Toothless Quadsuit Update #4

Hi everyone! Welcome to another edition of Friday Fun Stuff! I’ve made a lot of progress on my quadsuit project of Toothless, the Night Fury dragon from How to Dragon Your Dragon. I’m happy to report that I’m getting close to finishing it. The next update will likely be the last before Toothless’s debut at CONvergence, a geeky convention held in Bloomington, Minnesota on July 2^nd through 5^th.

To kick off this update, we’ll be starting with Toothless’s head. I’ve now completed everything from the eyes to the mouth. I decided to open Toothless’s mouth and (a bit ironically) add teeth. I also added some padding around the eyes and nose to give the face more realistic depth. Foam was my friend and (mostly) easy to mold. I used upholstery foam for the lips as well. Once the mouth was open, I cut pieces of stretchy pink material from a T-shirt for the inside of the mouth. The teeth I cut from leftover PVC foam board that was used to create Ruby Rose’s sniper-scythe (see this post). Here is the final result:

Once the head from complete, I moved on to the neck. This was a tricky part because I needed to find a way to anchor Toothless’s head to the metal frame of the body. What I had at my disposal was PVC pipe, a heat gun, and a handyman whose brain works far better than mine when it comes to construction. With his help, we came up with this:

Once I bent the PVC pipe with the heat gun, my handyman partner found a long screw that could hold the pipe at a height that allows my head to move beneath it. Drilling holes into both the PVC and the metal frame, we were able to build something strong and able to easily support the head.

Next was giving fullness to the neck, so I took more upholstery foam and glued/stitched it around the neck frame. Remember the foam piece I constructed earlier to use as the dragon’s chest? I secured that with glue and zip ties until the entire neck came together as a cohesive unit. This is an older version of the build, but I did use the dark foam piece in this picture:

The other big issue I worked on was the wings. Sure, they looked fine in the last update, but they just weren’t good enough. So I added more wingspan, giving more of a curve to the bottom portion on each wing for a more realistic look. Using copper tubing, I made an additional “layer” of wing out of spare black cloth. The new wings look like this:

After that, it was only a matter of adding black fabric and a way for me to see out of the neck. To do that, I found some stretchy black mesh (formerly the lining of a pair of windbreaker pants). Then it came down to a lot of hand sewing. I mean, A LOT of hand sewing. But that was the only way. So once I measured and cut out the proper amount of fabric to fit the entire neck and left clearance for the meshy material that would serve as my viewfinder, I got to work stitching, and stitching, and stitching.

I was initially concerned the neck would look too long, but it turned out well. Of course, I also needed to sew the neck fabric to the head’s fabric in order to bring everything together and give the neck a streamlined look.

So now I only have a few more things to do before I can call Toothless complete. First, I need to hand-stitch Toothless’s spine ridges from base of the tail to mid-neck. I cut out different-sized triangles of foam and covered them with the same material I used for the body. Second, I have to paint scales onto specific parts of the body (head, front legs, etc.) using metallic puffy paint. Third, I need to add Velcro to the under-size of the waist because the zipper I used is a bit too short.

Once those last few steps are done, I’ll be ready to take Toothless out for a test run! I’ll practice walking on the stilts, and most likely end up shocking my neighbors. Be sure to keep an eye out for the final update!

Have a question or thought on my Toothless costume? Leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you. And remember, you can find me on Twitter (@alishabmarie) and blogging on ThreeIfBySpace.net.

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