Note To Self

Put away sewing before going to bed. Or get up in morning, trip over 14 foot long tail, step on pin brush and fall on spool of thread. Well, that was how I started my day, how about you?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

Obsessed? I’m Not Obsessed… REALLY, I’m not!

When Next You See Me I’ll Look Like This:

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Note To Self

Put away sewing before going to bed. Or get up in morning, trip over 14 foot long tail, step on pin brush and fall on spool of thread. Well, that was how I started my day, how about you?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

Obsessed? I’m Not Obsessed… REALLY, I’m not!

When Next You See Me I’ll Look Like This:

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko: Tail or No?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail… namely for Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko. aaaahhh…. I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox on LJ and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko’s manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days… weird.

Hey, it’s a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I’ll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don’t say I didn’t warn, you… I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go… let’s see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman “in love”. Over this altered picture was the words: “Fear me, damn it!” followed by: “But you’re so cute and fluffy!”.

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with an 8 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion’s mane.

If you’ve never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you’ll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the “edited” tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko “tail thing” attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it’s usualy shown.

And than again, there is Chibi art showing him wearing a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ’s manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn’t wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy’s Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn’t bleed!

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I’ve never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice (well, not including that picture above… she really did great work on that tail).

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it’s not some shawl or cape thing he’s wearing, in fact he’s not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he’s got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I’d like to see you animate a shawl into doing that… deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn’t bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I’ll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don’t know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my eariler post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me.

oh my… I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it’ll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko: Tail or No?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail… namely for Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko. (which btw, I posted on a few other places as well, not just here).

aaaahhh…. I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa/shawl/pelt thing are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail/mane thing. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko’s manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days… weird.

Hey, it’s a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I’ll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don’t say I didn’t warn, you… I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go… let’s see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman “in love”. Over this altered picture was the words: “Fear me, damn it!” followed by: “But you’re so cute and fluffy!”.

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with 14 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground, and yet it still drags on the ground and trails quite some distance behind him. Also in the anime it looks a bit thin and skimpy, but in the manga it’s fluffiness is huge! See picture at left.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion’s mane.

If you’ve never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you’ll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the “edited” tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko “tail thing” attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it’s usually shown. We see this best in the Chbi-art of InuYasha and Sesshomaru as children on the beach, both wearing nothing but swim shorts, and we have a clear view of Sesshomaru with the mokomoko attached to the back of his right shoulder, looking very much like a dog’s tail in the wrong place.

There is also Chibi-art of Sesshomaru in pain, when the mokomoko is being bitten by InuYasha.

One odd bit of Chibi-art shows the two brothers together when InuYasha is a baby, and Sesshomaru is using the mokomoko like an arm and cradling InuYasha with the mokomoko, leaving both his hands free.

Nearly ever piece of Chibi-art shows us Sesshomaru using the mokomoko like it was a third hand, and in every undraped picture of Chibi-art the mokomoko is always attached to his body, either at his but or behind his shoulder.

I say nearly every Chibi-art, because than again, there is at least one Chibi art showing him wearing the mokomoko like a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ’s manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn’t wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy’s Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn’t bleed!

Now, if you’ve read my essay on Lord Sesshomaru vs historical accuracy, than you already know the months of rigorous research that have gone into the design of my costume, and you know that I am making much more than your average run of the mill costume here. (If you haven’t read it yet, than here is the link to it: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruHistory , it is “Part II” of my series of websites on how to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume, parts 1, 2, and 4 can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume2 , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCrossDresser ). Anyways, what my research into every single episode and chapter told me was that Sesshomaru hailed from China, not Japan, and thus his odd outfit which is more Chinese than Japanese, including his Mongolian style battle armor, complete with it’s trimmings of Mongolian sheep skin. (Read my history essay if you didn’t know about Sesshomaru vs China, and than read the manga and watch the anime, several times each, and pay as close attention to it as I did, and you’ll see the connections as well.) Anyways, I point this out, because YES, REAL LORDS DID WEAR THESE BIG FLUFFY THINGS, so on first glances we assume that Sesshomaru is in fact wearing something like real Mongolians did, and Rumiko even said that originally the mokomoko was a part of his armor. However, being a writer myself, I know all too well, how you design a character one way, and than you start writing and the next thing you know, what was once a article of clothing is now a part of their body, as happened with Rumiko in writing and drawing Sesshomaru.

Since the creation of Sesshomaru’s mokomoko, we have seen him use it a third hand to grasp, hold down, squeeze, and throw his victims. I ask you, how many shawls do you know of that can do this?

As Fluffy, (in his dog form) we see that he can be hit, hacked, chopped, mutilated, and have his arm lopped off and take it without batting an eye, even when having a sword run through his eye, and yet after all that bloody fighting, it was a mere blow to the mokomoko that sent him fleeing with cries of agony…. notice that while his clothing and armor vanishes in dog form, the mokomoko is still there and very much attached to him!

Later we see a similar fight, only he in his human form, again, blow after blow does him no harm, than a single whack to the mokomoko sends him flying out of commission, and wounds him so badly that he is now paralyzed for several days (only a few hours in the anime, but days in the original manga)…also note that in the anime he refused food from Rin, but in the manga he only refused food the first few days, while she brought human food, he took the food after she started bringing him “dog food”, (which in the 16th cen, was rats). Also, much of the confusion over the mokomoko comes from the fact that the anime shows him take off the mokomoko in this episode, while in the original manga, we see otherwise: In this chapter we see Sesshomaru laying in a pool of blood, wounded and near death, because of the huge gash in the mokomoko, which is spouting blood and causing him great pain.

There are many mistakes in the anime. Due to the high rate of mistakes and mistranslations that have made their way into the anime, when in doubt, I check the original manga and go with that instead, because the manga is what Rumiko wrote and the anime episodes were made without her authorization of each episode, meaning that she didn’t know what the episode were going to be until she saw them on TV just like the rest of us. In other words, the anime is an adaption of the truth, the truth being the manga, and in the manga, Lord Sesshomaru’s mokomoko is a part of his body which can, and has been wounded.

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I’ve never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice.

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it’s not some shawl or cape thing he’s wearing, in fact he’s not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he’s got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I’d like to see you animate a shawl into doing that… deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn’t bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I’ll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don’t know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my earlier post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me.

oh my… I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it’ll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko: Tail or No?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail… namely for Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko. (which btw, I posted on a few other places as well, not just here).

aaaahhh…. I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa/shawl/pelt thing are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail/mane thing. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko’s manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days… weird.

Hey, it’s a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I’ll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don’t say I didn’t warn, you… I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go… let’s see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman “in love”. Over this altered picture was the words: “Fear me, damn it!” followed by: “But you’re so cute and fluffy!”.

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with 14 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground, and yet it still drags on the ground and trails quite some distance behind him. Also in the anime it looks a bit thin and skimpy, but in the manga it’s fluffiness is huge! See picture at left.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion’s mane.

If you’ve never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you’ll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the “edited” tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko “tail thing” attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it’s usually shown. We see this best in the Chbi-art of InuYasha and Sesshomaru as children on the beach, both wearing nothing but swim shorts, and we have a clear view of Sesshomaru with the mokomoko attached to the back of his right shoulder, looking very much like a dog’s tail in the wrong place.

There is also Chibi-art of Sesshomaru in pain, when the mokomoko is being bitten by InuYasha.

One odd bit of Chibi-art shows the two brothers together when InuYasha is a baby, and Sesshomaru is using the mokomoko like an arm and cradling InuYasha with the mokomoko, leaving both his hands free.

Nearly ever piece of Chibi-art shows us Sesshomaru using the mokomoko like it was a third hand, and in every undraped picture of Chibi-art the mokomoko is always attached to his body, either at his but or behind his shoulder.

I say nearly every Chibi-art, because than again, there is at least one Chibi art showing him wearing the mokomoko like a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ’s manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn’t wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy’s Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn’t bleed!

Now, if you’ve read my essay on Lord Sesshomaru vs historical accuracy, than you already know the months of rigorous research that have gone into the design of my costume, and you know that I am making much more than your average run of the mill costume here. (If you haven’t read it yet, than here is the link to it: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruHistory , it is “Part II” of my series of websites on how to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume, parts 1, 2, and 4 can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume2 , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCrossDresser ). Anyways, what my research into every single episode and chapter told me was that Sesshomaru hailed from China, not Japan, and thus his odd outfit which is more Chinese than Japanese, including his Mongolian style battle armor, complete with it’s trimmings of Mongolian sheep skin. (Read my history essay if you didn’t know about Sesshomaru vs China, and than read the manga and watch the anime, several times each, and pay as close attention to it as I did, and you’ll see the connections as well.) Anyways, I point this out, because YES, REAL LORDS DID WEAR THESE BIG FLUFFY THINGS, so on first glances we assume that Sesshomaru is in fact wearing something like real Mongolians did, and Rumiko even said that originally the mokomoko was a part of his armor. However, being a writer myself, I know all too well, how you design a character one way, and than you start writing and the next thing you know, what was once a article of clothing is now a part of their body, as happened with Rumiko in writing and drawing Sesshomaru.

Since the creation of Sesshomaru’s mokomoko, we have seen him use it a third hand to grasp, hold down, squeeze, and throw his victims. I ask you, how many shawls do you know of that can do this?

As Fluffy, (in his dog form) we see that he can be hit, hacked, chopped, mutilated, and have his arm lopped off and take it without batting an eye, even when having a sword run through his eye, and yet after all that bloody fighting, it was a mere blow to the mokomoko that sent him fleeing with cries of agony…. notice that while his clothing and armor vanishes in dog form, the mokomoko is still there and very much attached to him!

Later we see a similar fight, only he in his human form, again, blow after blow does him no harm, than a single whack to the mokomoko sends him flying out of commission, and wounds him so badly that he is now paralyzed for several days (only a few hours in the anime, but days in the original manga)…also note that in the anime he refused food from Rin, but in the manga he only refused food the first few days, while she brought human food, he took the food after she started bringing him “dog food”, (which in the 16th cen, was rats). Also, much of the confusion over the mokomoko comes from the fact that the anime shows him take off the mokomoko in this episode, while in the original manga, we see otherwise: In this chapter we see Sesshomaru laying in a pool of blood, wounded and near death, because of the huge gash in the mokomoko, which is spouting blood and causing him great pain.

There are many mistakes in the anime. Due to the high rate of mistakes and mistranslations that have made their way into the anime, when in doubt, I check the original manga and go with that instead, because the manga is what Rumiko wrote and the anime episodes were made without her authorization of each episode, meaning that she didn’t know what the episode were going to be until she saw them on TV just like the rest of us. In other words, the anime is an adaption of the truth, the truth being the manga, and in the manga, Lord Sesshomaru’s mokomoko is a part of his body which can, and has been wounded.

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I’ve never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice.

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it’s not some shawl or cape thing he’s wearing, in fact he’s not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he’s got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I’d like to see you animate a shawl into doing that… deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn’t bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I’ll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don’t know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my earlier post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me.

oh my… I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it’ll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko: Tail or No?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail… namely for Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko. (which btw, I posted on a few other places as well, not just here).

aaaahhh…. I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa/shawl/pelt thing are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail/mane thing. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko’s manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days… weird.

Hey, it’s a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I’ll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don’t say I didn’t warn, you… I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go… let’s see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman “in love”. Over this altered picture was the words: “Fear me, damn it!” followed by: “But you’re so cute and fluffy!”.

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with 14 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground, and yet it still drags on the ground and trails quite some distance behind him. Also in the anime it looks a bit thin and skimpy, but in the manga it’s fluffiness is huge! See picture at left.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion’s mane.

If you’ve never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you’ll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the “edited” tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko “tail thing” attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it’s usually shown. We see this best in the Chbi-art of InuYasha and Sesshomaru as children on the beach, both wearing nothing but swim shorts, and we have a clear view of Sesshomaru with the mokomoko attached to the back of his right shoulder, looking very much like a dog’s tail in the wrong place.

There is also Chibi-art of Sesshomaru in pain, when the mokomoko is being bitten by InuYasha.

One odd bit of Chibi-art shows the two brothers together when InuYasha is a baby, and Sesshomaru is using the mokomoko like an arm and cradling InuYasha with the mokomoko, leaving both his hands free.

Nearly ever piece of Chibi-art shows us Sesshomaru using the mokomoko like it was a third hand, and in every undraped picture of Chibi-art the mokomoko is always attached to his body, either at his but or behind his shoulder.

I say nearly every Chibi-art, because than again, there is at least one Chibi art showing him wearing the mokomoko like a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ’s manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn’t wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy’s Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn’t bleed!

Now, if you’ve read my essay on Lord Sesshomaru vs historical accuracy, than you already know the months of rigorous research that have gone into the design of my costume, and you know that I am making much more than your average run of the mill costume here. (If you haven’t read it yet, than here is the link to it: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruHistory , it is “Part II” of my series of websites on how to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume, parts 1, 2, and 4 can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume2 , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCrossDresser ). Anyways, what my research into every single episode and chapter told me was that Sesshomaru hailed from China, not Japan, and thus his odd outfit which is more Chinese than Japanese, including his Mongolian style battle armor, complete with it’s trimmings of Mongolian sheep skin. (Read my history essay if you didn’t know about Sesshomaru vs China, and than read the manga and watch the anime, several times each, and pay as close attention to it as I did, and you’ll see the connections as well.) Anyways, I point this out, because YES, REAL LORDS DID WEAR THESE BIG FLUFFY THINGS, so on first glances we assume that Sesshomaru is in fact wearing something like real Mongolians did, and Rumiko even said that originally the mokomoko was a part of his armor. However, being a writer myself, I know all too well, how you design a character one way, and than you start writing and the next thing you know, what was once a article of clothing is now a part of their body, as happened with Rumiko in writing and drawing Sesshomaru.

Since the creation of Sesshomaru’s mokomoko, we have seen him use it a third hand to grasp, hold down, squeeze, and throw his victims. I ask you, how many shawls do you know of that can do this?

As Fluffy, (in his dog form) we see that he can be hit, hacked, chopped, mutilated, and have his arm lopped off and take it without batting an eye, even when having a sword run through his eye, and yet after all that bloody fighting, it was a mere blow to the mokomoko that sent him fleeing with cries of agony…. notice that while his clothing and armor vanishes in dog form, the mokomoko is still there and very much attached to him!

Later we see a similar fight, only he in his human form, again, blow after blow does him no harm, than a single whack to the mokomoko sends him flying out of commission, and wounds him so badly that he is now paralyzed for several days (only a few hours in the anime, but days in the original manga)…also note that in the anime he refused food from Rin, but in the manga he only refused food the first few days, while she brought human food, he took the food after she started bringing him “dog food”, (which in the 16th cen, was rats). Also, much of the confusion over the mokomoko comes from the fact that the anime shows him take off the mokomoko in this episode, while in the original manga, we see otherwise: In this chapter we see Sesshomaru laying in a pool of blood, wounded and near death, because of the huge gash in the mokomoko, which is spouting blood and causing him great pain.

There are many mistakes in the anime. Due to the high rate of mistakes and mistranslations that have made their way into the anime, when in doubt, I check the original manga and go with that instead, because the manga is what Rumiko wrote and the anime episodes were made without her authorization of each episode, meaning that she didn’t know what the episode were going to be until she saw them on TV just like the rest of us. In other words, the anime is an adaption of the truth, the truth being the manga, and in the manga, Lord Sesshomaru’s mokomoko is a part of his body which can, and has been wounded.

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I’ve never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice.

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it’s not some shawl or cape thing he’s wearing, in fact he’s not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he’s got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I’d like to see you animate a shawl into doing that… deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn’t bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I’ll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don’t know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my earlier post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me.

oh my… I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it’ll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko: Tail or No?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail… namely for Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko. (which btw, I posted on a few other places as well, not just here).

aaaahhh…. I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa/shawl/pelt thing are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail/mane thing. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko’s manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days… weird.

Hey, it’s a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I’ll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don’t say I didn’t warn, you… I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go… let’s see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman “in love”. Over this altered picture was the words: “Fear me, damn it!” followed by: “But you’re so cute and fluffy!”.

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with 14 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground, and yet it still drags on the ground and trails quite some distance behind him. Also in the anime it looks a bit thin and skimpy, but in the manga it’s fluffiness is huge! See picture at left.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion’s mane.

If you’ve never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you’ll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the “edited” tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko “tail thing” attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it’s usually shown. We see this best in the Chbi-art of InuYasha and Sesshomaru as children on the beach, both wearing nothing but swim shorts, and we have a clear view of Sesshomaru with the mokomoko attached to the back of his right shoulder, looking very much like a dog’s tail in the wrong place.

There is also Chibi-art of Sesshomaru in pain, when the mokomoko is being bitten by InuYasha.

One odd bit of Chibi-art shows the two brothers together when InuYasha is a baby, and Sesshomaru is using the mokomoko like an arm and cradling InuYasha with the mokomoko, leaving both his hands free.

Nearly ever piece of Chibi-art shows us Sesshomaru using the mokomoko like it was a third hand, and in every undraped picture of Chibi-art the mokomoko is always attached to his body, either at his but or behind his shoulder.

I say nearly every Chibi-art, because than again, there is at least one Chibi art showing him wearing the mokomoko like a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ’s manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn’t wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy’s Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn’t bleed!

Now, if you’ve read my essay on Lord Sesshomaru vs historical accuracy, than you already know the months of rigorous research that have gone into the design of my costume, and you know that I am making much more than your average run of the mill costume here. (If you haven’t read it yet, than here is the link to it: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruHistory , it is “Part II” of my series of websites on how to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume, parts 1, 2, and 4 can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume2 , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCrossDresser ). Anyways, what my research into every single episode and chapter told me was that Sesshomaru hailed from China, not Japan, and thus his odd outfit which is more Chinese than Japanese, including his Mongolian style battle armor, complete with it’s trimmings of Mongolian sheep skin. (Read my history essay if you didn’t know about Sesshomaru vs China, and than read the manga and watch the anime, several times each, and pay as close attention to it as I did, and you’ll see the connections as well.) Anyways, I point this out, because YES, REAL LORDS DID WEAR THESE BIG FLUFFY THINGS, so on first glances we assume that Sesshomaru is in fact wearing something like real Mongolians did, and Rumiko even said that originally the mokomoko was a part of his armor. However, being a writer myself, I know all too well, how you design a character one way, and than you start writing and the next thing you know, what was once a article of clothing is now a part of their body, as happened with Rumiko in writing and drawing Sesshomaru.

Since the creation of Sesshomaru’s mokomoko, we have seen him use it a third hand to grasp, hold down, squeeze, and throw his victims. I ask you, how many shawls do you know of that can do this?

As Fluffy, (in his dog form) we see that he can be hit, hacked, chopped, mutilated, and have his arm lopped off and take it without batting an eye, even when having a sword run through his eye, and yet after all that bloody fighting, it was a mere blow to the mokomoko that sent him fleeing with cries of agony…. notice that while his clothing and armor vanishes in dog form, the mokomoko is still there and very much attached to him!

Later we see a similar fight, only he in his human form, again, blow after blow does him no harm, than a single whack to the mokomoko sends him flying out of commission, and wounds him so badly that he is now paralyzed for several days (only a few hours in the anime, but days in the original manga)…also note that in the anime he refused food from Rin, but in the manga he only refused food the first few days, while she brought human food, he took the food after she started bringing him “dog food”, (which in the 16th cen, was rats). Also, much of the confusion over the mokomoko comes from the fact that the anime shows him take off the mokomoko in this episode, while in the original manga, we see otherwise: In this chapter we see Sesshomaru laying in a pool of blood, wounded and near death, because of the huge gash in the mokomoko, which is spouting blood and causing him great pain.

There are many mistakes in the anime. Due to the high rate of mistakes and mistranslations that have made their way into the anime, when in doubt, I check the original manga and go with that instead, because the manga is what Rumiko wrote and the anime episodes were made without her authorization of each episode, meaning that she didn’t know what the episode were going to be until she saw them on TV just like the rest of us. In other words, the anime is an adaption of the truth, the truth being the manga, and in the manga, Lord Sesshomaru’s mokomoko is a part of his body which can, and has been wounded.

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I’ve never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice.

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it’s not some shawl or cape thing he’s wearing, in fact he’s not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he’s got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I’d like to see you animate a shawl into doing that… deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn’t bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I’ll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don’t know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my earlier post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me.

oh my… I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it’ll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

The Mokomoko: Some Thoughts on Making a Vertebrae for a Costume Tail

I had what is probably a weird thought about a wire in the tail, but a real tail would have a row of bones running down through it, I wonder if I could find a way to mimic that? I thought of this after looking at my cat and realizing that his tail has a skeleton in it.

Here is my original post about Sesshy’s tail, this post is continuing from that one.

A real tail, actually is quite thin, just skin over bone, and the rest of it is all fur. I’m trying to go very realistic here, which is why I’m looking for such long fur, and as little stuffing as possible, because in order for his tail to be that fluffy, it’s got to have some really long fur on it.

I’m thinking I should try some thick cable wire, (like for phone lines or electric fences or some other such wire of that type… a home phone cord maybe? that would mimic the vertebrae coils… not sure yet) and use a wrap and tie method of attaching stuffing directly to it (like the way a doll skeleton is made…I make cloth dolls when I’m not making costumes), and than wrap that in a fake fur, and than cover the whole thing with a real fur, that is sewn down to the fake fur.

Fake fur for the backing, yes! That’ll work. I think I’m going to make it out of a fake fur, and than go over the whole thing with a “top layer” of alpaca wool. I just keep thinking about that alpaca wool I looked at at that farm, and that stuff is so perfect. The alpaca wool is about 6″ to 9″ long and I don’t think I can find a fake like that.

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

It’s just an idea I’m throwing around at the moment, no idea if it’ll work or look the way I think it’ll look or not.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

The Mokomoko: Some Thoughts on Making a Vertebrae for a Costume Tail

I had what is probably a weird thought about a wire in the tail, but a real tail would have a row of bones running down through it, I wonder if I could find a way to mimic that? I thought of this after looking at my cat and realizing that his tail has a skeleton in it.

Here is my original post about Sesshy’s tail, this post is continuing from that one.

A real tail, actually is quite thin, just skin over bone, and the rest of it is all fur. I’m trying to go very realistic here, which is why I’m looking for such long fur, and as little stuffing as possible, because in order for his tail to be that fluffy, it’s got to have some really long fur on it.

I’m thinking I should try some thick cable wire, (like for phone lines or electric fences or some other such wire of that type… a home phone cord maybe? that would mimic the vertebrae coils… not sure yet) and use a wrap and tie method of attaching stuffing directly to it (like the way a doll skeleton is made…I make cloth dolls when I’m not making costumes), and than wrap that in a fake fur, and than cover the whole thing with a real fur, that is sewn down to the fake fur.

Fake fur for the backing, yes! That’ll work. I think I’m going to make it out of a fake fur, and than go over the whole thing with a “top layer” of alpaca wool. I just keep thinking about that alpaca wool I looked at at that farm, and that stuff is so perfect. The alpaca wool is about 6″ to 9″ long and I don’t think I can find a fake like that.

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

It’s just an idea I’m throwing around at the moment, no idea if it’ll work or look the way I think it’ll look or not.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

The Mokomoko: Some Thoughts on Making a Vertebrae for a Costume Tail

I had what is probably a weird thought about a wire in the tail, but a real tail would have a row of bones running down through it, I wonder if I could find a way to mimic that? I thought of this after looking at my cat and realizing that his tail has a skeleton in it.

Here is my original post about Sesshy’s tail, this post is continuing from that one.

A real tail, actually is quite thin, just skin over bone, and the rest of it is all fur. I’m trying to go very realistic here, which is why I’m looking for such long fur, and as little stuffing as possible, because in order for his tail to be that fluffy, it’s got to have some really long fur on it.

I’m thinking I should try some thick cable wire, (like for phone lines or electric fences or some other such wire of that type… a home phone cord maybe? that would mimic the vertebrae coils… not sure yet) and use a wrap and tie method of attaching stuffing directly to it (like the way a doll skeleton is made…I make cloth dolls when I’m not making costumes), and than wrap that in a fake fur, and than cover the whole thing with a real fur, that is sewn down to the fake fur.

Fake fur for the backing, yes! That’ll work. I think I’m going to make it out of a fake fur, and than go over the whole thing with a “top layer” of alpaca wool. I just keep thinking about that alpaca wool I looked at at that farm, and that stuff is so perfect. The alpaca wool is about 6″ to 9″ long and I don’t think I can find a fake like that.

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

It’s just an idea I’m throwing around at the moment, no idea if it’ll work or look the way I think it’ll look or not.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Need Help With Making Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko… Any One Know What To Do?

I’ve been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I’m a bit new to fur sewing. I’m making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he’s got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I’d ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I’m making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here’s a photo reference, of the version I’m making:

As you can see, it’s HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he’s got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.

I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I’m looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it’s sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?

(P.S. I have a coat trimmed with Mongolian sheepskin [real fur] and it’s a super soft, super fluffy 6″ pile, with a “twisted” kinky “dreadlock” texture to it. This is what I am looking for…either the real thing, or a faux one that looks and feels like the real thing.)

If I can’t find it, I’ll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I’ve looked at, looks too “shinny” and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:

To get the look I amm seeking, I have been told to:

Use wool. It’s the only way you’ll get that ‘cotton candy’ fluffy texture. Buy it in bags and then weft it and sew it to a backing. It will be a great deal of work (and a lot of wool) but it can be done.If you can buy it in ropes, it might be easier since wefting would be much easier and quicker. You could even just cut it and dip one end in glue. Let it dry and glue it to a frame. Quicker than separating and sewing. And wool puffs up a lot when brushed (because it’s crinkled) so it’s pretty forgiving about covering up mistakes.

I actually went to a local alpaca farm a few weeks ago, and that’s what they told me too… they sell the wool in bags… it’s oodles soft and wonderful, but, wow, that’s a whole lot of work! I don’t know if I could really do that… my patience might were thin before I got barely started!

Here’s where I went, and this is a picture of the wool/color/texture they sell that I was looking at: http://www.trippinggnomefarm.com/herd_royal.html

I wonder, if I did do this, how durable cloth made like this would be? Have you ever tried doing this?

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I’ve heard people say that Sesshomaru’s tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I’m using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?

Secondly, I’ve been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I’ve been told not to use a wire in it. I’m not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I’m not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?

Thanks!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Need Help With Making Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko… Any One Know What To Do?

I’ve been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I’m a bit new to fur sewing. I’m making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he’s got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I’d ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I’m making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here’s a photo reference, of the version I’m making:

As you can see, it’s HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he’s got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.

I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I’m looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it’s sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?

(P.S. I have a coat trimmed with Mongolian sheepskin [real fur] and it’s a super soft, super fluffy 6″ pile, with a “twisted” kinky “dreadlock” texture to it. This is what I am looking for…either the real thing, or a faux one that looks and feels like the real thing.)

If I can’t find it, I’ll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I’ve looked at, looks too “shinny” and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:

To get the look I amm seeking, I have been told to:

Use wool. It’s the only way you’ll get that ‘cotton candy’ fluffy texture. Buy it in bags and then weft it and sew it to a backing. It will be a great deal of work (and a lot of wool) but it can be done.If you can buy it in ropes, it might be easier since wefting would be much easier and quicker. You could even just cut it and dip one end in glue. Let it dry and glue it to a frame. Quicker than separating and sewing. And wool puffs up a lot when brushed (because it’s crinkled) so it’s pretty forgiving about covering up mistakes.

I actually went to a local alpaca farm a few weeks ago, and that’s what they told me too… they sell the wool in bags… it’s oodles soft and wonderful, but, wow, that’s a whole lot of work! I don’t know if I could really do that… my patience might were thin before I got barely started!

Here’s where I went, and this is a picture of the wool/color/texture they sell that I was looking at: http://www.trippinggnomefarm.com/herd_royal.html

I wonder, if I did do this, how durable cloth made like this would be? Have you ever tried doing this?

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I’ve heard people say that Sesshomaru’s tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I’m using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?

Secondly, I’ve been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I’ve been told not to use a wire in it. I’m not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I’m not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?

Thanks!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Need Help With Making Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko… Any One Know What To Do?

I’ve been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I’m a bit new to fur sewing. I’m making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he’s got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I’d ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I’m making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here’s a photo reference, of the version I’m making:

As you can see, it’s HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he’s got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.

I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I’m looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it’s sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?

(P.S. I have a coat trimmed with Mongolian sheepskin [real fur] and it’s a super soft, super fluffy 6″ pile, with a “twisted” kinky “dreadlock” texture to it. This is what I am looking for…either the real thing, or a faux one that looks and feels like the real thing.)

If I can’t find it, I’ll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I’ve looked at, looks too “shinny” and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:

To get the look I amm seeking, I have been told to:

Use wool. It’s the only way you’ll get that ‘cotton candy’ fluffy texture. Buy it in bags and then weft it and sew it to a backing. It will be a great deal of work (and a lot of wool) but it can be done.If you can buy it in ropes, it might be easier since wefting would be much easier and quicker. You could even just cut it and dip one end in glue. Let it dry and glue it to a frame. Quicker than separating and sewing. And wool puffs up a lot when brushed (because it’s crinkled) so it’s pretty forgiving about covering up mistakes.

I actually went to a local alpaca farm a few weeks ago, and that’s what they told me too… they sell the wool in bags… it’s oodles soft and wonderful, but, wow, that’s a whole lot of work! I don’t know if I could really do that… my patience might were thin before I got barely started!

Here’s where I went, and this is a picture of the wool/color/texture they sell that I was looking at: http://www.trippinggnomefarm.com/herd_royal.html

I wonder, if I did do this, how durable cloth made like this would be? Have you ever tried doing this?

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I’ve heard people say that Sesshomaru’s tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I’m using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?

Secondly, I’ve been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I’ve been told not to use a wire in it. I’m not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I’m not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?

Thanks!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Need Help With Making Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko… Any One Know What To Do?

I’ve been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I’m a bit new to fur sewing. I’m making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he’s got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I’d ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I’m making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here’s a photo reference, of the version I’m making:

As you can see, it’s HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he’s got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.

I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I’m looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it’s sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?

If I can’t find it, I’ll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I’ve looked at, looks too “shinny” and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:

Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I’ve heard people say that Sesshomaru’s tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I’m using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?

Secondly, I’ve been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I’ve been told not to use a wire in it. I’m not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I’m not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?

Thanks!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Thank You for reading my blog’s RSS feed. Don’t forget to come to my blog and check out the links in my blogroll too!

Need Help With Making Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko… Any One Know What To Do?

I’ve been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I’m a bit new to fur sewing. I’m making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he’s got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I’d ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I’m making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here’s a photo reference, of the version I’m making:

As you can see, it’s HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he’s got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.

I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I’m looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it’s sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?

(P.S. I have a coat trimmed with Mongolian sheepskin [real fur] and it’s a super soft, super fluffy 6″ pile, with a “twisted” kinky “dreadlock” texture to it. This is what I am looking for…either the real thing, or a faux one that looks and feels like the real thing.)

If I can’t find it, I’ll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I’ve looked at, looks too “shinny” and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:

To get the look I amm seeking, I have been told to:

Use wool. It’s the only way you’ll get that ‘cotton candy’ fluffy texture. Buy it in bags and then weft it and sew it to a backing. It will be a great deal of work (and a lot of wool) but it can be done.If you can buy it in ropes, it might be easier since wefting would be much easier and quicker. You could even just cut it and dip one end in glue. Let it dry and glue it to a frame. Quicker than separating and sewing. And wool puffs up a lot when brushed (because it’s crinkled) so it’s pretty forgiving about covering up mistakes.

I actually went to a local alpaca farm a few weeks ago, and that’s what they told me too… they sell the wool in bags… it’s oodles soft and wonderful, but, wow, that’s a whole lot of work! I don’t know if I could really do that… my patience might were thin before I got barely started!

Here’s where I went, and this is a picture of the wool/color/texture they sell that I was looking at: http://www.trippinggnomefarm.com/herd_royal.html

I wonder, if I did do this, how durable cloth made like this would be? Have you ever tried doing this?

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I’ve heard people say that Sesshomaru’s tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I’m using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?

Secondly, I’ve been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I’ve been told not to use a wire in it. I’m not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I’m not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?

Thanks!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

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