, in contrasting colors to make it easier to see how the beans and palmar pad work. I'm still not 100% sure I'm satisfied with the palmar pad and will probably re-tape the pattern and cut it apart again to get different seam lines.
Handpaw in progress made out of felt
handpaw in progress made out of felt
 Another  view of this draft. The tops of the middle two fingers did not align with the back of the hand properly and left gaps (shown above as green lines.) I hadn't been careful enough to make hashmarks to show how the pattern pieces would line up together after they were cut apart. A total noob mistake.
making a pattern for a handpaw
Making a pattern for a handpaw
making a pattern for a handpaw
Back to the drawing board. I retaped and repatterned the foam foot, this time being more careful with the hash marks. (You'll notice that the foam foot is getting more and more yellow. Fun fact! That's not the lighting, the foam will change color like this if it's exposed to light.)  
handpaws in progress made out of felt
Above, the foot with the gaps on the left, and the foot made from the corrected pattern on the right. Getting there. The foot seems to be getting bigger and bigger with each iteration, probably from adding a pencil line's width every time I retrace a pattern. Next issue to address, shrinking down the pattern a little, which will hopefully just involve scanning it into the computer and reducing it a little in GIMP. After that, adding dew claws, carpal pads, and claws. Fingers crossed!!
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Onto Bigger Things

11/30/2021

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clay paw model for a fursuit handpaw pattern
I continue on my quest to make a handpaw pattern using Matrices' tutorial, in which a small clay model is made, a pattern is taken from the model, and the pattern is enlarged to the proper size with an overhead projector.  I have fantasies of selling said pattern as a download, and maybe any actual handpaws too. Above, my fifth and final attempt to sculpt said model. Now, to take a pattern from the model and enlarge it.
Taping a clay paw model for a fursuit handpaw pattern
Here we have the paw partially taped up, using white Duck tape over a layer of plastic wrap. I've sketched in lines where I think the seams will be, and registration marks (those little hash mark things) to help line the pattern up again once it's disassembled. I forgot to take pics before I started cutting the pattern off, so there's pieces missing between the middle toes here.
Taping a clay paw model for a fursuit handpaw pattern
Here, the underside of the foot, again showing potential seam lines and registration marks. 
Fursuit handpaw pattern cut off from clay paw model
Fursuit handpaw pattern pieces ready for enlarging
The pattern cut off the foot, lots of little pieces everywhere, don't sneeze! Then laid out and taped down on a piece of construction paper, to help keep them from slipping and sliding all over the place under the projector lid. 
Enlarging a fursuit handpaw pattern
Enlarging a fursuit handpaw pattern
And my very high tech projector setup in the basement, a piece of paper taped onto the washing machine for tracing out the enlarged pattern. (My daughter says the projector is the most analog thing she's ever seen in her life.)  I rolled the projector back and forth on its little wheely cart until I got the pattern to what looked like a good size, comparing it other patterns such as Matrices' and Freakhound's to get it in the ballpark.
Enlarged fursuit handpaw pattern
The enlarged pattern, cut out and ready to go.
Fursuit handpaw mockup
fursuit handpaw mockup
And, a first paw mockup using the pattern and cheap material. It does kinda sorta look like a paw, but I'm not happy with it. Next, revisions! 
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Feat of Clay

11/4/2021

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I have two goals in mind here. One to make my own handpaw pattern. The second is to use this really cool technique furry how-to goddess Matrices describes in this tutorial, in which a small clay model is made, a pattern is taken from the model, and the pattern is enlarged to the proper size with an overhead projector. I have fantasies of selling said pattern as a download, and maybe any actual handpaws I make with it too. I have been told that the furry world could use another good feral handpaw pattern and that there's probably untapped market demand there. Charge!

dog paw for fursuit handpaw design

But first, a flashback to our previous post! ​Here is a photo of previous guest's Sadie Rae's paw. Very basic observation here- the foot,  viewed from the side, is largely oval in shape. Both of the top and the bottom of the paw have a curve to them. This is not a difficult concept, not in theory anyway. Shouldn't be too difficult to sculpt, right? (Cues theme from "Jaws"....)

Attempt Number One

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
For this first attempt I tried making a rough paw shaped chunk of clay and carving toebeans out of the bottom and knuckles and toes out of the top. This sculpt has a lot of problems but the worst in my mind is that the toebeans and palmar pad all wound up on the same plane, parallel to the wrist, making the paw look stiff and unnatural. 

Attempt Number Two

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
For this second attempt, I tried to make the angles of the toe bottoms more natural. Closer, but not there yet. The top of the foot also  leaves a lot to be desired, looking like a featureless cube of clay, especially when viewed from the top.

Attempt Number Three

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
Attempt number three, when viewed from the side, has a little more of that oval shape we're going for. The top of this foot also looks more shaped and natural than those in the previous two. However it also looks a little squished and disproportionate. When viewed from the top, the toes look too long and the back of the paw too short.  

Attempt Number Four

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
Attempt number four features... an armature! What a concept! Underneath the clay the armature looks like a little wire tree, with the trunk for the wrist and palm and four branches for the toes. The armature helps to hold the parts of the foot in place, keep them from getting squished out of shape, and maintain the correct proportions.  The wire also makes it easier to bend the toes into the proper position without breaking them off.  I'm happier with this foot, but I can't help but think the back of the paw looks a little swollen, like it was stung by a bee.

Final Attempt

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
​This group of photos shows a slightly earlier version of the last paw undergoing some last minute edits. The first photo  shows the foot being checked against a favorite reference pic, and the second photo shows a tracing of this earlier version being checked against a superimposed tracing of the reference pic. (I especially love this tracing as it really shows how the two outer toes on a dog's foot are different sizes, with the "pointer" toe being larger than the "pinky" toe.) The third pic shows the finished foot, after all the edits have ben made. 
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
Above, a turnaround of this last paw, looking a little worse for wear from the pattern making process. (More on that later!) This paw is also built on an armature, similar to that in attempt number four. ​ Perhaps more improvements can be made on this foot but at this point I was thoroughly sick of clay feet and wanted to get on with it. Charge!
clay model for a fursuit handpaw and a cat
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Sadie Rae Shortpants

11/2/2021

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dog tangling people up with a leash


​Meet Sadie Rae Shortpants, a German Shorthair Pointer owned by my brother Nathan. She recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the grand old age of fifteen. 

One of her favorite pastimes was coralling as many of her human packmates as she could with her leash.




​She was not a lap dog, though sometimes she thought she was.
big dog sitting on kid's lap
dog paw


​
​Sadie was also my model for my potential canine handpaw pattern. She would very much prefer that I Leave Her Feet Alone, but she did cooperate enough for me to learn a lot and make a few clay sketches. What a good puppy!! 

Fun things I’ve learned from Sadie about dog feet (other than that they smell like Fritos): the claws do not come out of the center of the toes, they come out of the side closest to the center of the foot. The first and fourth toe are not the same size, but the first toe (the one closest to the dew claw) is bigger and longer, like a pointer finger, and the forth toe is smaller, like a pinky finger. 



​  

 
dog paw underside
dog paw underside
dog paw underside
And, the palmar pad moves in ways that hurt my brain.  

I'm weirdly into dog feet. I love their sculpted knuckles and long elegant toes. I’ve used the free Freakhound canine paw pattern found here  for my past three partials and really do like the pattern, but I think a bigger paw would look better with the size heads I’d been making. So now I have a lot of clay sketches and an excuse to try to make a canine handpaw pattern of my own! Stay tuned!

(Don't fart Sadie....)
dog butt don't fart
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Handpaw Hijinx

3/17/2019

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Teens modelling handpaws



​So I've made two heads, and now I want to learn to make tails and paws to go with them!! Whee!!! My last blog post covered my tail making adventures, now it's time to move on to paws. Here, my daughter and her BFF model the first two sets I made.
 


Teens modelling handpaws

​While in theory it should not have been too difficult to make a pattern for a tail, I wound up going through three versions before I came up with one I liked. So I was delighted to find Freakhound's free and extremely cool paw patterns online. As it was, I was going to have to learn a ton of new skilz in order to make handpaws, so it was really nice to have that one less thing to worry about.  Click here if you want to check the patterns out.


​

 Some of the things I learned included using bias tape to edge the cuff (Matrices' tutorial here) and appliquing toebeans (Matrices' tutorial here) (and Kloofsuits' here). While Freakhound's pattern includes pretty complete instructions, I also got a lot of good information on general construction from Kloofsuits's two handpaw tutorials (part one) and (part two). These include instructions for doing the toebeans as little "pillows" sewn into the hand instead of applique, and a very good demonstration on making liners.

One thing I haven't found anywhere, however, is clear instructions on adding resin claws. All the instructions I have found are for sewn, fabric claws. So I'll have to figure that out for myself. Supposedly it's just cutting a hole in the fingertips and gluing them in, right? 
Teen handpaw battle
Teen handpaw high five
fursuit handpaws with appliqued toebeans and resin claws
My first pair of practice handpaws, made out of my "cheap" white fur. The toebeans are appliqued vinyl, the claws are resin. The cuffs have a bias tape edging and no lining, since early on in my online explorations I had read that linings were a luxury, good only for retaining sweat. However I found the resin claws made the tips of the fingers floppy and stuffing was helpful in stiffening them. And a liner is useful in separating the stuffing from the hands. Which  brings me to...
Fursuit handpaws with sewn in pillow toebeans and resin claws
My second pair of practice handpaws. These do have a lining as well as the bias tape edging. The toebeans are felt "pillows" sewn into the white fabric, a method Kloofsuits describes in her tutorials above. This method needs less skill than applique to yield a very nice result, though it takes much more time and patience. (This is what podcasts are for!) Even though these were just practice handpaws I wish I had used fabric other than felt, as it pilled all to hell in about two seconds and looks awful. At this point I'm also feeling frustrated by the claws. They look crooked and haphazard in both sets of paws, pointing in whichever direction they feel like when I glue them in, no matter how careful I try to be.
resin claws for fursuit handpaws
So down into the basement I go to sculpt, mold and cast new claws. I based these on the claws in Freakhound's pattern hoping they would better harmonize with the overall handpaw design. I made the originals out of Apoxie Sculpt and polished them to a high shine using the Novus plastic polish system.  I made two modifications to the bases of the claws in the hope that they'd more likely to wind up straight in the fingertips: I made them oval, not round, so I could tell which were the tops and undersides of the claws from the inside of the paw, and I  drilled holes in them for stitching the claws in to the paws to keep them steady while gluing.
black fursuit handpaws with resin claws
And the a third set of paws, this time made of "good" fabric, with faux suede sewn-in "pillow" toe beans and the new resin claws. I'm pretty happy with how these look.

​These paws also have a different kind of cuff than the bias tape edging that Matrices demonstrates. I was OK with less than perfection with the two practice sets of handpaws, but since I'm hoping to sell them I wanted these black handpaws to be perfect. The bias tape edging defied me four times on these paws, and four times I ripped it off. I wound up buying Kloofsuit's deluxe handpaw pattern just for the instructions on this kind of cuff, and I'm very happy I did. The download is available to purchase here.
fursuit handpaw cuffs
And, giving the handpaws a try!
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    I make masks. Because art is more fun when you put it on your head.

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